Nancy from Los Angeles, CA wrote in:

Dear Spirit, I am writing to ask you why I am still so sad about the end of my affair with an older man. It has been almost ten years; and, I still cry at night over him. Do I have a past life with him?

-Nancy L.

Spirit: The man in question was not a past life connection, though your souls did meet in a love dance. Of course, the connection was rather brief because you fell into your pattern of begging him to save you. Of course, you did not beg him verbally; yet, your energy spoke volumes. You are still sad for several reasons: For one, you have not found a suitable replacement; for another, he emobodies the characteristics you would like to integrate in yourself. In that sense, he mirrors your Inner Male. And, like most women, you tend to magnetize men who repeat the negative side of your father pattern. Your father was inwardly critical of your feelings of helplessness. So you have attracted men who do the same.

There are still many women who succumb to playing the role of the ‘Damsel in Distress’ in order to attract the ‘Savior’ in the man they are with. So, please don’t blame yourself for falling into that trap.

Nancy: How can I stop myself from doing it again?

Spirit: Start by recognizing that you grew up in a culture where you were taught to believe that strong women would be rejected by men. These days, since women have become liberated and most households require a dual income, the ‘Damsel in Distress’ no longer appeals as a love object to most men. And, most women are glad to be relieved of the experience of helplessness that lies at the root of it. So, work on letting go of your antiquated belief system.

Questions to ask yourself:

Women: Do you still feel like a ‘damsel in distress’ at least some of the time? If so, what would it take to help the ‘damsel’ in you feel safe? Share your answers below.

Men: Do you know any women who embody the ‘Damsel in Distress’? If so, how do you feel about saving them? Share your answers below.

A Closet Bigamist

Tania from Atlanta, GA wrote in:

Dear Spirit, I am writing you in a moment of despair. I went through with a blessing ceremony in France, even though my — should I call him ‘husband’? — told me the night before he was still married to a woman he promised me he had divorced.  He spends several months a year in Canada with her, and the rest of his time with me.   He insists he stays in Canada because of his children, and promises to get a divorce – but never follows through.  Does he intend to?  Why hasn’t he kept his word?

-Tania R.

Spirit: Your husband is a bigamist. He lives abroad in order to be with his wife, as well as his children. His case is rather extreme in the sense that he does not know how to leave either of you. He has two very distinct sides to his personality. He portrays the side of him that is still childlike and despondent with her; and with you, he plays the role of detached, elegant gentleman. He feels more at home with her, even though they have an unhealthy attachment. With you, he feels free to be more grown up.

Did his mother ever abandon him that you know of?

Tania: Yes. She attempted suicide when he was seventeen. He is the one who found her and saved her life.

Spirit: That incident is a large part of the reason that your husband became split between his rage at women and his need for their love. He also decided he would never allow himself to feel so much pain again. At this time, you live with his angry, detached adult self; and, his other wife lives with his emotional, childlike side who seeks approval. She knows about you and accepts the situation, while you continue to insist he divorce her and legally marry you. At this time, he does not really intend to do so.

Tania: Why am I afraid to walk away?

Spirit: The obvious reason is you are afraid you will never meet another man you can love who also loves you

Tania: That’s true.

Spirit: Do you know why that is?

Tania: I have a series of failed relationships in my past. And, I am getting older.

Spirit: That is because you are repeating your mother’s pattern with your father. Though your Father did not split his life between two wives, he had a mistress with whom he was more intimate emotionally.

Tania: How can I transcend this pattern?

Spirit: The problem is rooted in your subconscious. In a nutshell, the Inner Girl in you is afraid to let ‘Daddy’  ( or his stand in) go – even though he is emotionally unavailable.. It would be best to get some professional help to do the release work on this.  ‘Then, I suspect, it will be easy for you to walk away from the ‘no win’ situation you are in, and find a man who is really there for you.

Christina from San Francisco wrote in:

Dear Spirit, my cat, Zeus, has been diagnosed with cancer. Can you tell me if he is close to his transition?

-Christina C.

Spirit: Zeus is nearing the time of his transition; and, he needs you to accept the fact that he can’t stay with you much longer.

Christina: Is he in pain?

Spirit: He is not in pain per se, although he does feel uncomfortable in his body.

Christina: I want to ask you another question: Zeus is highly emotional; do his emotions have anything to do with his cancer?

Spirit: Tell me first what you feel about it.

