Light and Dark: Astrologer Patricia St. James

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Patricia St. James is late to our interview.  She was caught in Los Angeles traffic after seeing a physical therapist.  She has been having back problems from a car accident a few months back.  It was a hit and run.  Probably because of her age (she’s an elder), the guy assumed she was frail and sped off after slamming into her.

“Thank goodness I’m a psychic person,” she says in a whispery, childlike voice, one slow and determined, each word carefully chosen (it kind of reminds me of the psychic lady in Poltergeist, if that gives you a better idea).  “Because I found his car a week later.”

Busted.

We get to talking.  I want to know all about her past.  In her seventies, she is the oldest person I’ve spoken to, and she trained herself prior to the New Age Movement that made this subject matter more palatable to the masses.  Being raised in an extremely closed-minded and abusive family environment sent her on a path of seeking.  She had been so severely punished for her “knowing” that by the time she was fifteen, she had investigated every known religion looking to understand her own abilities and find a home for herself.  The “blind faith” of mainstream religions just didn’t work for her, so she abandoned them and went to the fringe instead.  She says her God has answers; answers she found in metaphysics.

She’s known primarily as an astrologer,a successful one who has done plenty of TV and radio. She tells me astrology, tarot and numerology just confirm things she already knows intuitively.  They’re just back-up.

She tells me with total certainty that we all have destiny paths, ones she can sense and also see in astrological charts, and that things are mostly fated.  We have some latitude insofar as the choices we make. We can choose to be kind.  We can choose to be conscientious.  We can choose to have a good attitude, to have a nice day when we wake up in a bad mood. Day to day, we make plenty of decisions, but things like breast cancer, for instance, are points of fate. She says it has been written; most things have.

Wait, I say, the guy ODing somewhere is following his life path?

Yes, she says, he is.  She quotes the Stones: “Just as every cop is a criminal/Every sinner a saint.”  Each person has within them the unlimited potential for both the wonderful and the base, the light and the dark, she says, and don’t ever forget that.

Later when I’m watching Boardwalk Empire, someone will question the conflicted and sociopathic Jimmy as to why he is the way he is, and he will reply, “I am what time and circumstance have made of me.”  I will think to myself that the theme is repeating itself.

I ask her about young souls vs. old souls.  Does she think people who walk criminal paths are younger souls? Her “no” is so intense and immediate that I feel terrible for asking the question.  The life path a person is on has nothing to do with the maturity of their soul.  An old soul is just as capable of being a drug addict or a criminal as a young one.  On the other hand, she says many people walking around are like 3 year olds throwing constant tantrums.  These younger souls cannot discern good from bad, and aren’t interested in seeking knowledge with regard to their destiny paths.  Their lack of curiosity and willingness to accept things at face value is the true mark of  young soul, not the outside issues that are beyond our scope.

Our life path is decided by a combination of factors, such as lessons we need to learn and karma.  This is why we should have the utmost compassion for people walking very difficult roads. This is perhaps the most profound thing I take from Patricia, this sense that we are all capable of many things, that we are cogs in a machine, all with a purpose.  Her take is that understanding what’s in store for us can help ease the pain of what we cannot control, and can lead us to make better decisions about the things we can.

This perspective makes it impossible to dismiss someone as a loser or a douche bag, to minimize their experiences, and instead forces us to examine the nuances and circumstances that have led to certain behaviors.  We come into the world with a soul that has been informed by all of its lifetimes, and is further molded by experience in this life, but we can all be reduced and diminished by pain and struggle.

The rest of what she says falls in with what most of the psychics have told me: the other side is an amazing place.  She has experienced tremendous love and kindness there.  We have guides and angels.  She, like Fahrusha, believes these are likely inter-dimensional beings.  She also believes in soul mates, but says not everybody has one, and that if you meet them, you will know it.  Again, she speaks of Earth as school; kindergarten, actually.  When we die, we go to grade school, high school and so on.  We experience love, peace, harmony.  People who have been abused or abusive are loved until they again have the potential to be loving and generous. This is the resting period between lives.  She believes in past lives because she does past life regressions and has come up with verifiable names and dates.  She doesn’t hesitate.  That, she knows is true.

Patricia St. James has filled me up with sadness and compassion about the human condition we are all managing.  In her ethereal yet somehow edgy way, she has schooled me about judgment, and humbled me, too.  Patricia has reminded me of the simple and apparent truth that we are all connected.

Patricia St. James can be contacted at patriciastjames.com.

