Friday 29 June 2018

Thank You by Led Zeppelin


If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you. If the mountain crumbled to the sea, it would still be you and me. 

Led Zeppelin wrote those words 4 decades ago now. And the title of this song is, Thank You.  It speaks of a great love and that one is grateful for it. Both my great loves in my own life were born in February, both are passed on, so this song is dedicated to them. However, it is a great song for being grateful for being loved in any way. I believe it speaks of eternal love and that means all of us as we are all eternal beings. So here is my take on being grateful and saying Thank You! 

Since I have been busy and not able to write my usual monthly entry last month, here are some thoughts on why being "grateful" or "an attitude of gratitude" can heal so much in not only a spiritual seeker's life but in any life. 

Valentine's Day with all its furore is usually a day of expressing love and thanks to our partners or people we love. That is a lovely idea and it works for those who have someone to express love to. But what if we sat down and made a list of all the really painful experiences we had in our lives and expressed gratitude for them? What do you think would happen if you did this? Why would you do it? 

Well, let me demonstrate, as in my own painful life experiences here: 

Thank you to my Father, for being so hard on our family, for telling me I was not worth much to you because I was not a son. Thank you for telling me I was not intelligent enough for you to want to pay for my college education, even though you had the money because girls just grow up to "get married". Thank you for teaching me women were inferior and only good for cooking, cleaning, looking "pretty" for men and being subservient. You taught me so much in these lessons of pain, exclusion, humiliation, suffering and abandonment. You taught me to be STRONG though you did not realize this at the time. You taught me COMPASSION for all the women and females in the world who, like me, were told they were not worth much. I CHAMPION their causes and work to heal these patriarchal issues which have harmed their self worth and value.And I work with men too who have also been victimized by them.  I chose to become a HEALER from the pain you inflicted, perhaps through ignorance or ancestral inheritance or your own need to control. When you left my mother for another woman and abandoned us, leaving her with not a dime, I went to work in a Jazz night club as a waitress, which I did not want to do but felt forced to do. Not only did I learn a trade to make money,(and eventually used this to pay MY OWN WAY through the many colleges and universities I eventually went to) but also helped my mother who was devastated and helped her to find her worth, thanks to you. Even with the weight of the world on my back and at the tender young age of 19 going on 20, I also met my SOUL MATE there at the very job I would not have chosen to do! If you had not left, that would have never happened. (See my other blog; and The Pittsburgh Phantom and Me which tells this story in much detail and beautiful music. Here is the link: http://pittsburghphantomandme.blogspot.co.uk ).   

Thank you my Father,  for making fun of my psychic abilities and telling people I was "crazy". Being born with a caul* and told from my birth that I would be "psychic" must have been quite a threat to your own lack of understanding your own intuition and your own inner female side, where all feelings and tenderness and intuition comes from.  Needless to say, my journey to how I became a professional Psychic and Medium had many ups and downs and many people, both friends, family and others who did question my "sanity" BUT this made me work harder, seek MORE information, training, education, years of inner development and looking within, and I read tons of books on so many subjects, studied with so many, and finally to become the very expert in my field. THAT was fueled by my soul's need as well as your fears about my gifts. That I am a strong, self reliant, a Psychic, Medium and a obtained a degree in Metaphysics, which I have used to helped thousands of people in so many parts of this world find peace, healing, light and understanding has made this all worthwhile. To have so much inner awareness to life, the Higher Realms and as a consistent SEEKER of TRUTH is MY choice, but it is clear the adversary role plays its part.

 Thank you to my Father, for taking on this "role" in my life. It made me face all the pitfalls of the path. It showed me what I could handle and what I needed to learn to face, be braver and stronger and more resilient and to know eventually that PAIN can become the greatest SOURCE for ENLIGHTENMENT as well as LOVE.  In so many ways, my Father showed me the very way to grow. He was not conscious of this but his fear, insecurities, lack of compassion and even his upbringing were responsible in part to his issues. He passed away in March, 1998 but we came to some understanding right before he died with him finally accepting and even acknowledging my path.  On a Higher Plane and in Spirit, he would have chosen to be the "bad guy" in my life as a soul contract. Soul Contracts are made between the lives,  in Heaven or the  Astral Plane, where all souls reside and all are in agreement or we do not "play". Knowing this is key to understanding why life is how it is and who is in it and why and for what purpose. There are many good books on "Soul Contracts" but I always recommend Robert Schwartz' book, "Your Soul's Plan" which can be found on Amazon or here: http://www.yoursoulsplan.com