Christina: Zeus is very close to me. He always sits in the chair I sit in. When I get upset, he gets upset. When I’m feeling anxious, he seems anxious. When I cry, he comes up and pushes on me.

Spirit: Yes, he wants you to stop crying over the man in your life. He feels indignant that you don’t recognize him as your most significant other.

Christina: I’m sorry he’s had a hard time being second to my boyfriend. What can I do to help him with that?

Spirit: Let him know how much he means to you. It is his sorrow in life that he wasn’t born a human male.

Christina: Was I wrong to have him spayed?

Spirit: Really not. Zeus did not come in to roam the streets and repeat his ancestral pattern of fighting and mating out of instinct. He came on a soul adventure to fall in love, and be changed by the experience. His love for you is the reason he has evolved to such a high degree. Do you remember why you named him Zeus?

Christina: I was taking a class in mythology; and Zeus was the name of a Greek god.

Spirit: He was also known for being the father of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom.

Christina: That’s right. Didn’t Athena spring from Zeus’a head?

Spirit: Yes. Symbolically, that means she was his fantasy woman. In a sense, when you named Zeus, you were telling yourself a part of your story with him. Zeus had the gift of bringing out the Athena in you.

Christina: He always did.

Spirit: In that sense, he was like a soul father to you.

Christina: Is that why I feel so sad?

Spirit: Yes, that’s part of it. It would be good to let him know about this part of your story together. That will help him let go of the feeling of unworthiness he internalized because he couldn’t be your man.

Christina: Thank you for your help.

Spirit: That share would be a bonus. You have already helped him tremendously..

Becoming Cinnamon’s Friend

Andrea from Los Angeles wrote in:

Dear Spirit, can you tell me why my horse, Cinnamon, has been snubbing me lately?

-Andrea T.

Spirit: Cinnamon is upset with you because you stopped giving him a treat when you ride him. Is that true?

Andrea: Yes, I don’t want him to like me just for my carrots. And the trainer told me not to spoil him.

Spirit: His perspective on things is a little different. I understand that you feel slighted when he doesn’t welcome you. Yet, you need to understand that he feels slighted when you don’t offer him something of equal value to the service he feels he provides for you. His service is the rides he gives to earn a living, and carrots are his currency. So, if you bring him a surplus of carrots each time you visit, he will undoubtedly be happy to see you each time.

Andrea: Can I ask you another question?

Spirit: Yes.

Andrea: Why did he nip me the other day?

Spirit: Has he ever nipped you before?

Andrea: Yes he has, at least once or twice.

Spirit: Do you have an idea why?

Andrea: Maybe because I don’t do the best job getting him ready.

Spirit: I can tell you that, when you harness him, you tend to use too much force. If you are willing to place your thumb and index finger in his mouth, the bit should slip on quite a bit easier.

Andrea: I’m a little scared to do that.

Spirit: Then ask your trainer to help you, until you are confident in your ability to harness him.

Andrea: I guess I could do that.

Spirit: And always remember to give him a treat.

Jane Ellen from Los Angeles wrote in:

Dear Spirit, I would like to ask you about the current trend of older men and much younger women partnering.

As an older woman, I can tell you it is strange to walk into a room without being looked at as dating material by men of your peer group. I have several single women friends who share this experience. We all look young for our age, are in excellent shape and very vital. Of course, it cannot be healthy for younger women to grow up with the expectation that their beauty will be obsolete by the time they are 40 – and to fear their youthful same age marriage will end with their husband trading them in for a younger model. To me, the worst feature of this scene is women’s silence on the subject.

Is this a passing phase? Or, is it the way of the future?

-Jane Ellen

Spirit: If women do not accept it, then it will be a passing fantasy. Curiously, the younger woman who indulges the older man – or seeks him out, is in the sexist position.

Jane Ellen: How so?

Spirit: She sees her youthful beauty as a way to get her need for economic security handled, as well as a guarantee that she will remain viable.

Part of the issue is panic buying due to the post 9/11 economy. Most women naturally prefer a sexual partner who is not old enough – or nearly so, to be their father.

The men who seek much younger women are indulging their Eternal Youth fantasy, and acting out their aging trauma by rejecting the women of their generation as mates – as well as refusing the lesson of the Sage.

Jane Ellen: Which is?

Spirit: True power is spiritual, and beauty is not skin deep. In fact, the timeless beauty the Sage is here to connect with is his Inner Feminine, who is there to guide him on his soul journey – beyond ego – to the next stage of self realization.

