Nine plus years of increasing spiritual experiences and still I’m amazed at the tricks the spirits pull.  Are they trying to make me laugh?  Are they trying to guide me in some mysterious way?  I can ask them directly and sometimes I understand the answers, but not always. 

            I share a lovely dog with a neighbor and friend.  She’s their dog but I take her every day for a while.  On workdays, she comes with me and works for me as a therapy dog in my practice, while on weekends, I take her on long hikes with me.  Her other family has a small child so they go on shorter walks which don’t tire Rela (the dog) out.  She is a large dog, half Rottweiler, and half mutt, but looks like a Rottweiler.  We hike on a long logging road with a small waterfall on one side and a bustling creek on the other.

            A few weeks ago, I noticed that her cloth collar had disappeared.  I figured her other family had taken it off and their small child had stashed it under some furniture or something.  None of us seemed to know what had happened to it.  It couldn’t have just fallen off of her because it had a buckle that would get tighter if it caught on anything.

            I hiked that logging road twice a week over several weekends, watching it get muddier and rainwater collecting in the ditch on the side of the road.  One of those days, my necklace broke at the top of the hill.  I discovered it when I took my coat off because I had gotten so hot.   The chain was still hanging around my neck but the pendant, a large, labradorite stone, was gone.  This pendant was dear to my heart.  My mother, now deceased, had given it to me, but it was hand-made by her closest friend, also now deceased.  I hadn’t liked it in the beginning because of its size, but recently had developed an attachment to it, partly because of how I got it and partly because I had been using it as a pendulum with excellent success. Now, it was gone.  I figured it had slid off the chain earlier in the hike and I’d find it on the way down.

            I met a woman on this hike who I’d seen several times before.  This time she was there with her brother, sister-in-law, and mother.  All of them helped me look for the pendant.  We looked all the way down the mountain and never saw it.  And we never saw the dog collar either.

            The next weekend I was up that hike again, both Saturday and Sunday, with other people.  Both days, these people helped me look for the pendant and we never saw it or the dog collar.

            I asked my spirit guides about the pendant.  They acknowledged that they had dematerialized it, wanting me to take some space away from the pendulum to practice other psychic gifts.  They wanted me to practice psychometry, tarot, and other gifts that were getting less time.  They claimed they would rematerialize it eventually after I had practiced the other tools.  I felt hesitant because some things have taken many months to rematerialize and 1 item has still not been returned.

            The following Saturday, I hiked alone, just me and Rela, the dog, chasing moles, hounding the birds, and generally having a grand time.  I kept my eye out again, not expecting to see that pendant but wishing I would.  I didn’t see the pendant. 

            But, I found the collar.  It was right in the middle of one of the ruts, impossible to miss.  There is no way I could have passed it by previously.  It had to have been invisible.  Now it was back.  They said they just did this to show me they are there with me.    I hope it is also a commitment to return the pendant and if I’m lucky a ring I haven’t seen in over a year.

            A few weeks passed, during which I began practicing Tarot and psychometry.  I have a Tarot deck that I don’t love, but it was dropped in my path by the spirit world so I respected that request and used it.  An acquaintance of mine taught me a quick method to use with Tarot cards that made it easier for me to practice more frequently.  I found time most days to practice Tarot and a couple of times I practiced psychometry.

After writing the previous page, I went hiking again with another friend of mine.  This friend has psychic gifts as well.  I told her about my experience on that fated hike when my labradorite pendant disappeared.  I gave her all the details I gave you, about all the people who helped, what my guides told me, and how I had started practicing the other gifts.

We got to the half-time spot on the hike and turned to head back toward the car.  I was telling her how much I wished to have the labradorite back and how I had gotten it.  The longer my mother was gone, the more I valued the pendant, and the more it meant to me.

We didn’t get very far down the hill before my friend stopped. 

“Look!” she exclaimed.

There in the dirt and rocks was the labradorite pendant, gleaming in the winter sunshine.  I had never noticed how much reddish-gold there was in the pendant with a blue stripe across the middle.  I’d always thought it was mostly grey.  Yet there in the sunshine, it shone brightly with a reddish-gold hue.  You’ll find the picture attached.  I picked it up, reverently, looked at the heavens, and said,

“Thank you, spirit world for returning my pendant!”

After that, I checked with them about how they wanted me to use it in the future.  They asked me not to use it at home when I could use Tarot, but it was okay to use it out of the house.

In the end, I got the dog collar back and the pendant back but I still haven’t gotten my pearl ring back.  That one I’m still waiting for.