See what I mean? No one is exempt from pain. But instead of letting pain overwhelm you, break you, cripple you, understand it on a deeper level, one should investigate it, analyse it, figure out why it is there. Pain is a path to enlightenment and it is explained well here: http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-9928/yes-the-path-to-enlightenment-is-painful.html  

All children love their parents. No matter what. It is a conscious choice which parents we have, even if we are adopted. All souls chose their path and in the end we can see this when we pass over. The life review each soul has shows us without a doubt, that we chose those experiences because they would in some way, allow us to become who we wanted to become, to mature, develop, evolve, share our gifts, learn and help others. Yes, be grateful for the pain. Be grateful for the love. Be grateful for all the "successes" and all the "failures" too because without them, there is no need to seek and if one does not seek, one stays small, stagnant, ignorant and life is meaningless. Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage and we are mere actors playing our parts." How right he was! 

I am so grateful for the broken path, the ups and downs, the ins and outs and all the shifts of consciousness which came with them all. If not for them, who would I be today and where would I be? If I did not rise above with sheer determination and rage against the very obstacles put in my way, I would not have the life lessons I have learned. The deeper meaning of my own life would have been obscured and my own validation for being here on Earth at this time would have eluded me. How hard it has been to come here but how happy I am for it all! Time tells the tale of our lives and eventually we see the entire plot to our play, the reason for being, the love behind it all, even with the so called bad experiences we had. 

Life is meant for our growth and for developing into a Conscious Being. It has no more points to gain, no more races to win, no more competing or judging or wallowing in self pity! It is a consciousness game of evolution. Understanding this makes the journey worthwhile, for it gifts us with dignity, purpose and deep meaning. It heals the wounds of the past and past lives and allows our soul to soar with growth. This conflict of light and dark is what this whole world is based on. Without the dark would we seek the light? Without the pain would we even bother to grow? It is clear we need both to become whole, aware and know the Self. 

 How are you seeing your own life, the "good" and the "bad"? Will you see it  now with gratitude so that you can say to yourself and all you have ever known, all the experiences you have ever had, "Thank You"? It is my wish and hope that you will.  

 Thank You for reading my blog. Comments are always welcome and please share your own experiences too. 


* The caul is a baby born within the casing of the amniotic fluid and membrane intact, so this did not break before birth. The Old Wive's Tales are that if a baby is born this way, they will be psychic. My Irish grandmother who was not at my birth in Pittsburgh, Pa. but in New York City, was called as soon as I was born by my Father. My Mother saw I was born in the sac and was frightened and asked the doctor, what's wrong? He opened it to allow me to breath in air and said to my mother, "nothing, she is a healthy baby girl". My Father was talking to my Irish Grandmother on the phone from the hospital, assuring my Mother's Mother, saying that my mother had me. My Irish Grandmother was also psychic and said to my Father, "I know, I heard a baby crying, so I knew she has been born." (meaning she psychically picked up on my birth, clairaudiently hearing a baby cry.) My Father explained I was born with the sac still intact and my Grandmother said, "Oh she too will be psychic!" I was named after her, Margaret, my middle name.  So from the moment I was born, my life's story was not only foretold but the caul intact declared my gifts!  It has also been used by sailors and much sought after because it was said to keep one would prevent the sailor from drowning. Even Charles Dickens wrote about it in his book, "David Copperfield" and has been cited in much literature and poems.  Were you or your child born with a caul? See this website for more info on it and what it means here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caul  and also here: http://voices.yahoo.com/why-some-babies-born-caul-133065.html?cat=72  and others tell their stories of being born with a caul: http://caulbaby.com/your_stories.html

Shawn M. Cohen (c) Feb. 21, 2014 London, UK.  
Fair usage act for Led Zeppelin video, and the song THANK YOU.(c) Plant, Page, aka Led Zeppelin No copyright infringement intended. 

ANNOUNCEMENT: I will be a guest on Blog Talk RadioMarch 13th*, 2014 talking about my Metaphysical life, Psychic work and Mediumship and taking some of your calls for Readings by me,   so please join me at New Pathway to Healing with host Petey Silveira. Petey has a long list of wonderful and interesting guests on her show and I feel very grateful (Thank You, Petey!) and happy to be asked to be her guest for the entire hour,  so please tune in and call in! The link is here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/peteysilveira/2014/03/13/new-pathway-to-healing-an-interview-with-shawn-m-cohen  

(*March 13th (1998) was the date my Father was buried. Ironic and yet, what an amazing synchronicity. One wonders "who" chose this date! Thanks, Dad! lol )


Wonderous Stories

 "I awoke this morning, Love laid me down by the river,
drifting I turned on upstream bound for my forgiver.
In the giving of my eyes to see your face.
Sound did silence me leaving no trace.
I beg to leave, to hear your wonderous stories.
Beg to hear your wonderous stories.

