INDIGO WISDOM
By Susan D. ToppingBalboa Press
Copyright © 2011 Susan D. Topping
All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4525-3220-2 Chapter One
If you only look at what is, you might never attain what could be.
Anonymous
Summer in Michigan is absolute bliss. The sunlight is intense, and the vegetation is green and profuse. There's an abundance of water: lakes, streams, ponds, and the Great Lakes. We live in an area that values open space, so the activities of the wildlife are joyous to watch. I'm thankful for every day.
One glorious afternoon in 2005, my dear friend Barb called to announce an opportunity for travel. She'd been on the Web site of Caroline Myss, the American mystic and intuitive medicine advocate, and learned of a "Celebrate Your Life" conference to be held in Arizona where Carolyn would be a keynote speaker.
When Barb checked the conference information, she was elated with the caliber of speakers attending. The list was impressive: The conference included Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Dr. Brian Weiss, Doreen Virtue, and Gregg Braden.
"Feel like a field trip?" she asked.
"Yeah, I do," I replied. "Let me check with Don, though. He has done more reading than I have, and I'm sure he'd like to attend this, too. Besides, I have family in Arizona, and it has been way too long since I've seen them."
My husband, Don, and I visited the Web site together. We had so many miracles happening in our lives that we truly believed there was something bigger going on in the world than just us. We were curious to see what others were experiencing. We decided it would be a wonderful vacation experience for us and quickly signed up, as did Barb and her husband, Mark.
The conference was wonderful. I half expected New Age goofies, but I was thunderstruck at how normal everyone was. They'd come from all over the world for this opportunity to learn and connect with like-minded people. The atmosphere was friendly, hopeful, and soothing. We loved every minute of our time.
I had signed up to hear a well-known angel therapist talk about angels. I had friends who were devotees, and I thought I would check this lady out for myself. I felt compelled to find a seat early and found myself in close proximity to the stage.
When the angel therapist took the stage, she walked the length of it and stopped and looked right at me. I wondered whether there was meaning in that, or whether I was imagining things. When she began her talk, I listened intently. I knew a few things about angels, but not much. She soon moved into sharing messages from the angels. We were all meditating and listening to her.
"Archangel Raphael is here," she said. "His message is for the woman who is in the audience today who has a book to publish and is procrastinating. She needs to finish the book, and detoxifying her body will establish a stronger connection to her guidance."
I quickly thought of the story I needed to write about my son Gib's illness and the lessons in faith that I learned. I had been told enough times that I needed to share that story, but I wasn't eager to share my private life with the public.
"This woman will know who she is by the gentle tap she will feel on her right shoulder at this time," she continued. I thought I felt three nudges on my right shoulder blade, and I looked sideways at the woman seated to my right. Her hands were resting on her lap. It's funny how a rational brain works. I assumed the nudges came from that woman. I immediately dismissed the sensation as my imagination at work. Afterward, I listened to another woman in the audience share her version of why she thought the message was for her. This led me to further dismiss my experience.
Further into the talk, the angel therapist asked whether anyone knew an Amber from the audience. Several people volunteered their Ambers, but she said no, her message was for my section of the audience. I reluctantly raised my hand. She asked how old my Amber was, and I told her.
"You're the one. Stand up, please. Someone bring this woman a microphone," she said. I was trembling, standing before hundreds of curious people. The message she gave me was from my deceased friend, Amber's mother. "Your friend knows you will always be there for her girl and thanks you for that." I was in tears.
"You have a special son," she continued.
"Yes I do," I offered. "He's a Blue Indigo Child, and he's been quite a gift."
"Yes he is. He has an important task ahead of him, and you are the perfect one to help him," she said. She looked at me as though she wanted to add something but decided this was too public a forum for the message. She moved on, and I was able to sink into my seat.
(Blue Indigo Children are youngsters believed to have distinctive psychological and spiritual attributes. More on that later.)
After the session Barb ran up to me, laughing. "I immediately thought of you when that angel therapist talked about the woman who was procrastinating about a book. You KNOW you're supposed to write that story. You're so busted."
"Not me! She was talking to that other lady," I insisted, although I did feel a bit shaken.
"What? She was talking to you, girlfriend. You know you've been told enough times to write it."
"Well, I've tried, and the words just won't come to me," I said. "Every time I try to go back to the illness years, I can't write. It's too painful to revisit."
"Yeah, I can relate to that," Barb said. "I've blocked it all, personally. There's no way I want to go back and relive that."
"Well, that's the problem with writing the book. I don't want to do it. It's done, it's over, and there's too much living going on right now to keep up with as it is. Besides, why do people need to know about us? We're not so interesting," I laughed.
