When people asked me 40+ years ago what I wanted to be when I grew up, Medium was never my answer. As a child, I thought Medium was a size not a profession and I am certain I did not know what size I wanted to be; I only knew I wanted to be an artist. I was not able to describe in words the world I lived in, even though I tried through poetry. My drawings never truly displayed the magic I saw and felt; I was not able to capture all the images, as some seemed so fleeting. Dreams were my nighttime companion; however haunting they could be at times. It may have been where I grew up in Baptist Central and that the term psychic was a bad word and medium was not discussed. Of course, witch was common as the dreaded Devil Worshippers that everyone feared; and the rumors may have been started by those that wanted to keep ‘the fear of God’ in all of us. We had Ouija boards hidden in our closets held down with boxes so they could not get away. And the occasional Séance was enough to cause nightmares for months; but we had them anyway. Magic always held a fascination for me, as well as anything paranormal. For the most part, I kept those things to myself; the extrovert within the introvert in a constant turmoil based on fear. My grandfather was a professional clown and one day I saw him with two pieces of wood. One of them had little notches cut out along the top with a propeller on the end; the other was just a round wooden rod. He would rub the rod back and forth across the ridges and talk to the propeller and make it change directions. This ‘magic’ trick of his led to me building my first pendulum at nine years old, and the magical world of dowsing began. Dowsing came natural and because ‘witching’ for water was an accepted practice back in the day, the art of dowsing brought forth no fear. The fear came mostly from the presence(s) I felt, but could not physically see. My parents would insist there was no one there, but I felt them continuously.  It was not until I moved away from Wolcott, Kansas that the fear began to diminish. I somehow found a way to stop acknowledging the presence that was always around and with this came less and less fear. I had also started to learn how to shield myself from those things I ‘knew’ when around other people, I was unknowingly shutting off a gift I had been given and did not yet understand. I spent a number of years immersed in my work as an artist and graphic designer and in 1989 moved to Upstate New York on a whim, then things started to happen. I had not yet opened the door on my spiritual journey when my daughter, who was three, began speaking to spirits. At first, she would tell stories of her sister Shawanda (I have never been certain of the spelling). Of course, many would say this was her imaginary friend. When she was four, I found her holding a picture of my aunt, who was killed when she was nine long before I was born. My daughter was crying and told me how much she missed her. I sat and told her about my Aunt Mickey and she looked at me as if she already knew. When my daughter turned eight, she was filled with fear and would tell me that the Angels would not stop talking to her. At that moment, I felt helpless as I saw myself at that age and was reminded of my own fears. I knew it was time I started exploring this family curse, because most of my life, it had felt just that, a curse. What a lot of people do not realize is that once you ‘consciously’ open the door, there is no turning back. Once I made that decision, it was like the Hoover Dam bursting open and people just started showing up. Not all of these people were physically on this plane, only I was not afraid, I felt protected. At first, I was not sure where to start, but spirit helped with that also. I would walk into bookstores and books would literally jump off the shelf into my hands. I read many books on various subjects from past life, between lives, this life, that life, psychic senses and even quantum physics. However, it was a book on Shamanic Journey and various breath techniques that brought spirit guides to the forefront where I could get to know them on a personal basis, and then the fun truly began. My journey meant I was to become a Reiki Master in order to better understand energy and how to channel, but it did not stop there. I spent a year under the tutoring of a woman who studied Shamanism directly from Michael Harner. I found that I had to first heal from my childhood, but it was more than that. In order to teach and assist others, you have to experience first-hand the ways of the Shaman. As is true with any healing modality, the term ‘heal the healer’ is valid. The people that do the work choose to be ripped apart in early life so they can be put back together later in life and teach others how to do the same. After all, the best teacher has always been experience. And if you are new to your spiritual journey, or just want to open the door and take a peak, pay attention to the signs. If a book or person shows up, there is a reason. I was encouraged to open an office and start practicing Reiki and IET (Integrated Energy Therapy), and I did just that. As I worked on more and more clients, the world I lived in as a child started to return; random images filling my head that made no sense at all. Just as I did in childhood, I kept them to myself until one day when a client told me something after her session that matched the image that I had seen. As soon as I acknowledged it, another door opened and I started to trust. Not always, but sometimes I would share these images with my clients and I found that these random images had meaning for other people.  It is important to note that the validation built confidence and the confidence built trust and the trust opened the door even further. More people who were like me were showing up on my path assisting me on my spiritual journey and my Reiki and IET evolved to a point that clients were scheduling only for a reading. I still had not acknowledged that I was a Medium; in fact, I adamantly insisted that I did not speak to dead people. Until the day I received the email from someone I had gone to high school with. The email read: “I had a dream about you; you wanted me to follow you. I think you have a message for me from my mom, she just passed”.  My initial reaction was to tell her “I seriously doubt it.” However, I had been doing dream interpretation for many years and something inside me said, ‘I might’, so I responded that I would get back to her. Over the next week, I had many messages for her from her mother, and yet I still did not acknowledge being a Medium, so spirit had to help me a bit more. Another email came into my mailbox that read: “I had a dream last night that I was supposed to contact a psychic named Kimberly Ward” and she was even given the phone number. She told me she googled when she got up and was shocked to find me. I initially thought it was a joke, but played along to see what would happen. She had me at “I had a dream.” These types of “coincidences” continued to occur over the course of a few months until I finally said, “Okay guys, I get it”. I was told by a highly regarded individual in this industry that I was ‘by design meant to help people cross over who have passed.’ I believe that to be a true and accurate statement. Death is something that I have never feared, and many of the medium readings I have done have been for those that are recently passed. Many times, when the death has had ‘circumstances’ where the deceased feel that they need to help their families find peace in their passing, I have been called upon. Similar to the first one, the person who has passed has been the initiating factor in finding me in many cases. This happened a month ago. I was having a conversation with a Nurse Practitioner and out of the blue she starts to tell me about a patient who had just passed two days prior at the age of 94. She had no reason at all to tell me about her, she does not even know of this work that I do. The woman’s dying wish was that her two twelve year old cats find someone that would care for them. Fred and Willie now live with me and she is at peace, as are her three children. I have not shared with her family that I am a Medium; she does not feel it is necessary. She is just happy that ‘her boys’ have someone to love them. I have heard other Mediums say that you should not attempt to make contact with the deceased for a ‘period of time’ after their passing. I have found that they are either there or they are not, and for me there are no rules of time. If they have something to say, they are going to say it or at least show me what it is they need for you to know. As those on the physical plane experience the pain of loss, those on the other side feel this too and truly want their loved ones to find peace that they themselves have found; and sometimes they cannot find peace until those left behind have found theirs. Being a Medium has also helped me to understand about boundaries. As I developed stronger boundaries with those on the physical plane my boundaries with the Spirit world developed at a consistent pace. Spirits do not pop in on me unless they are invited and if they do, then I know it is important. Establishing solid boundaries in the physical world carries over to the spirit world which has reinforced the concept of ‘Oneness.’ Everyone is born with intuitive gifts’; some are fortunate that they are nourished as children and helped to understand them. Others, like myself, struggle in childhood and develop later on, and others who never pursue developing them. They may refer to their gift as ‘mothers’ intuition’ or ‘gut instinct,’ but it is all the same; it is a psychic sense. The first step in developing your gift is to acknowledge that it exists, and be open to the possibility that you too could be a Medium. Views:]]>