He spoke of lands not far or lands they were in his mind.
Of fusion captured high where reason captured his time.
In no time at all he took me to the gate.
In haste I quickly check the time. If I was late,
I had to leave to hear your wonderous stories.
Had to leave to hear your wonderous stories.
Hearing, Hearing, Hearing your wonderous stories.
Hearing your wonderous stories.
It is no lie I can see deeply into the future. Imagine everything. You're close and were you there to stand so
Cautiously at first and then so high.
As he spoke my spirit climbed into the sky. I bid it to return, to hear your wonderous stories.
Return to hear your wonderous stories...hearing, hearing, hearing, hearing, hearing...."
(c) Jon Anderson of YES.

I felt so compelled by hearing this song again, which I first encountered in 1970 with my then first love, Glen. He was 16 and I was 14. He turned me on to many things back then. The world was all topsy turvy, the Vietnam war was still raging, the Beatles had just broke up, which was like a death to us all! But there were so many great bands like YES, The Moody Blues, The Who, Led Zeppelin and all the Soul around too, not to mention Joni Mitchell and soft rock. Inside all these lyrics were wonderous stories. One lesson after another in life from these songsters, lyricists, folklore spreaders. It was the hippie times, we wore bell bottom jeans and tied dyed t shirts...we flashed the peace sign a lot, then and we protested on everything from the War in Vietnam, "Make Love Not War!" Human Rights, Women's Lib, Black Rights, Gay Rights...we protested, the youth of America and we gathered together in our communities, slowly releasing the nest of home and becoming a citizen of the world. We tuned in, dropped out, skipped school, smoked tons of pot and hitchhiked wherever we needed to go!
Fear was a "negative, a downer" and we were into the Brotherhood of Mankind. So we panhandled when we needed money, even if our parents had money! They were the "Establishment" and we did not want to be like THEM!
We did what we wanted, we helped each other, we "hung out" usually in the local parks or me on the back of my boyfriend's motorcycle! My long straight hair blowing out of the helmet as we ducked and dived the cars on his Kawasaki. No one would draft him, he would go to Canada if it came to it! We went to see concerts, endless concerts from OUR Leaders like Dylan or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. "Teach your children well" we laughed, no, we were teaching our parents. "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" was a favorite motto. Or "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle!"
It was all changing. Demonstrations on Washington, D.C. against War, against racism, for Women's abortion rights, and we did it, we made it all happen! We took responsibility for our own lives and told the world we want PEACE....and John Lennon stepped up to the post, and not even American...but we loved his bravery and his clarity. He knew we were living in a land of lies...and he walked with us, "Power to the People, Right ON!"
I grew up in all of this...there were more changes in this time to ideas, inventions, human rights, medicine, healing, and esoteric knowledge became a thing, a thing to seek! Astrology, "When the Moon is in the 7th house and Jupiter aligns with Mars" sang the 5th Dimention and the nothing-like-it-before-play "HAIR"!
Timothy Leary said, "Drop out, tune in" we did. We went into Earth shoes, Herbalism, Spiritual awakening, Yoga brought to the West. IN a nutshell, we all collectively birthed a New World.
These are my actual memories. I am not quoting news reels or Google Archives! lol I have the memory in my mind as a teenager of watching this incredible world be born. It was then that I decided to become someone who helps the world. I did not know how then, but I was already reading "Linda Goodman's Sun Signs" at age 13.
It took the shock of Glen's death, his spirit coming to me to show me, as I did not know he died in 1979 for me to realize who I was and what I came here to do!
The details I did not know, but I did know he was speaking to me, sharing his mind with me, coming into my dreams every night telling me, "I'm not really dead, you know..." and I would wake up and wonder, what does he mean? I was 23 years old. I was so wounded by this lost opportunity I did not think I could come back from it. We were not together when he died, being hit by a car in California...we had lived there together 3 years before and then broke up. In an era of peace, freedom and love...somehow making that work in reality was not always easy. But we were Babes in the Woods...