I am publicly shy about being in front of people I don't know. We moved through the crowded lobby area of the conference center in search of our next session, but the book incident stayed with me.
After the conference ended, Don and I took a day and drove to Tuscon. As we drove, I kept having a random thought to visit the nearby San Xavier Mission. I dismissed the idea every time it occurred to me. I'd been there before, there wasn't much to see, and we didn't have much time. Still, the idea kept inserting itself whenever I was preoccupied.
Before returning to Phoenix, we had a few hours to sightsee and headed south to Tubac, an artist colony and rustic western town. I was driving because Don's driver's license was expired. As we tooled down the freeway, we talked about the conference and how much we experienced. When I saw the exit sign for San Xavier Mission, I impulsively exited.
"Where are we going?" Don asked.
"Well, apparently we're going to the mission church," I said in amazement as I took the exit.
"I thought there wasn't much there."
"There isn't."
"Do we have time for this?" Don inquired.
"I guess so. I just felt compelled to do this. We'll hurry. It shouldn't take long. It just felt right to stop here."
We parked in the dusty lot and walked toward the chapel located on the side of the church. The altar area was full of statuettes left by the faithful, and the cultural aspects intrigued me.
As I turned to leave, I noticed a niche with a simple stone statue of Mary. I thought, "Isn't that wonderful? They probably lacked the funds to have an elaborate statue carved." When the realization struck me that the statue appeared exactly like I saw her in my meditation, I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at her intently. How was this possible? What did this mean?
Don and I walked into the church. At the back were some paintings, and some of the subjects had auras painted around them. I was struck by how the aura was captured with white light and a thin blue edge. It was exactly as I'd seen it around our son Gib.
"Don, I'm having some major epiphanies right now. I don't know what to think of it," I whispered. Don didn't say a thing. A recording of Gregorian chants played in the sanctuary and other people sat on pews praying, so it wasn't an appropriate environment for conversation.
One side altar was dedicated to St. Francis. I'm sure the parish lacked funds for a stone carving. The parishioners put a monk's robe on a mannequin and laid it out over a coffin in the style of sculpture I'd seen so much of in Europe. We moved away to look at another side altar, but I felt an urge to return to the St. Francis area to pray. Don sat down and patiently waited while I ignored other visitors and prayed.
The minute I closed my eyes, I saw a priest standing in the foothills of the desert surrounded by Indians. He was European, and was frustrated that he couldn't communicate the magnitude of what this building needed to be. The natives did not relate to his vision for this church, and I felt his anger, tears, lack of confidence, and his sense of being so overwhelmed by this task. Every minute of every day, he fought his inclination to quit. Then I heard,
Is an hour of YOUR time so much to give?
I gulped. I recognized this voice. In my mind I thought, No, I guess not.
Then I saw a hand holding a pen, writing on a pad of paper. I was astounded, because I had tried to write on my computer when I'd attempted the story before. It had not occurred to me to write my story this way. Then I heard,
3:00
I didn't ask whether that was morning or afternoon, Eastern Standard Time or Pacific. The message was loud and clear, and I was going to set aside an hour of my time every single day until the message behind our story was conveyed via a book to those who needed to hear it. If I couldn't write in the afternoon, I would awaken in the middle of the night if I had to.
After all, it wasn't about what I wanted. It was God's purpose for me.
Chapter Two
The dark moment the caterpillar calls the end, is the sun-filled moment the butterfly calls the beginning.
Unknown
My childhood was that of a typical middle-class baby boomer: living in a suburban home in a traditional family with a solid, parent-driven core. Dad was a General Motors executive and he was a true "company man." His work ethic was exemplary. He was loyal to his corporation, a team player in management who loved being a contributor to the building process. His work provided a traditional family setting with a stay-at-home wife and five healthy children. Mom was fun, affectionate, dedicated, and devoted to her family. We were well-fed, well-clothed and well-loved. We were living the American Dream.
After a day of hard playing a typical Saturday night was spent bathing and then enjoying a bowl of popcorn while we laid on the floor to watch "Lassie" on television. We knew we had an early bedtime because Sunday school was first thing in the morning. Mom always said they were laying a foundation. Sometime in our lives we would need God, and we'd have to know where to find Him.
In later years Dad was a church deacon, Mom was president of the women's council, and I was president of the youth group. All three of us taught Sunday school at various times. Their work ethic was rubbing off on me. Anything you wanted was obtainable if you were willing to work hard enough. I set my standards high and set to work. It was all within my control.
My first bump in the road occurred after two years of studying fine arts at the college level. Mom and Dad committed to two years of tuition, but by the time I was to pay my own way, the first recession hit. They needed to concentrate on my brother now, and their support went to him. After all, they reasoned, "He will need to support a family some day."
