Saturday, August 29, 2009

update on events

Greetings All!



So sorry my webpage www.cathypfeil.com is not updated - that is in the works and will happen soon!


Here is what is up with me these days:


First on all I am feeling well and so happy to be seeing clients and teaching. I am only seeing a couple of clients a week so there is sometimes a delay before you can get an appoinment.

My friend Dolly Mae and I have all kinds of adventures planned over the next few months including taking our Mystic Arts Traveling Classroom into Aberdeen for an evening event and private sessions.


The 2nd Wednesday Dolly and I offer our "Traveling Classroom" at Feralwood in Olympia 6:30pm to 9:00pm ($10) followed by an opportunity to have a private session with one of us.


The 4th Wednesday I am teaching a drop-in Intuitive and Healing Arts class at Feralwood 7pm- 9pm ($30)


I will have a booth at the:


Boeing Parapsychology Fair Sept 18 -20th www.bepeweb.com

Body Mind Spirit Expo in Portland Nov. 7 & 8th www.bmse.net

I am waiting to hear back about the Olympia fair in October - I will let you know as soon as things line up!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Spring greetings to you all!

Well I finally have my web page up and running at cathypfeil.com
There are a few errors with pictures but you can contact me through the site.

My friend Dolly Mae came down to Olympia to speak and have a booth at the Olympia Wellness fair on Saturday. I met lots of people and had a great time. Planning and actually pulling off a fair is a hard task. The organizer of this fair did a great job putting on her first fair and I know next year's fair will be even better.

Dolly and I have created our first workshop together. It will be in Olympia on Saturday, June 13th. Called "The Philosopher's Stone" we are into the transmutation of consciousness. Let me know if you are interested.

This weekend was my birthday. Reed, one of my oldest friends, always adds to his age. I thought that was a strange thing to do but this year I caught on. As I have reached a certain age I have been told it is time to begin lying and taking off a few years. If I go Reed's way I am older but I look SO GOOD for my age! So from now on I am a great looking 62!

In grace and ease,
Cathy

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Join me Saturday, May 9th at the Wellness and Intuitive Arts Expo in Olympia, Washington. I will be giving a free talk called "Hogwarts Adult Continuing Education" Don't you wish you had received an owl-mail inviting you to Hogwarts? Join me in a fun and funny hour of intuitive education. Stop by my booth for a 15 minute session!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Turkey makes me choke. Try as I might I cannot swallow the stuff. I have had this affliction since I was a child.

I come from a huge family. So huge that for us all to be together for Thanksgiving we rent a hall. The mere mention of missing the holiday is met with deep sighs and the guilt inducing “your not missing Thanksgiving are you? This could be the last time you ever see your Grandmother.” Like many families children are segregated to a separated area. Our family is so big we actually have a children’s room. All the men watch football until dinner is served and large amounts of alcohol are consumed.

You would think that “going to thanksgiving” would mean showing up shortly before the meal is served and leaving after the pie. Not in my family. Thanksgiving begins the evening before Thanksgiving with all the women getting together to prepare food. Old stories are embellished, olives stuffed and stuffing made according to the only true and correct family recipe. No variation in the meal plan is allowed. Yams mashed with a thick layer of marshmallow. The potatoes whipped with butter and cream. Green beans made with Campbell’s mushroom soup and fried onion bits. No off brand soup for us, only the finest condensed soup was allowed.

No pre-Thanksgiving evening was complete without the Turkey Dance. Every year, I AM NOT KIDDING, passed down from generation to generation was the special moment when all the children are called into the kitchen. “Kids! Kids! You don’t want to miss this! Come in here right now!” At the sink my mother stood. A huge, raw turkey swaying gently with my mother holding it up by the wings dancing the poor bird around singing the Big Fat Turkey song. Everyone would laugh like this was the funniest thing they had ever seen.

In my mind the Turkey Dance and the special ability our turkey had after Thanksgiving were connected. Our turkey spent the next week in our garage covered with a large white tea towel UNREFRIGERATED. My father took a knife and a saltshaker out to the garage for “snacks”. To my knowledge no one every got sick eating this bacteria filled turkey. Okay, maybe a little sick, but this was always written off as pre-Christmas excitement.

The turkey must be cooked for a minimum of 8 hours and the cooking of the bird has to begin before dawn. My mother had been up for hours by the time we all awoke. We started the day with the traditional Thanksgiving fast. “We’ll be eating a big dinner later, so don’t fill up”, my mom would say. With the only actual meal later in the day my brothers, sister and I began the traditional all day sneak eating. Before noon we would have consumed half the celery and pimento spread that had been made the night before and a large amount of Chex mix – not the kind you can get now but the real kind that is made on the stove with 3 boxes of Chex, a sack of pretzels and secret ingredients. This recipe, plus many others are passed to the next generation only after you “grew up”.