What Freud would Say

There is yet another dimension to this problem. The incest pattern Freud described as the ‘Oedipus Complex’ needs healing. In that sense, the increase in Father-Daughter age pairings is auspicious.

Jane Ellen: How so?

Spirit: When the Unconscious is at work to bring change, it will intensify an issue in order to get the attention of the Conscious Mind, as if to say: ‘What is the problem with this picture?’

In this case, the incest drama played out in the home – psychologically, if not sexually, is being portrayed on the stage of the glamour magazines. Most of the younger women who strike this bargain become parentified daughters who are there to stroke ‘daddy’s’ ego and be his trophy doll in exchange for the keys to his kingdom.

Jane Ellen: What is the cure?

Spirit: Economic independence is certainly a key, as is women’s solidarity. Historically, women have been imprinted to compete for alpha men. Yet history is in a flow of change from patriarchy to a co-equal society in which the ‘Double Standard’ is here to be supplanted by the ‘Golden Rule’.

Questions To Ask Yourself

1. How much has your choice of a mate or mates been determined by economic necessity? If you were free of the concern, would you be living differently?
2. Have you ever been left for a younger women – or, been afraid it might happen? If so, were you part of the problem?
3. Have you ever been with a much older man? If so, did you have a job description other than helping him to remain youthful?
4. How do you feel about the way women are viewed over the issue of their age? Does it disturb you? If so, what do you think women can do to change it?

Reccomended Reading

• Leaving My Father’s House: A Journey to Conscious Femininity, By Marion Woodmam
• The wounded Woman: Healing the Father Daughter Relationship, By Linda Schierse Leonard, Ph.D.

Am I Being Cursed?

John from Cincinnati wrote in:

Dear Spirit, I went to see a psychic healer who said there was a curse on me. He couldn’t say who sent it – just that he saw someone paying another person to hurt me. I have compiled a list of people from my past I think might want to hurt me. Could you let me know if it is one of them and if I am in danger?

-John B.

Spirit: It is not any of your ex-friends – though you have some healing work to do with a few of them.

John: Am I being cursed?

Spirit: The ubiquitous person the psychic saw is a symbolic representation of the Inner Adversary, aka the Devil. Of course, it is the Devil’s job to lead people astray. Each person has their own version of what he looks like to them.

In your case, he strikes at your self esteem each time you judge yourself as deficient as a human being. He wears the cloak of your inner Perfectionist. And the ‘person’ he is paying to hurt you is symbolic of the martyr in you who takes up the hopeless burden of self improvement.

Is it Possible to Change Destiny? Jim’s Reading

Jim from Van Nuys, CA wrote in:

Dear Spirit, I had an astrology reading a few years ago; and it still haunts me. The astrologist predicted I would get prostate cancer at the age of 59. Was he accurate? And if so – is it possible to change that destiny?

-Jim S.

Spirit: The astrologist was reading a trend in your chart. So, let me ask you: in what ways do you feel wounded in your manliness?

Jim: I never made it big the way my father and brother have.

Spirit: What do you consider big?

Jim: Multiple millions

Spirit: Yet you earn an outstanding living.

Jim: I do all right.

Spirit: Many cases of prostate cancer are based on penis envy – not the kind women are accused of feeling, the kind men feel by equating the size of their penis, symbolically speaking, with their bank account. Manifesting millions is not the measure of a man; yet so many men succumb to the seduction that says it is. What do you do for a living?

Jim: I’m a middle manager in a large corporation.

Spirit: What career did you originally set your sights on?

Jim: I wanted to be a filmmaker.

Spirit: What happened to that career?

Jim: Fatherhood.

Spirit: Another reason some men get prostate cancer is based on the way they measure themselves in relation to the man they wanted to be.

Now is a good time to free the artist in you; and let go of the idea you were here to live up to your father’s standard.  You are here to be a different kind of man.  Then, by the time you get to your second Saturn return, you can be free of prostate trouble.

How to Interpret Psychic Readings

Psychic ability is fallible in the sense that even those who weigh in as exceptionally accurate may also report information that is symbolic without realizing it. So, it is important to interpret psychic readings in that light.

It is also good to remember that the future is seldom set in stone. In that sense, some psychic readings may predict the probable outcome or trajectory of events from a particular moment in time – without taking the factor of individual choice into account.

A change of heart can alter the course of future events.