I was devastated. I was forced to take time off to earn money by keypunching at a well-known local advertising agency. It was a blessing in disguise, since I met Don there; he was taking time off from his schooling to meet the same objective.
Don and I were the "kids" in the department, both of us eager to return to our respective institutions as soon as we'd made enough money. We were always together at office functions and soon became close friends. Friendship quickly blossomed into romance, but before we knew it, Don was returning to Missouri for school. Being separated was awful, but the semester ended with Don moving to Michigan to resume his job and start a future with me.
We married in 1973. We were quite the industrious couple, working full-time jobs and finishing our degrees in night school. We never saw each other between our hectic job and class schedules, and this was a time before cell phones. In fact, there was a major road where we passed each other traveling in opposite directions in transit to our schools. If we timed it right, we could drive in the inside lane and wave madly to each other before we were taillights in our rearview mirrors.
Weekends were spent working and studying. Don decided to pursue his master's degree in business administration full time by driving to the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor. In addition to working my full-time job, I picked up part-time employment to cover the missed income, since we'd just bought our first home. I was on the way to my first nervous breakdown. My father said, "Honey, if you two can make it through this, your marriage will stand up to anything." I wasn't comforted. I felt I was attending the "school of hard knocks."
The year I turned 28, after all this madness, I finally graduated as the only woman in my class at Lawrence Technological University with a Bachelors of Science degree in industrial management. Did I mention that this degree was accomplished during the women's rights movement? I was always on the front line, fighting for equal rights for the "Sisterhood." The U.S. Constitution declared equal rights for all citizens, and by God, I was tired of being told that I had to stay home or that my career choices were limited to teacher, nurse, or secretary. I was annoyed that a man needed to be responsible for my financial possibilities. I was not a raving feminist; I was assertive about my rights and abhorred "isms" such as sexism and racism.
While interviewing for a marketing manager position, I decided it would be irresponsible of me to take a job when we wanted to have a family. I knew it took two years of investing in a new employee before she started to pay off. I would not hurt a new employer and the "Sisterhood" by living down to what the established male management world expected of me. My interviewer was amazed by my honesty and thanked me profusely. "Oh well," I thought. "I will go back to work later." After all, I believed everything was within my control. If you wanted something badly enough, work for it.
It was a huge irony for me that it was so difficult to get pregnant. In our generation, we practiced abstinence to avoid getting pregnant. The birth control pill helped, but it wasn't infallible. An unwanted pregnancy could ruin a woman's life! Marrying under duress was often a recipe for disaster, abortions were illegal, putting your baby up for adoption could cause lifelong regrets, and birth control pills were expensive. Now I found out that I couldn't get pregnant. When did the rules change? I had believed that the minute I dropped my guard, I'd get nailed. All I can say is, if I'd known this, I could have had a lot more fun.
Don and I worked for this child. I took my temperature in the morning to detect ovulation. Don moaned when I demanded, "The time is now." I laughed that I'd remind him of his exhaustion someday. The humor was dimmed by the guilt I had for not wanting children in the first place. Who could blame me? I knew my life would never be the same. What about my dreams? What about my hard-earned education? What about me, the individual? Don had thought we'd be missing something if we didn't have a family. Since I was only one-half of this union, I thought it would be unfair of me to refuse. I knew for sure what I'd be missing.
I can't say that pregnancy "became" me. I retched for the first three months and wheezed for the last three. Fortunately, our first home was four doors down the street from my wonderful parents, and I could waddle on down to their house for amusement. Being the social butterfly that I was, I got along well with most of the neighbors. I was adjusting to being home, but when I looked in the mirror I was freaked at what I was beginning to "miss".
* * *
I'd spent the day with my mother and grandmother before starting my labor. It was a cold, snowy day, and I couldn't wait to return home to get horizontal on the sofa and finish the Valentine's Day candies Don had bought me. I thoroughly enjoyed my Godiva chocolate pig-out. Staying home was starting to feel pretty good. When my water broke, I guiltily thought I'd overdone it with that candy. I called the doctor, who said to get to the hospital in a few hours, and then proceeded to wait for Don to arrive home from the office.
I ended up with an induced labor, with all the hard work involved that you might imagine. All the silly Lamaze classes were for naught. Nothing happened as it was supposed to. Once the baby was ready, he easily slipped down the chute into waiting hands. I'll never forget him looking around, blinking his eyes and looking puzzled, as if to say, "What's this?" He just didn't cry. He was curious. I held him briefly before the staff whisked him away for processing. "Fenster," as we so lovingly nicknamed our baby in uterus, was sent to the nursery while I went to recovery.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from INDIGO WISDOMby Susan D. Topping Copyright © 2011 by Susan D. Topping . Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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