PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

Jerusalem, Israel was beginning to feel like home by mid December, and I looked forward to celebrating the Winter Solstice in what felt to me like one of the most significant and powerful portals on planet Earth. Leaning to the east, my three, in the front of my condo Aleppo pines, were swaying in a warm breeze and it was another day with temperatures around 15 Celsius and filled with sunshine. I had been listening to Radio Jordan as I usually did every morning at 9 a.m. while decorating our huge indoor palm tree with twinkling lights and copper angels for our Winter Solstice celebration. With a delightful gusto the radio personality would tell us what the king was doing every morning. King Hussein, who was married to an American architect, Queen Noir, was the Jordanian king then. The announcer told us that this day the king was flying to England on vacation with his family. He would be the chief pilot for this flite and I thought I sensed the flying king was excited to be flying, and heading to a home that he had recently purchased in the English countryside just outside of London.

It was on a Friday late morning, the 18^th of December that I received a phone call that initially threw me for a loop. The caller had heard that I was a Reiki Master and that I was in touch with the metaphysical. She had urgently to meet up with me and talk to me about something she had seen, and would I meet her at the King David Hotel on King David Street in the center of Jerusalem? I always loved going to downtown Jerusalem, a metropolitan city where one could see the Old City and Mount Zion from the King David. Perhaps I would stop in at UNTSO headquarters and have a chat with my husband who worked there for the UN.

A Big Leap: From Portal Jerusalem to Little Fort, British Columbia, Canada, Population 100.

 Our marvelous mind-blowing two year sojourn in Israel and the Middle East was over. September was commencing and we were back in Canada. My husband had completed his military releases in Ottawa and we had patiently traversed across Canada, now to locate a new home in the British Columbia wilderness.

UNTSO headquarters where my husband worked was situated on the 'Mt. of Evil Council' in the old British Parliament house, Jerusalem, deserted in 1948 when the Brits pulled out of Palestine. That was the year this explorer was born. The grounds overlooked the Old City of Jerusalem in an amphitheater-like setting. Beautiful. Pyramidal cypress, gigantic eucalyptus, and spreading magnolia trees surrounded the turn of the century grey stucco buildings. There were acres of alluring, well-manicured English country gardens and a sunken rose garden that was adorned with an Elizabethan fountain. It was surrounded by a covered patio where dancing used to take place.

The magic was still there on those hot summer days, and when I lingered, the fragrance from the lavender beds filled my essence, feeding my soul. On one visit, suddenly, everything about me shimmered. The air was filled with bouncing electrical bursts of energy. The shimmer came from the fountain in the gardens center and then jumped to the rose bed beside it. I stood mesmerized and feeling a quickening taking place in my higher chakras. A swirl of bright golden light descended on my crown chakra and I felt an awesome divine transcendence that floored me. What was it with this powerful portal I was suddenly living in? Who and what are the energies that flit in and out of here.   

Fridays at 6:00 a.m., this Reiki Master heard the beginning sounds of the weekend morning rush in Jerusalem. The brilliant kaleidoscope of sunrise dazzled the landscape as she stood on her deck, facing east to say morning prayers. Afterward, she immersed herself in the sights and sounds of the Holy Land. Goats scampered, donkeys brayed, and dogs barked in the wadi below her. Cars and trucks in the distance were already deafeningly pummeling down the highway to Tel Aviv, and clanging sounds came from the Arabic villages nearby. She was ready to face the busiest day of the Jerusalem week, for the next day was the Sabbath, Shabbat, when everything stalled until the first three stars came out in the evening.

Friday shopping could be dodgy and dangerous. People shouted and screamed, motioning with their hands in their cars and on the street. The Supersol, my local supermarket, was jammed—a mad house with orthodox, ultra orthodox, and secular Jews, pushing and shoving. A line up meant nothing there. I wondered if I should become one of them, but reminded myself I was not that kind of person. Keeping on telling myself; shwei, patience, as I often waited in twenty-foot long checkout lines while the cashiers idly chitchatted with friends for what seemed like an eternity. I always arrived home hot, hungry, and unscathed, though.