Hope & Miracles

by Amy Newmark

  Months went by, and with the help of his new language stimulation school and The Wiggles, life was getting better. We were able to talk and dance, and his meltdowns occurred a little less frequently. It was at this time I needed to ask for a favor—not from my parents, my husband or my siblings. No, I had to write The Wiggles for a favor. Using some “Mama Bear Magic” as my friend called it, I wrote a letter to The Wiggles. I explained how John was diagnosed with autism and how their music was truly the only way we were able to connect to our sweet little boy for many years. Now he was learning to talk and I just wanted to share my appreciation with them. We had concert tickets for the upcoming Wiggles concert, and I wondered if John would be able to meet them, live and in person.

  I received a wonderful letter back from The Wiggles. They said they would love to meet John and gave us backstage passes to meet them. Oh my gosh! I was so excited. Things were coming together!

  Well, anyone with a child on the spectrum can attest to this fact: nothing happens like you think it will happen. We went to meet The Wiggles and John was so astounded to meet them that he couldn’t speak. In fact, he hardly shook their hands. He seemed to be in a trance, which I mistook for indifference. So, I thought he didn’t get anything out of this magical meeting. However, just before The Wiggles exited, John yelled out “Wake up, Jeff” to Jeff Wiggle. Jeff turned around, laughed and gave John a big thumbs up! Yes! Victory! John met his idols and gathered enough courage to speak. I was one proud Mama Bear.

  Is everything perfect now that John is older? No. But I have learned that there is hope in the unseen. All you have to do is be open to the unexpected inspirations that surface in everyday life; even if they are a bit “Wiggly.”

  ~Elizabeth Adinolfi West

  Dreams and Premonitions

  Divine Mothers

  All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother.

  ~Abraham Lincoln

  I don’t know if I chose to be a palmist, or if palmistry chose me—but I do know that if not for a mother’s love and guidance, I would never have followed my heart and fulfilled my true destiny.

  Deciding to become a palmist may strike some in the West as an odd career choice. But in India, where I grew up, palmistry is a venerable profession whose origins stretch back thousands of years to the teachings of the Vedas, Hinduism’s most sacred scriptures.

  My earliest memories are of my grandfather practicing palmistry in the courtyard of our home. He was a deeply spiritual man who spent decades studying the Vedic Arts of Ayurvedic healing, astrology and palmistry. When he retired from the construction business, he devoted his life to helping others with his great spiritual knowledge.

  I was in awe of his ability to diagnosis the exact cause of a person’s physical, emotional, or psychological ailment by studying their palms, help them heal themselves by suggesting specific changes they could make in their diet, attitude, habits or behavior—and never once charging for his services. To Grandfather, palmistry was about growing closer to God and teaching others to do so. When we meditated together he always encouraged me to invite “Mother Divine” — the female essence of God and embodiment of compassion and love — to guide me along my path in life because “a mother’s love will never steer you wrong.”

  He taught me about the geography of the hand, how the delicate lines crisscrossing our palms form a roadmap of our lives that can reveal great truths about ourselves and lead us toward happiness. His passion for palmistry took root in my own young heart and I began reading the palms of both my schoolmates and strangers on the street. I kept sketchbooks filled with pictures of the hands I had studied; I was drawn to an open palm like an explorer to an uncharted continent.

  But my enthusiasm soured when I discovered that Grandfather’s approach to palmistry was unique. Because most Indians believe their destiny is determined more by fate than freewill, palmistry was used as a tool for fortunetelling, not for personal and spiritual growth. And I had no interest in becoming a fortune-teller.

  Thankfully, Mother Divine stepped in.

  She arrived in the form of our white-haired family astrologer, who was summoned on my twelfth birthday to read my astrological chart. The entire family gathered for the event and were astounded at the great sage’s pronouncement:

  “This boy will revolutionize palmistry. One day he will travel far and wide teaching thousands about the spiritual benefits of Vedic Palmistry the way a minister teaches the Gospels.”

  My grandfather was overjoyed, but my father, a no-nonsense military man who expected me to follow in his footsteps, was quiet. Dad had tolerated my palmistry preoccupation as a childish dalliance but now he worried his eldest son could end up as a mad monk reading palms on a New Delhi street for a pittance. So he made an announcement of his own — I was being shipped off to a militaristic boarding school.

  However, Mother Divine must have chosen the school because it had an enormous collection of Vedic texts in its library, which I spent the next three years devouring. To keep peace in the family, I promised my father I would get a university degree before setting out to become a professional palmist, which I did.

  Several years later, I had a fulltime government job teaching physical education at a college and was married with two small children. I had also realized my dream of opening up a Palmistry Center in New Delhi and had a busy private palmistry practice. By all accounts life was very, very good. But the fatalist Indian mindset had not changed—people still came to palmists to have their future predicted, not to seek ways to improve their lives and change their destiny. I feared I would never be free to fully practice the spiritual palmistry I had learned from my grandfather.

