A funny story that happened to me shortly after I learned to channel. I'd been meditating. At least, I'd been trying to meditate and had met with only sporadic success. The keyword there is sporadic. So, it was a struggle. Then, it occurred to me that I would really love to have a cigarette (I don't smoke anymore, but I can sure remember what it felt like when you wanted a cigarette and couldn’t have one.) It was 3:00 am and I didn't want to be going outside on our front porch.
Now, I'm supposed to be meditating, but all my psychic energy is being concentrated on how I could manage to stop craving a cigarette. Sometimes meditating is hard. After spending some moments considering how I could go outside and smoke and then, in turn, being irritated that I really shouldn't because it wasn't all that safe at that hour of the morning to be outside, and then, being irritated that, once again, I'd fouled up a meditation, I sort of heaved a great sigh and decided to sit there and fume. Maybe the craving would go away.
Seth, my guide, appeared in my mind's eye. The way I channel is auditory, so usually all the folks in Spirit I talk to are invisible, but, every once in awhile I do the visual psychic thing. For me it requires a bit of effort. But, after all this thrashing about and wanting a cigarette I must have mentally exhausted myself or something, because suddenly, poof, there he was in my mind's eye.
Seth was about my height and of advanced years. Also, he is male and bald. He has the most wonderful smile. Anyway, he offered me a cigarette. I was amazed that a guide, who supposedly has my best interests at heart, would be standing there contributing to the delinquency of a middle aged woman, but, there he was offering me a cigarette. It took me awhile, but eventually I learned the guides have their own way of teaching. I actually like it better than the methods I'd grown up with, but they are sometimes quite extraordinary.
Anyway, I didn't quibble much over that right then, and held out my hand (still in my mind’s eye) to take the cigarette from him. When I move into this sort of otherworldly psychic reality, things don't move the same way they do in normal everyday walk-around-in reality. It's like you're walking around in Seven League Boots where with one step you've traveled half a mile. Motions can be exaggerated in this psychic reality. We sometimes do "pretend" tea parties where I have to hold a cup and a saucer steady in that otherworldly place. I don't last but seconds at a time before I hear the clatter of tea cup rattling on saucer, but I feel it's good practice for me.
So, I took the cigarette from him. Now, logically, the next step is to get the thing lit. I sort of cast about in my mind while I was standing there in front of my guide in my mind’s eye as to how I was going to manage to light a cigarette. He interrupted me and said, "Let me do that." He held out a little disposable lighter and cupped his other hand around it in preparation to light my cigarette. I'm thinking, "Oh, how very polite and interesting that he should do this for me." One little thought led to another and I began to think of why he had gone to all this trouble of lighting the cigarette. It was because I wasn't accustomed to being in this otherworldly place and my actions were usually pretty unpredictable.
With that thought I imagined myself with a lighter, lighting a cigarette. Unfortunately, I wasn't imaging lighting my own cigarette. With lightning speed we'd reversed places and I was cupping the flame of the lighter very close to my guide's face. His nose lengthened and lit.
He stood there with his nose on fire. It reminded me of what Bob Hope's nose always looks like when you see his picture drawn in caricature. I was absolutely appalled and mortified at what I had done. Naturally, I was outta there, so to speak. It took me days before I was over that one. Oh, I was so terribly embarrassed and apologized countless times to Seth. Imagine, he was only trying to help!