Breaking into the adult woman club and being invited to Thanksgiving eve happened when I got married. For the first 5 years after I entered quasi-cooking status my big job was to bring rolls.

Entering into the inner sanctum of turkey dancers did not protect me from the onslaught of opinions about every area of my life. As a child I longed to find out I was actually adopted, but I am truly a member of this family. I have with age turned from youthful rebel into eccentric aunt.

As required by family tradition the turkey was carved in the kitchen with an electric knife and served on a huge platter. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, marshmallow yams, cranberries (the jellied kind with no lumps), a fancy Jell-o salad and my rolls. I would sit, staring at the plate swirling around in front of me.

Leading up to this moment the following are some, but not all of the issues that would have been covered:
1. My weight.
2. The Roman Catholic church and my leaving it, and my mother’s reminder that “if you would only go to communion once a year you could still go to heaven”.
3. My disturbing pro-choice views.
4. That my artistic talent being wasted on “those lesbian paintings”.
5. The lack of a television in my house and “what exactly did we do with all that time?”

Slowly I placed a small piece of turkey in my mouth and began to chew. And chew. I added a sip of water to the growing mass in my mouth and tried to swallow. Even with water to flush it down the turkey would stick in my throat. I began to realize that if I simple took the food and moved it around on my plate no one noticed. I wrote HELP in the mashed potatoes and no one noticed.

To stem the onslaught of unsolicited opinions and chance being able to swallow turkey over the years I have tried a number of strategies. Strategy #1 Drink heavily. This actually worked for a few years but upped the choking potential. Strategy #2 - Bring a guest as deflection. A shaggy someone with more tattoos, bad table manners and BO was best. Someone my family could really focus on. Better them than me. This worked until they figure out who invited this person. Strategy #3 Pretend that I was visiting a foreign country and I was observing the local customs and rituals of this tribe. A successful technique, but do not under any circumstances mix this with Strategy #1. I realized this after I stood up to thank my hosts for the wonderful time in Japanese. Then I remembered I don’t speak Japanese. Oops.

The Big Fat Turkey Song

There is a big fat turkey down on Grandpa’s farm
He thinks he’s might gay
He spreads his tail into a great bug fan
And he struts around all day
Oh, you ought to hear him gobble at he girls and boys
Because he thinks he’s singing when he make that noise
But he will sing another way, upon Thanksgiving Day!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Looking for Casper

Looking for Casper

Dear Cathy:

I’m planning on having a haunted house this Halloween, and I would like to use real poltergeists. Is there any way that I can temporarily bring poltergeists into my house for the holidays?

Signed,
Looking for Casper


Dear Looking:

I am glad you have asked me this question. This important holiday information was not even mentioned in Martha Stewart’s special Halloween addition of her magazine!

Most people get confused about the different hauntings available. If you are looking for something along the lines of a shrieking form holding it’s head and walking down the hall you are actually looking for a repetitive image haunting. This is the kind of ghostly occurrence that repeats the same sequence over and over again. These instant replay ghosts are like looking at a tape recording of high intensity emotion. This is why these images are often associated with grief and trauma. In Bellingham there is a hotel where you can hear a man pacing and a woman screaming in pain where a woman died in childbirth. In my house a woman repeatedly comes down a stairwell and puts away laundry in a cupboard. Neither the stairs nor the cupboard currently exists in the house. I don’t know what her great trauma was but she is an intent housekeeper. I have however been unable to get her to also fold my clothes while in this state of angst.

If you are looking for the interactive variety of haunting this becomes a bit more complicated. An aspect or fragment of the person does not go into the light and they avoid the other-side-welcoming committee that comes to pick them up. This can happen because they have unfinished business, died in a confused state or because they have a feeling that they are going to hell for stealing that eraser in 4th grade. Often they will stay connected to their house and think they are still the owners. Some are gracious hosts and some want you out.

The E.R. Rodgers restaurant in Steilacoom is a great example of both types of ghosts. My father grew up next door to the house that has served as a private residence, boarding house and now a restaurant. He had many stories about the “ghost with red eyes” that looked out the front windows of the house overlooking the water. Recently I was walking into the downstairs women’s bathroom and actually excused myself and moved to the side as an upset women in a long taffeta dress cut directly in front of me hurrying to some unknown destination, disappearing into the bathroom wall. The interactive ghost, a scruffy old man, resides upstairs and stands on the stairs and harasses the restaurant guests and staff, turning lights on and off and moving things around in the kitchen. You can often smell his pipe smoke upstairs in the late evening. I understand nobody wants the job of being the last one out.

