I probably don’t have to tell many of you that this has been a retrograde on steroids which began around the 26th of July and completes on August 19. I just finished a 5 day visit to Lily Dale by Lake Erie, the worlds oldest and largest Spiritualist community and headquarters for The National Spiritualist Association of Churches. Since I go there to learn and strengthen my mediumship it should come as no surprise that every visit Spirit throws up some challenge and I have to figure out how to work through it, as we learn more from challenges than pretty much anything.
This one started before my trip though. I only take one medication (besides baby aspirin) following the big miraculous heart surgery and that is Valsartan, a mild blood pressure medicine and the only drug I’ve been able to tolerate to regulate hereditary hypertension. So I called in my refill to discover that there was a recall from a major distributor of the drug. With this knowledge my doctor prescribed a different medication in the same class of drugs called Losartan. However, my pharmacy was not affected by the recall yet my doctor did not know this. After 3 calls from me to the doctor and 2 from the pharmacy trying to get my proper medication refilled, nothing was resolved. I took the 6 hour drive last Sunday and took the new meds that night for the first time figuring it’s either that or an increase in blood pressure and I had side effects. Nothing horrible but I could not focus, I felt dizzy and drowsy and in the meantime I wanted to practice my message work at the public services. My messages were needless to say compromised from this medicine. I also had to prepare for my Thursday night workshop on the grounds. Finally on Tuesday I got the doctor to switch me back to Valsartan, had the script phoned into a CVS in Jamestown, and I thought to myself all’s well that ends well!
I had a private message circle set up for a group of Mediums staying in Jamestown that night (which is a whole other story since as Mediums themselves they considered my work to be extraordinary and their expectations were high). However with the side effects from the drug I was anything but confident that the results would match their expectations. They were staying in Jamestown so I thought, “How convenient.” I punched in the address to CVS on my navigator Tuesday evening and off I drove…through Jamestown…past Jamestown…hmmm something ain’t right. I kept driving to where the address supposedly was but when I finally arrived I did not see CVS but rather a sign saying “Welcome to Pennsylvania”!!!! My navigator in the past 4 years has made errors for sure but nothing that even comes close to matching this one. So frustrated, wondering if some evil force was preventing me from getting the meds I need, I found my way back to the correct CVS. I was running late for my circle and they did not have the prescription filled despite the promise from a staff member that it would be waiting for me. I waited as they filled it making me even more late for my group. Finally I had my meds!! Though it wasn’t my all time best work the Mediums were still quite pleased as was I. One memorable highlight was a difficult father figure coming through explaining the challenges he caused in his daughter’s (the sitter) life and finished up by giving me the name “Holy Cross” which turned out to be the cemetery he was buried in.
The lessons here could have been many fold. Firstly I was rendered off kilter for my entire stay and had to function in excellence despite not being 100% and chemically altered. I had to do my circle feeling very off and though my work at the public services was not what I expect of myself it was still quite good and the messages I was able to deliver were powerful. All in all I think it was a lesson in patience which admittedly is often in short supply here as well as more practice in functioning under less than ideal conditions. Perhaps there are other lessons I’m not aware of or perhaps it was just a series of Mercury Retrograde mishaps but whatever the reason I did what I had to do and overcame yet another obstacle in life. In the end it became a source of personal empowerment.