Healer Ocea Demer: Into the Depths

At the end of my interview with Ocea Demer, which is over the phone, she succinctly and correctly scans my body and tells me every physical issue I have, including a kidney problem nobody knows about.  The only thing she’s missing is my chronic headaches, but the day I speak with her I don’t have one.

Ocea strikes me as a multi-faceted person.  Though her primary function is that of a healer, she is also a lover of children, animals, nature, and has a special place for people with Down Syndrome.  She is an activist, was a master plumber, and spent years on the road with musicians.  She is also a mystic, a seeker and a passionate proponent of true consciousness, facing our fears, learning, listening.

She began healing when she was three.  When I ask her how she learned, she tells me that although her Grandmother used to heal her as a baby, she never really learned, per se; she remembered.  In fact she says she remembers every healing modality that has ever been.  She was toning into someone (the way I understand it, she makes sounds that correspond to different chakras or organs), and they told her she was practicing a sufi healing method.  She has been doing it for years and years and had no idea what it was called; she just knew it. As a child she was just following her instincts, was able to heal other children and animals who were suffering.

At fifteen she came out as a lesbian with a powerful and supportive group of women. With their help she was able to really expand into her own abilities which became so intense that she would walk down the streets and see every ailment, both emotional and physical that were affecting people.  It became too much, and she ended up in Seattle where she met a shaman who showed her how to close, to protect herself.  She tells me that being an open vessel was very difficult and that once she had the skills to control that aspect of herself she had a much easier time.

There was a time in her life where she was in airports with frequency, and began healing people who were waiting at the terminals.  She has never been turned away by anyone.  Eventually she did it so much that she was known as the airport healer.  She says she didn’t seek it out.  She would get an impression that a person had a certain ailment and try to ignore it. If the impulse to help them persisted, she would approach them, tell them what was wrong with them and ask if she could help.  I imagine all the times I’ve had shoulder or back pain, or some awful headache while waiting in an airport.  I wouldn’t turn her down either.

She’s straightforward about her ability, but humble too.  She knows she’s special and she’s grateful, but it doesn’t belong to her which is why she doesn’t charge for it.  She charges for body work which is a separate skill, and something almost everyone needs. She has taken care of many musicians, and has been backstage for the CMAs and Grammies multiple times, healing anyone who needs it.  Whether it’s a tech or the guys from Linkin Park, she enjoys the environment and feels she’s contributing.  She likens herself to musicians, relates to them.  They aren’t being paid for the music, she says, they would do it anyway. They’re actually being paid for everything they had to do to rise, to get where they are.  Same with her. Besides, she loves healing the healers.

Country musician Chely Wright credits Ocea with telling her to go to her gynecologist immediately during a healing session. As a result her cancer of the cervix was caught and treated.  For her part Ocea says she just got the message while working on Chely, didn’t quite know what it was about, only knew it was urgent.  She has been profiled in Allure magazine as one of the best kept secrets of the stars, and on a more personal note, Ocea correctly predicted not only my friend Shandra’s exact due date, but her friend’s as well.  Shandra says when her friend Anna went into labor on Ocea’s day she thought, uh-oh better get ready, and sure enough….

All that said, Ocea is not branded like a Byron Katie, or a Caroline Myss, thought she possesses the same talents.  She’s not sure how she would do it, and says she would need a handler because the exchange of money makes her uncomfortable.

 

She’s not a fan of the New Age Movement because of the distance it has put between people and their potential teachers.  She can’t afford to pay 5000 dollars to attend a seminar, a thing she would love to do.  Also, the training sessions and then subsequent titles given out to people don’t sit well with her.  You can’t take a two day class on Reiki and be pronounced a master.  You aren’t a master until you’ve lived many years studying.  Mother Teresa was a master, Aunty Margaret was a master.  Throwing that word around doesn’t do anyone any good, and is misleading.

In closing, she tells me that I need to spend more time outside.  We all do.  We’re too disconnected from the Earth.  Our planet is vibrant and alive and magical.  When we put our feet into the dirt, we tickle the Earth’s belly.  Spend more time looking at flowers and let them share their beauty with us.  We need to project and reflect all the majesty around us and our planet will grow even more powerful and incredible.  If we continue to project negativity, the Earth will be sad.  And talk to our kids; tell them about everything that available.  Listen to them, begin a new dialogue and stop with all of the drugs that separate us from our emotions and dull our human experience.  Wake up, she says.  We need to wake up.

You can contact Ocea Demer at oceademer@gmail.com

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