If you would like a list of some of the other haunted places in the area you can go to and for online sounds of ghost wailing and photos go to . A good list, but they neglected the very haunted Capitol building and the old woman that haunts the women’s bathroom at the Olympic Hotel across from Sylvester Park.

If you are looking for a true poltergeist experience, (poltergeist means, “to knock” and “spirit” in German), I have two words – adolescent girls. Loud knocking, objects moving about on their own, voices, particular odors and apparitions are the hallmark of poltergeist experiences. These experiences tend to focus around a preteen female who's hormones and the stress of that age combine and finally release subconsciously in flinging dishes and loud rapping’s. Activity has also been associated with very stressed teens and young adults of either sex but there is nothing like a group of 14 year old girls to stir up a bit of Halloween haunting. The energies surrounding adolescence is a very powerful force.

In other times and cultures young adults were initiated into adulthood and taught skills to begin to run energy through their bodies and direct these emerging energies into effective creative forces. Today’s adolescents move into this energetically powerful time unassisted by the older wise ones in the village and end up flinging things through the air willy-nilly. This might be a little disconcerting for the family down the block, but can assist you wonderfully in creating the atmosphere you desire for that special Halloween effect. Be sure to get a note from the girl’s parents before proceeding.

Place 4 agitated teens in the corners of the room, for best results keep large amounts of Halloween snack sized snicker bars close at hand. Encourage them to look in the mirror by candlelight repeating the name “Bloody Mary” until totally worked up. Place an assortment of small easy to fling objects in the center of the room and enjoy!

About Ghosts

Halloween – my favorite holiday. I love costume parties, trick or treat and late night contact with the dead. Halloween falls exactly between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice. It is the time when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest and the best time to peek over and see what the dead people are up to.

I grew up seeing dead people. I had no idea that seeing spirits was unusual until I was older. In my experience there seem to be a couple different types of haunting.

Sometimes an aspect of the person does not go into the light and they avoid the other-side-welcoming committee that comes to pick them up. This can happen because they have unfinished business, died in a confused state or because they have a feeling that they are going to hell for stealing that eraser in 4th grade. Often they will stay connected to their house and think they are still the owners. Some are gracious hosts and some want you out.

The most common ghostly appearance is a repetitive image haunting. This is the kind of ghostly occurrence that repeats the same sequence over and over again. Watching one of these instant replay ghosts is like looking at a tape recording of a highly intense emotional experience. If the ghost story begins with something like “every night at midnight you can see the headless huntsmen…” you are dealing with an emotional repeat. This kind of ghost is intent on its course and will walk right through you if you are in the way. Ghosts like this do not interact and though scary, are predictable.

For many years we owned an old farm and like many old houses ours came with a previous tenant. The previous owner who came with our house was named Alta.

My neighbor had grown up on the same street and knew the story of the unusual woman who used to live in our house. She was the scandal of the neighborhood. She walked around in the house naked, planted many of the trees in the backyard and read Tarot cards. Apparently Alta liked the place very much and decided to stay.

In 80 plus years the farmhouse has been remodeled more than a few times. When the house was very quiet I could hear someone bustling around upstairs. I could hear the stairs creaking as Alta walked down the old non-existent stairway into the dining room and the non-existent cupboard door creak open as she places items inside. She did exactly the same thing pretty much every day. My children grew up in the house knowing that Alta was just doing her housework. I don’t know what Alta’s great emotion was that kept her there year after year, I think it was her intense joy.

In the backyard, which Alta probably planted herself, was a perfect circle of trees. We used this circle for many things - a children’s play area, drumming circles and candle lit spirals for the Winter Solstice. We would hang out in hammocks between the trees on warm summer nights and enjoy the stars. Falling asleep in the circle was a bit hard though. There was this constant little tickle, like someone was touching me, and just as I would start to fall asleep I could hear children laughing. Pictures taken in the circle often contained energy balls or if you were lucky, you could spot Alta walking across the yard.

Olympia is a great town for ghost hunting. If you want to experience some ghostly images try the little old lady ghost in The Olympia Hotel women’s bathroom, or the ghosts in the Capitol Theater complete with a strict usher, or the whole gang of ghosts all dressed up for a ball in the Capitol Rotunda.

Have a Happy Halloween. I think I will run around naked and read the Tarot and see if I can leave some imprints for a future generation of ghost hunters!