  Then, in early 1970, I saw a newspaper ad placed by a Montreal restaurateur looking for “the best palmist in all of India” to work in his Indian restaurant in Canada. I knew nothing about Montreal except that it was in the West, where freewill was valued over fatalism. The realization hit me: Montreal was where I needed to be! More than 600 palmists applied for the job, but it was offered to me—provided I could be packed and ready to go in four days.

  But everyone was against the idea. My friends predicted I’d starve in a snow bank, my wife accused me of abandoning her, my father wouldn’t lend me the money to buy a winter coat, and my boss refused to accept my resignation. The general consensus was that I was crazy.

  I didn’t eat or sleep for three days, wracked with guilt and indecision, as my extended family set up camp inside my house, hoping to dissuade me. The night before my flight, I was praying for guidance when suddenly, my anxieties calmed. I saw a shimmering pool of light in front of me and the beautiful face of Mother Divine.

  “Mother?” I asked, completely flabbergasted.

  “You are going,” she answered, in a voice as soft as sweet music. “Don’t worry about what others think, they will accept your decision later. But now, you must follow your heart and go.”

  A moment later, she vanished. I left for Montreal the next day—my own saintly mother was the only one to see me off. We rode to the train station together in a rickshaw before dawn.

  “You are doing the right thing,” she told me, in tears. “Your grandfather told us long ago that your destiny would take you away from us.”

  A few days later, I was in the Montreal restaurant excitedly preparing to give my first reading when I noticed something odd—the restaurant patrons were all English-speaking white people.

  “Where are the Indian customers?” I asked the owner, in Hindi.

  “We don’t have any,” he said.

  “But . . . how will we understand each other during the reading?”

  He looked shocked: “You mean . . . you don’t speak English?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’ve got sixty clients waiting for readings. I’m ruined!” he cried out, throwing his arms up in despair. “I guess I’ll have to make you a bartender.”

  I politely excused myself and retreated to the men’s room, where I promp
tly burst into tears.

  “Oh, Mother Divine! Did you take me far away from my home and family only to embarrass me and turn me into bartender?”

  Suddenly, I felt Mother Divine’s calming presence again, and heard her sweet, soothing voice.

  “Dry your tears and go out there with a smile. You can do it. I will be with you.”

  I went back to the dining room and told the owner I was ready. While I’d been weeping in the bathroom, his wife had volunteered to translate for me until I learned English. Moments later my first client was ushered in — a glowing young woman who was nine months pregnant. I smiled: Mother Divine!

  I can’t for the life of me remember what I said to that first client, but it must have been good because she approached the proprietor afterward.

  “This is the best palmist you’ve ever had,” she told him. “Don’t lose him, he’ll be great for business!”

  That was more than forty years ago. I’ve been in Montreal practicing my beloved Vedic Palmistry ever since. I’ve even been able to open my own lakeside Palmistry and Wellness center on a beautiful 500-acre forest reserve north of the city where I am happily teaching college-level courses in palmistry to students from all over the world.

  I owe my good fortune to all my Mothers Divine, whom I will always heed. I know from experience that Mother knows best.

  ~Ghanshyam Singh Birla with Steve Erwin

  Small Voice, Big Message

  Never be a victim of inner conflict. Listen to your inner voice and fight your way bravely.

  ~Anil Kumar Sinha

  Fred was a seasoned electrician; he had worked at the paper mill for over fifteen years. I, on the other hand, was a newbie, with only two weeks of experience. It was still a bit of a puzzle for me to find my way around the maze of old buildings and noisy machinery. I had to rely a great deal on others when it came to knowing where to go and what to do in the course of the day. Fred was the outgoing sort; he socialised at every opportunity and seemed to be friends with just about everyone in the mill. He never seemed to have a strongly held opinion on any subject, at least until the person he was talking to was out of earshot.

  It was a maintenance day in the mill. We had an eight-hour window to shut down equipment, which normally ran twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, inspect its condition and make any necessary improvements. This particular shutdown day, our task was to clean and inspect a bank of 2200-volt electrical controllers. The work itself was fairly straightforward and much of the time we would be waiting to have the power turned off.

  The safety procedure was that the powerhouse operator was informed of the identity of the electrical feeder. He would then isolate it and lock it out. A station guarantee would then be issued to the supervisor who had made the request when the lockout was complete. This was to be my first shutdown in the mill and I was eager to show myself as a conscientious and capable worker. Fred and I gathered our tools and other equipment together in the damp, dripping basement and waited for the all clear to be given.

  After a short time, the electrical foreman arrived to give us the okay to start the work. He was very keen on getting us started, as the time allotted to do the job was a bit on the tight side. I had no practical reason to question the lockout process; after all, it had been successfully used in the mill for many years. In spite of this, I suddenly, and to my own surprise, heard a small voice in my head demanding that I confirm the power was off before we started our work. Not wanting to be seen as a difficult employee so early in my new job, I asked the foreman if we could do a voltage test on the system.

  This request seemed to irritate both Fred and the foreman, and both made the observation that we already had a station guarantee from the powerhouse operator. In any case, he continued, the only tester available was located in another mill some two kilometres away. In spite of his reassurance and steadily rising impatience, my little voice wouldn’t give up. I said I was prepared to take a stand on the issue and not allow us to remove protective covers from the equipment until the proper tester was brought on site.

