Giving voice to the invisible - how channeling is like singing more than one note at a time. Kind of.

Thoughts on living as an empath, as what other people call a channel but I just call it being me.

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Earlier this week, I was sitting in my favorite writing corner at Art Cafe doing a five- minute noticing exercise from Jeannine Oulette’s Writing in the Dark¹.

The assignment was this: Look around. Notice everything around you for five minutes. Use every sense - listen, look, smell, touch things. Describe it all in close, specific detail. Then, set the timer again - five minutes - and give one of the things you notice a voice.

I looked around.

I noticed the way the condensation was sliding down the side of my iced tea glass. I noticed the sweetener packets in their little box - blue Equal, yellow Splenda, the crunchy, brown paper-wrapped Sugar in the Raw. I noticed the roar of the espresso machine and how, when it was quiet, there was music. The music, interrupted by the hissing steam, was audible in short clips. I listened more carefully. I spent another ten minutes with my Shazam app, writing down the artists. Billie Eilish. Hiss. Haley Reinhart. Hiss. Writing down the song titles, “Riptide”, “Cruel Summer”. Hiss.

Then, I gave the sound system a voice. . .

I am the sound system in a cafe. Voices sing through me all day. They are not my own voices. As they vibrate my body, I wonder if this is how it feels to be them. For two or three minutes, I am singing in one voice. Then I am singing in another. I do not have a song without them.

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I love how this simple attention exercise opened two levels of awareness at once, making me aware of the smallest detail, zeroing in on one thing at a time, blurring all other impressions. While, at the same time, it echoed my own experience as an intuitive empath.

What I mean is: I was fully present to what was happening around me while also being fully present to the correspondences².

I am always channeling multiple impressions and energies. I am always aware of the feeling state and often the needs of the people around me.* ³ As a writer, I am always noticing small details: the way the light in the kitchen refracts through a green glass bottle, the way it pours through a colander, casting a honeycomb pattern on the leaves of a vine.

In this way, I am like the cafe’s sound system. I, too, bring through the songs of others, interpreting intuitive impressions that vibrate my senses, my body. Like when I’m working with a client and a stream of imagery or words ‘sings’ through me.

There are so many things to notice - and so many voices in which to speak. Though I have struggled for years to differentiate my one true voice I am coming to the awareness that I always speak with my one true voice - I am me. How could it be otherwise? Even when I am receiving impressions from the world and all the voices around me, the core being of Self (with a capital S) is capable of flowing many qualities, expressing many voices. So is the Self you recognize as you.

I’m reminded of something I saw on The Tonight Show. During a segment where people demonstrate unusual talents, Jimmy Fallon brought out a man who could sing two notes at one time. How is that even possible? I wondered but sure enough - he did it. He started with a single deep bass note. Then, holding the low note steady, he lay a higher pitched note right over it and he sang them both - with one voice.

This is kind of how my own voice feels now. There’s a bottom note and an upper register. One voice is mine, the other is . . . its own. A listening and speaking voice. Perhaps this is what happens anatomically, over time, to someone who brings through the message of invisible guides, of angels.

In a recent post, I wrote that my voice had been ‘weakened’ by the flu. This is not quite accurate. My voice has changed but it’s not weaker, it’s softer. It’s opening. In a certain way, it’s become a voice that listens as it speaks. I spent a few minutes thinking about this - and how other people who ‘channel’ describe their experience.

I remembered that the teacher Lee Harris has said that when he channels messages from The Zs he doesn’t remember what’s spoken through him. Where is he when they are speaking? He is listening and speaking at the same time. In one flow. Without self-consciousness. Where are the Zs? As non-physical consciousness, you could say that they can be anywhere - wherever he is, they are.

When Abraham speaks through Esther Hicks, she steps to the side, watching but also, interpreting the guidance flowing through her. Where is Esther when she ‘steps to the side’? She is right there - fully present - but while Abraham is speaking, the self-conscious part of her is quiet.⁴

In each of these cases, the message comes as a flow (or as packets) of raw energetic material. This date of impressions, images, words and ‘knowing’ must be interpreted through the channel’s own language and experience in order to make it intelligible to others. A human translator must be present. ⁵ Though it is probably possible for anyone to receive and interpret this sort of guidance, it never happens overnight. One does not simply wake up channeling. Even people with extraordinary gifts must go through a learning curve and the training process, which is nothing like regular school, is always surprising.

Guidance is non-linear, unpredictable and often, playful.

At the beginning of Esther Hicks’s relationship with Abraham, she felt unusual sensations when the non-physical presence was near. Tingling in her body, vibrations in her throat and teeth. One day, while meditating, she had the sensation that her head was ‘being moved’. Surprised but not afraid, she allowed it to continue for several months until one day, she realized: I’m spelling words with my nose!

I share this story because often, in my intuition workshops, people get caught in the idea of doing things right. Esther’s nose-spelling story is such a hilarious example of how guides will get their message to us in the way that we can most easily receive it. They will send signs. They will spell words with our nose. Non-physical messengers will often repeat signs until we notice them. Once acknowledged (received), the signs stop.