eventually I understood what he kept telling me...he kept telling me that there was "life after death"! He was Jewish like me, but my mother was Catholic...and he read so many great and deep books. His letters to me from Los Angeles to me in Pittsburgh, where he went out there and waited for me to finish high school, as I was 2 years younger...he wrote me loads of letters. All of them were filled with spiritual content I did not know, or understand! I used to sit in a diner in Pittsburgh with my best girlfriends and ask them, "Do you understand what he is saying?" and the giggles would go around the endless coffee and cigarette smoke and they would all shake their heads..."he's deep, Shawn!" as if being deep was a terrible thing! I saw his heart, his wanting me to "get something", his choices in reading like Martin Bubar, was so advanced and Sidhartha. I was a child compared but I was growing up. When we were together in Pittsburgh, he went to a different high school then me, across town, in the more Jewish section of town, Squirrel Hill...he would come to pick me up from high school on his Kawasaki, always bring an extra helmet for me. Sometimes he would bring his friend Serge, aka Paul also on his motorcycle. Glen wore a fringed suede jacket and I would hold on for life when we took off. He was handsome with jet black hair and cystal blue eyes, tall too.
There were so many parties, so many times we were together, so many memories that when he died, even though we had broken up 3 years before, I was just devastated. No one understood, just my mother. Her mother was psychic, from Ireland and she knew I had the same gifts. I would cry to my mother, "Why does he keep telling me he is not dead in my dreams?" and my mother would hug me and brush back my long hair and say,  "He is coming to you because he loves you."
In time, I walked forward again. In time, with the help of my friends, my therapist (yes, I went to one and it helped) I began to get that he was there with me and this was how it was going to be. I wanted to go back to California again, eventually I did. By 1981 I found a school (or was led to it) The American National Institute for Psychical Research and Development in Westlake, California. I was in school again at L.A. City College, still pursuing my degree in Psychology, when my friend where I waitressed during the day, Debbie, I finally shared what had happened to me with Glen and how I wanted to find someway, a school if there was one, to learn more...what did she tell me? About the school she was in, American National Institute for Psychical Research and Development up the 405 freeway to Westlake! Unreal, there it was, she took me there herself and I immediately dropped out of L.A. College and enrolled for a Degree in Metaphysics! That was 1981, graduated in 1983 and the last year I also enrolled in their Nursing program with a Holistic idea in mind. Yes, I had found my path. I was taught absolutely everything I needed to know, from the Astrology I had self taught myself coming into a Professional Level, to The Tarot, Astral Projection, Holistic Healing, Laying on the Hands, Angelology, Candle Magic, Numerology, Past Life Regression, Working with Guides, Chakras, Meditation, seeing the Aura, opening up my 3rd eye and truly seeing the future and the past. I was transformed, transfixed and transmogafied into the spiritual and psychic Lightworker person I am today! That was 35 years ago. I got lucky, or maybe I was guided by an Angel on a Kawasaki...I like to think I was. He is still guiding me... and I have just published my latest Metaphysical workbook for my current Metaphysical Students. I recently was contacted by Paul, (Serge) Glen's friend from decades before on Facebook. He and I shared some "Wonderous Stories" about Glen and their motorcycle trips together. It was great to speak to someone who knew him, still had his fringe vest!  I have come full circle, at age 62. I am sure there is much more ahead but without Glen's "wonderous stories", taking me to see YES at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, Pa. when we were in High School in the early 1970's, would I be here today? No, I don't think so... someone, a Soul Mate, a Twin Flame, a Kindred Spirit, a passed on family member, a Guardian Angel or even a beloved passed on pet,  is always watching over us from Heaven...who is it for you? What are your wonderous stories?
 Glen Miles Ponitzman born Feb 25, 1954- July 25, 1979
still watching over me. Still telling me his "Wonderous Stories". This picture he sent to me when he was in L.A. (this is Ventura County) at age 20, in 1974 waiting for me to finish High School and come out to be with him. I did and we "lived in sin", as they used to call it. We were always the rebels, always ahead of the frey and we always will be! 💖💕 Thank you, Babe, for all your help over the years! xoxo  Here is what all that help manifested:

If you would like to buy any of my Metaphysics books which are all aimed with the student in mind but anyone can benefit from the beautiful esoteric and divination tools within them each,  they are: "The Tarot, The Tarot Workbook" by Shawn M. Cohen, "Metaphysical 1 Workbook",  by Shawn M. Cohen and recently published "Metaphysical 2 Workbook" by, Shawn M. Cohen all available in hardcover, softcover Ebook format and PDR, here: http://www.Blurb.co.uk

If you would like a Psychic, Medium Tarot Reading or an Astological Consultation or a Past Life Regression with me or perhaps take a Metaphysics 1 & 2, Astrology 1&2, or Tarot course with me online on Zoom, please get in touch. My email is: psychicshawncohen@gmail.com
and my website is: http://www.tarotbyshawncohen.weebly.com     


(c) All content copyright to Shawn M. Cohen, Bsc. Metaphysics, L.V.N., June 29, 2018 except the lyrics to "Wonderous Stories" by Jon Anderson of the rock group YES and the video, for fair usage only. No copyright infringement intended.