Seeking Spirits: A Sensitive's Journey: How I Learned to Work With the Spirit World

By Sheila J Watson

Are you a spiritual seeker?  

A seeker does not blindly accept what they are told.  They want to understand for themselves.  If they find they are on a spiritual path that is only an illusion, they will seek elsewhere.  Whether you are an atheist, an agnostic, or already on a spiritual journey, you can find t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shining Crow Books
• Release date: Sep 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9780995283602

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Preface

Are You a Seeker?

I was the product of a broken home, my parents having split when I was only three-and-a-half years old. My mother and I moved in with Mom’s parents, and Grandma Daisy raised me. I grew up without brothers or sisters. I had a lot of time to play by myself in our big yard with trees and high hedges all around it. I was not allowed to leave the property by myself, and very few playmates passed my Grandma’s high standards.

It could have been a very boring childhood, except I had a huge internal life. My mind was chasing ideas all the time.

Grandma, if God made everything, who made God?

When she said she did not have the answer, I sat in the back yard and talked to God myself. Who made you, God? I don’t understand. How could you make yourself? I listened quietly for an answer. It did feel like there was someone there with me. I was sure of it.

Grandma told me if I wanted answers I should read the Bible. My reading skills were about the same as any other eight-year-old girl, but I sat down with her each day and read a chapter to her from the King James Bible. No doubt it improved my reading, but I did not understand much more about God than before.

I got angry when I did not understand, and veered between proclaiming myself an atheist like my Uncle Bobby, and asking to go to church by myself because my family did not go to church at all.

Yes, Uncle Bobby the atheist, and Grandpa, the lapsed Methodist who criticized church hypocrisy in loud family discussions, were great examples to me. So was Grandma who was highly-gifted both intellectually and spiritually, and could hold her own in any discussion. They were examples of how to be a spiritual rebel – in fact, a seeker.

You see, a seeker does not accept what they are told. They want to understand for themselves. If they find they are on a spiritual path that is only an illusion, they will seek elsewhere.

So are you a seeker?

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Chapter One

Being Sensitive

Each night, I catch a Red Rocket streetcar eastbound at College Park. I sit back and watch the world go by – literally the world.

We travel Carlton Street, past the bars, the shops, the excited and eccentric Torontonians of every description. I watch them and enjoy their energy.

Next appears Allan Gardens with its poor who sit in the park or get on the streetcar with their small bundles of worldly possessions. I feel sad and yet I know some of them are happier than some of the very rich. I say nothing.

Cabbagetown Women’s Clinic comes next, where women in crisis exercise their Freedom of Choice. A burly guard in a yellow jacket protects the door. Every day across the street, protestors hold pictures of pretty little babies in pink or blue blankets, and pictures of fetuses and embryos. They exercise their Freedom of Voice. Again feeling sad, I say nothing.

But the stop after that cheers me up a bit. The Gerrard Street Projects are low-cost housing for the poor and new immigrants. It is a make-or-break community that has spawned great successes as well as many failures. In the morning, I sometimes see women in black burkas walking their children to school. Yes, the whole world is right here on the way home – just everyone.

A young, bearded man gets on the streetcar with his two-year-old boy riding on his shoulders. The boy acts excited and wants to stay with the driver. Everyone smiles. The driver toots his horn to the rhythm, Shave and a haircut, two bits. The child giggles.

Chinatown’s hustle and bustle arrives after that with merchandise piled outside in front of their shops. Everyone scurries about in a great hurry.

Then Degrassi Street! The driver calls out Eastdale Collegiate, where the Degrassi TV show was originally filmed. I somehow feel we are traveling through history.

And now Riverdale appears with its quiet desperate people looking for a leg up and there stands the Anglican church with its suppers for the poor. Then Leslieville, with homes that seem steeped in history.

Oh, my stop is coming up soon…yes, Little India with the aromas of its exotic spices. I get out by the Tikka House, walk to a side street, then turn down an alley. Beside my dwelling, a young Indian couple sits on the steps sharing Indian take out. We exchange greetings. It’s always nice to show friendliness to the neighbors, I figure.

Ah, and then I’m home. I’m in the door to my peaceful, quiet flat. The cat greets then cuddles me. So much for the world tour. I’m putting my feet up. I breathe in deeply. There is no noise whatsoever. If I listen, I can hear the sound of my heartbeat while I think back on the day. Now this is home! I can replenish my energies.

Toronto is not too busy after all. I don’t have to flee or move far away. As long as I have a simple sanctuary, a place of peace, I always have a home. Going home is as much about a state of mind as it is reaching a physical destination.

I wrote those words in 2010. It was a pleasure to tell my friends about my evening journey home. The sensory richness of the trip helped me get my mind off work. I embraced the circumstances in which I lived and shared them with others so they might understand me better. Yet, I was not being entirely truthful.

The fact is, I am an extremely sensitive, naturally-psychic person. I was never okay in the emotional roughness of the big city. I could feel the emotions of other people, and there were so many other people. I always knew when someone held me in contempt. I was hurting a lot of the time. Working in a big company was hard, too. I did not belong in the bump-and-grind in which I lived, and I could not – would not – mold myself into a