In the beginning of my conversation with the angels, I began to receive the same little angel winks that I was reading about in the letters people sent in to our “My Guardian Angel” column: feathers, dimes, pennies. Reading the letters was the first stage of a training process, priming me to pay attention.

Notice the feather clinging to your sweater. Pick up the dime on the sidewalk. After a while, the signs began to come in threes. Three feathers. Three pennies. Three vivid and meaningful dreams. As these signs became more personal and came more often, it was hard to doubt this was real. Though I still flickered in and out of awe and disbelief — why would the angels want to talk to me? — I was steadily learning to trust my own senses. To notice what was right there, everywhere, around me.

I remember the day when a feather fell onto the pages of a book I was reading.
I remember when a hummingbird flew up and hovered at my third eye. I remember when, while talking with my husband about a miracle story, a feather fell into my open palm.
I remember when a ladybug (and another time, a spider) crawled across the pages of a manuscript, pointing to a passage that answered a prayer.

These experiences led me into a decidedly different experience of reality. A world where angel signs are happening constantly - to everyone. I saw that these seemingly small ‘winks’ are part of a wider pattern. Over time, they re-configure our view of the world and our place within it.

The more expanded my awareness became, the longer the ‘winks’ seemed to last.

During my conversation with the guides I am fully present but my doubt and self-consciousness goes to the side. When a message is flowing, my thinking is full of the message - there’s no room for anything else. No thinking. No worrying. No doubt about what’s being said. This altered state may last for a few minutes, several hours or even a full day. While I am inside of an Illuminated Experience, I receive words in my mind and also pictures, symbols and moving images.

This happens often after I receive a Flow Transmission. The message expands and opens around me like a field. To be clear, the angels are not guiding my steps. I am doing all the things I normally do - driving the car, selecting groceries, talking with a friend. It’s just that I am present to two levels of reality at the same time.

Inside of the message field, certain things will stand out as if glowing. People or animals may behave in unusual ways. I may feel an inner pull at my attention, telling me: See the young man whose tee shirt is printed with the exact same words we spoke this morning?

When I was writing about these extended waking dreams more often, I came up with a name to describe them: Illuminated Experiences. During these extended periods of realization, there is a calm and energized flow state in my body. Just as when I channel, I am full of the message and there is no room in my mind for other thoughts. It’s as if I am a detective being guided by an invisible thread while, at the same time, I am going about my business. I can be listening to the radio or a podcast while in this state. The guides will get my attention if something comes up to amplify their message. Indeed, often, the broadcast I’m listening to will turn out to be part of the message field.⁶

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Okay, that’s enough for now.

Tomorrow, I wake up at 4:00 am to catch a flight from Newark to Portland, OR, where my daughter lives. I can’t wait to see (and hug) her and I’ll make sure to get some photos. (Well, I’ll try. We always forget when we’re together.)

The city is known for its fabulous beautiful spring weather and amazing gardens. I’m looking forward to spending Mom/Daughter time with my girl - and going thrifting! She’s a professional now - re-selling the gorgeous things she finds at Memory Den, an amazing (and enormous) vintage mall in downtown Portland. If you live locally, go see her shop: Lost House Vintage.

(And if you’re in the her new shop, Lost Circus Vintage, opening soon on Hawthorne!)

To prepare for the trip, I got my garden ready to grow volunteer veggies. I planted whichever seeds had sprouted in the compost and in two weeks, fingers crossed, we’ll have some good strong roots.

(Note: Editing this in a few weeks later… I’m back from my trip. If you want to see the photos, go here.)

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See you from the opposite coast.
xxoo
Amy

1. Writing in the Dark is here. If you write, you will love it there. Go. Join the conversation.

2. Correspondences: How one thing seems to rhyme with another. The music flowing through the sound system was ‘like’ the messages that flow through me. But there’s more. The Law of Correspondence states that what happens around us is a direct reflection of what happens inside of us. (We explore this principle in our Constellation Workshop here on the blog.)

3. This is also a PTSD symptom. Growing up with an unpredictable, rageful or violent parent can make children acutely aware of shifts in mood and behavior. Both of my parents were unpredicatable. My father was rageful and bitterly critical. My mother was moody and it was hard to predict her behavior. I wonder sometimes if all the little empaths are awakened to their gifts by experiences like this.

4. Allowing another singer to sing through you requires trust. The channel must trust the experience - and the messenger. Readers of The Flow Transmissions will be familiar with my own struggle to come to trust with the guides.

In Module One of Constellation, I share the story of my play date with a yellow butterfly.

5. In this video, Abraham explains who they are and where they come from. You can read Esther Hick’s story here.

6. If you’re curious about how to cultivate your own Illuminated Experiences, consider joining my Constellation Workshop, which is free for all paid subscribers. I’m delivering it right now via email - one module each week - and adding it to the archive so you can do the work in your own rhythm and timing. Whenever you feel called to Constellate, know that you are right on time.