Jenniffer Weigel - Im Spiritual, Dammit!: How to Keep Your Feet on the Ground and Your Head in the Stars

Copyright 2010

by Jenniffer Weigel

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

Cover design by Laura Beers

Cover art Digital Vision Illustration/Veer

Text design by Maxine Ressler

Typeset in Adobe Jenson Pro, Futura BT, and Ghetto Marquee

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

Charlottesville, VA 22906

www.hrpub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on request.

ISBN: 978-1-57174-634-4

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America

VG

DISCLAIMER:

While some of the names of the people in this story have been changed, everything written on the following pages is true.

A church sign from Lady of All Saints Catholic Church reads:

The First Presbyterian Church across the street countered that message by posting:

YOU SEEM to be a magnet for really bizarre shit, my friend Steve Cochran said during the commercial break of his radio show. He was interviewing me for my first book, Stay Tuned.

I like to think of it as being a gatherer of information concerning paranormal or metaphysical circumstances that many consider to be a coincidence, I said. But crazy shit works too.

You're like The Medium Whisperer, he said.

He was kind of right. Total strangers now felt safe sharing their I See Dead People stories with me for some reason.

So do you think it happens more often to you because you've done all these interviews with mediums and gurus? Or does it happen to everyone, and you're just more aware of it? he asked.

I think it's a little of both, I said.

JENNY, IS that you? the man said. I was standing on Michigan Avenue just staring at a person who looked vaguely familiar, hoping a lightbulb would go off.

College? No.... High school gym class? Nahh.... One night stand? Oh dear God!

Yes? I said, still not placing him.

It's James, he said, like I knew only one James in the world.

James... James... James... Joh, JAMES!

This wasn't just any James. This was the James who stopped me in my tracks in the fourth grade. The guy who made my stomach flip with a simple smile. The jock who was good at everything and dated the cheerleader. That James.

Oh my GOD! I yelled. How are you?

Great! Jesus, it's been what, twenty years at least?

We hadn't seen each other since high school, and now we were standing on the Magnificent Mile debating where we should catch up over a panini.

SO I HEAR you were a reporter on television? he said, looking over the menu.

Yeah. I quit that job after a few years, when I got sick of the negativity in the newsroom.

We filled each other in on the basicshe's married with two kids and lives on the East Coast. Works in technologies or some career with computers. I'm married with one kid, I explained, and live in the Chicago area. I mostly write these days.

I was so sorry to hear about your dad, he said. My parents sent me some articles when he died. He was so young.

Fifty-six, I said.

Didn't you write a book? I thought I remembered my parents saying something about that.

Yeah.

That is so amazing. You are an author, he gushed.

Everyone seems to think that once you write a book, you're either some sort of expert or you're rich.

Ha!

There are days when I wonder if leaving my broadcasting gig was the right thing to do, I said. I was making great money. Had health insurance. But I was miserable. I just hated reporting on tragedies and felt there was more out there for me, you know?

Yeah, I definitely get that, James said, taking a sip of his martini. But things are going well for you now, right?

Of course! I said. But that was only partially true. I was happy not working in the news business and doing my writing, but as a freelancer, I never knew where my next paycheck was coming from. I was getting tired of the panic that came with being self-employed.

How did you get the courage to quit? James asked.

I always struggle with this answer because it sounds so insane. I sort of went on a quest and interviewed a bunch of mediums and psychics after my dad died, and I decided that life was too short to be miserable.

Really? James started chewing on one of his olives.

Yeah. One of mediums was right here in Chicago, and she started telling me things that only my dad knew.

And you believed her? He was understandably skeptical.

I never would have believed any of this if I hadn't experienced it for myself, I said. I didn't give her my last name before I went in because I didn't want her to Google me, and she relayed an exact conversation that I had had with my dad when he was alive. Nobody was there for that conversation except myself and my dead father, so I don't know how she could have gotten the information.

James seemed interested. You're a journalist. You probably know when you're being bullshitted, right?

I'd like to think so, yes.

We sat there for a moment. James ordered another drink. He was on his third, and we'd only been there for about forty-five minutes.

I've met a lot of people who have gifts most people don't truly accept or understand, I said. I'm just starting to think that maybe we don't have all the answers yet. So I keep asking questions.

Part of me felt like I was sixteen years old again, worried that the most popular boy at school wouldn't invite me to the keg party. What if James thought I'd totally lost my mind? But then I noticed something click, as if it were now safe to share what he was about to say.

You know, I don't really talk about this much, but I've had some experiences, he said.

Experiences?

Well, for me, it's always been with colors. I see colors around people, he said, almost whispering.

You mean auras? I asked.

Some people call it that, yeah. It's really helped me, especially in business.

Oh my God! The Homecoming King sees auras?!

He sipped his cocktail to see how I would react to what he was telling me.

Go on, I smiled.

If someone has brown or grey energy, I won't work with them, he said. Purple, green, or yellow, then it's a done deal. My closest friends have violet energy.

James was very successful. Whatever he did with technologies had gotten him a very high title within his company.

How long have you been able to see colors and energy? I asked.

Since I was about eight, he said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

No shit?!

Everything is energy, so everything has a color. Even the trucks on the street, he said, pointing to a delivery van outside.

That is so incredible. Do you know that people spend decades taking classes and meditating in hopes of being able to do what you can do naturally?

I'd been questing myself for several years, interviewing every woowoo author I could get my hands ontrying yoga, energy work, and intuition workshops. I'd been to drum circles, sweat lodges, spirituality conferences, even angel seminars. And after all that, I wasn't seeing any fucking colors, okay? I was just exhausted!