  The foreman contacted the Chief Engineer. Soon a harried and stressed-out individual rushed onto the job site. The Chief was a large man who dressed in a blue lightweight suit with a cravat at the neck of his shirt. It was certainly not the recommended wear for a paper mill basement. He gave every indication of having been hauled out of an important meeting and not being happy about it. In spite of the lightweight suit, he was sweating profusely and the cravat, coupled with a rapidly reddening face, gave the impression that he was about to choke.

  He didn’t speak directly to me at first, but through the foreman, as if he needed an interpreter to underline the severity of the situation. When he did finally address me, it was only to point out that he would now have to travel to another mill and fetch the tester, and that it was entirely my fault that the work was being senselessly delayed. Muttering loudly under his breath about new employees who knew nothing about how things worked in the real world, he headed off to pick up the tester.

  I thought it was odd that there was only one high-voltage tester available to service three mills, likely an indication of how seldom it was used. As time dragged by, I grew uneasy that this stand of mine would not exactly help to advance my career prospects. I had the sense that the Chief was likely the kind of person who could hold a grudge. Perhaps I had overstepped my authority.

  The little voice, although convincing, was after all still just a little voice. I am sure that very few people have ever come forward to credit a little voice in their head with sound career advice, but it was too late to start doubting it now. While we waited for the tester to arrive, the foreman confirmed that I had not made a very impressive start in my new job. I was beginning to feel a little foolish at having made such a fuss, especially one motivated by the little voice in my head.

  When he finally arrived with the thousand-volt tester in his hot and sweaty palms, the Chief was out of breath and looking more than a little put out. I took the unit from him, wiped it down, and touched it to the high-voltage bars; it lit up like a Christmas tree. There was still full voltage on the system. Everyone was speechless.

  I turned toward the three men and saw them stare open-mouthed at one another. Without a word, the Chief walked over to me, his red face quickly turning white, and bear-hugged me, all the while muttering, “Oh God, oh God.” With thoughts of recrimination now a thing of the past, the foreman approached me, shook my hand and in a voice full of emotion said that he had never been so happy to have one of his orders disobeyed. Fred, who seemed to have been hedging his bets up to that point, took over the situation from the two stunned supervisors and demanded that we all pay a visit to the powerhouse and get to the bottom of the lockout failure. It transpired that the operator who was responsible for the station guarantee was also relatively inexperienced and had been left on his own to muddle through as best he could.

  I was never able to identify where the little voice came from, but both Fred and I certainly owe our lives to it. I never did explain to anyone why I had taken the stand I did, as many people do not believe in little voices. Since that day in the mill I have never heard the little voice, but rest assured that if it ever does pipe up, it will have my full attention.

  ~James A. Gemmell

  The White Owl

  Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping

  Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.

  ~George Meredith, “Love in the Valley”

  It was a steamy, hot morning during the August monsoon season in Tucson, Arizona and I was in my bathing suit, headed to the pool. At 6:45 a.m. there was no one else outside. I arrived, peeled off my towel and dove into the pool. What a relief it was to swim in the desert summer. Being from Maine, here in Tucson on a sabbatical leave for one year, the searing desert heat never felt familiar or comfortable to me.

  When I surfaced, I sensed that I was being watched—but as I scanned the pool deck and bathhouse, I saw no one in
sight. I began to swim my laps, but I still felt like I was being watched. I kept looking but I didn’t see anyone.

  About forty-five minutes later, I completed my laps and stood up in the shallow end, stretching and scrutinizing my surroundings. It appeared that I was alone . . . but I really didn’t feel alone. I shrugged off the concern and decided to relax, floating on my back. Within thirty seconds I was startled by a whoosh above my body. Still floating on my back, I opened my eyes and saw a little white Pygmy owl hovering over my head!

  “Now where did you come from?” I asked out loud. The tiny owl couldn’t have been more than seven or eight inches tall, and it hovered patiently, seeming to have no fear of me or my voice. “What do you want?” I asked. The owl’s penetrating gaze was the only answer. I felt like it was trying to convey a message of some kind. What could this owl want?

  “Well,” I thought, “now I know why I felt that I was being watched.” The tiny owl, now perched in a nearby saguaro cactus at the edge of the pool, was still looking at me intently. Thinking that this was odd, I continued my morning exercise routine, said goodbye to the owl and headed over to the University of Arizona campus.

  The next two mornings the owl returned to visit me at the pool. It continued its penetrating gaze and watchfulness. Every time I glanced at it, the owl was watching me.

  I know when something unusual happens three times I need to pay attention. I wondered if this had something to do with the owl being known as a spiritual messenger. Recently I had been “putting in a request” to the universe. I had been divorced a decade already and I had finished raising my two children. Now that they were both off to college, I wanted to end my ten-year relationship drought. I was very serious about wanting to meet someone special, and had made a list of the seven characteristics I wanted in a new partner. One of the items on my list was that he have an affinity for spiritual experiences! Was this tiny little white owl a messenger?