Couchsurfing: a great option for solo travellers

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Laurie Fraser

Anne has travelled throughout Europe and northern Africa without paying for accommodation. She couch surfs! What a great way to travel!

To learn more about couchsurfing watch this short interview where Anne claims “Couches are everywhere,” in a house that has no couch. We are sitting on Turkish floor cushions.

(We can’t watch this without laughing our heads off- our first taped interview- so please forgive our mistakes. She’d given me the ring to wear as a joke, but no, the ring didn’t cause the bruise, and no, I didn’t just wake up- I was ready to go and sing at a Shout Sister performance!)

Travelling by Rickshaw in India

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Laurie Fraser

The elephant stands at a crossroads
in this town at the edge of the desert.
The people and their vehicles sputter hotly.
My driver is resigned.
His accent sings
“This is the only road.
When the elephant allows us
we will move again.”
In the choking wind he lights a cigarette.
Possibly delirious,
I walk into the crowd
to admire the working elephant
who remembered at a crossroads
he is the biggest.

Laurie Fraser
Udaipur, India

photo credit

Facade Healing

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Laurie Fraser

Facade healing by Laurie Fraser

Published by Tone Magazine, February 2013

Facade healing is really a prayer that calls in a Divine teacher to clear a certain facade from around the client’s body. I am clairvoyant and I see the facade as a grey body cast extending about two feet around the body.

I use muscle-testing (kinesiology) to communicate with the client’s energy and the energy leads the way, making all decisions. If the energy chooses facade healing out of the options available with me, it will then choose the Divine teacher and lead me through lists of emotions until I find the emotional facade to be healed. For example, I will be led to “fear of not having enough” and the Divine teacher “Jesus” by muscle-testing through menus.

Many times, I feel the presence of the teacher before I find out who it is. It is a feeling a profound love and it gives me chills, a full heart. Sometimes I feel a gentle hand on my left cheek.

I start the procedure by calling in the teacher and naming the emotional facade in a prayer. Then I move my hands to crack the facade open and I stand back. The teacher does the healing. I see tremendous amounts of light and feel a great love when the teacher is doing the work.

When it is finished, the client and I give our thanks, “drain” the old energy, and the teacher usually leaves right then.

A few examples from the past two months:

Divine teacher/ master cleared the facade of

Archangel Remiel resistance to transformation

Archangel Michael fear

Jesus sadness (depressed client)

Panther archetype lack of appetite (cat)

Maat pessimism (depressed cat)

Jesus incompetence (for me, learning new healing technique)

Jesus unworthiness

Sai Baba fatigue (client follows this guru)

Archangel Michael susceptibility to infection

Hathors (2 came together) loneliness

Mother Mary unloved

Facade healing is often very emotional for the client- it’s a great relief to feel Divine love. The client often feels hot or cold, teary and relaxed. Sometimes their body twitches or jumps around a bit. Afterwards, of course, they experience a lessening or elimination of the targeted emotion.

I also do B.O.S. (Bio Operating System), Reconnective healing and holographic healing. The client does not consciously choose what method will be the most effective for their particular issue- how can the client or I know? We are led by the client’s energy (some call this the Higher Self or Spirit or Soul) and that’s why it works.

Facade healing has become a more popular choice in the last few months than ever before. I don’t know why- I’m just grateful for the blessings and miracles in our lives.

photo credit

I give thanks to my teachers and guides.

As of 2020, I am no longer working with visiting entities. I think that a human such as myself is limited when it comes to detecting corruption in some of these beings. Unless it’s your Grandpa, of course. I’m fine with passing on messages with those visitors. I mean beings who want to help with healings. I didn’t have any bad experiences, I just think there’s a risk.

Flowers in the Sky: Culture and Art

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Laurie Fraser

Match the painting to the artist’s country:
Nepal – China – Canada – Congo – Iran – India

Painting and drawing are common activities at the Tulip Festival in Ottawa. Artists set up easels beside a giant tulip bed; some of them are quite talented. My school of 100 adult immigrants went down to see the flowers, and some of the students tried their hand at painting with watercolours. It was a hot day- we set up blankets in the shade.

I love the way they paint from their culture. I noticed that different cultures have different styles. Many Nepalese and Indian students drew colourful leaves and flowers with many petals- sometimes the flowers were in the sky- and they didn’t look like tulips at all. The Chinese often chose the thin brushes and painted with delicate strokes. The Africans almost always put roots on their flowers, and no one from any other culture did that.

Try matching the painting to the artist’s country. Check your answers in the “What have you done for love?” blog. Do you need a hint? Number 1 is reminiscent of Persian carpet designs.

Pinto Valley Ranch

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Laurie Fraser

Pinto Valley Ranch

It was heartbreaking last summer when the folks at Pinto Valley Ranch had to sell some horses (“family” the owner called them). They couldn’t feed the horses because of the drought. I showed up there today for a trail ride and found spirits to be high again.

It’s a family ranch, busy with teenage volunteers, a menagerie of animals and Ruby’s Restaurant (mismatched chairs and benches, large tables, a couch, armchairs, busy play area, decent coffee and bacon).

I go now to see the peacocks and llamas and a giant black pig who is free to waddle wherever his wiggling nose leads him, but I first went there to do some research for The Word Not Spoken. I really wanted to give Leigh, the main character, some freedom. She saw Felicia, an independent businesswoman, galloping on a horse on the cliffs; Leigh and I both wondered how to get her up there.

I had no experience riding horses, but a trail ride at Pinto Valley gave me the details I needed for the novel. I heard the squeaking saddle and felt the twisted ankles. A guide taught me a bit about horse behaviour, and I was able to make Leigh’s experience believable.

One visit gave me all the information I needed, but I return to the ranch again and again for the people. Kids are working and laughing and playing in every corner of the place. They’re brushing horses, feeding chickens, sweeping mud puddles, jumping horses in a ring, helping out on a trail ride. The nearby adults seem unflappable.

Everyone is welcomed with a smile: the neighbours who come only to talk over a coffee, the regulars in muddy boots who know every horse’s name, the visitors on an adventure who show up in sandals, camera in hand. And the writer too, the one from the city who asks questions like “Why do some horses stop to poop and some don’t?”

pig, dog and chicken sharing the trough of scraps from Ruby’s Restaurant.

Kurd Storm

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Laurie Fraser

It’s one of those perfect storm moments in Turkey, but for peace. Finally, everyone involved has a vested interest in the success of this ceasefire: Erdogan, the Prime minister of Turkey will get his new constitution, economic benefits and a place in history. The Kurds will gain local self-government, language rights and a lifting of other repressions.

It’s finally time:

The Iraqi Kurds have self-government in the northern part of Iraq. (Currently 3,000 PKK guerillas need safe passage to Iraq in order to withdraw there.)
The Syrian Kurds are in a dangerous crisis with hope for real change.
Kurdish-Turks are assimilated all through Western Turkey- 3,000 in Istanbul alone- and emotionally, the Kurdish population is ready to give up the ideal of an independent state.

No one agrees on how many thousands of people have died for this cause, but the suffering caused by this war has been astronomical…so many villages, so many families.

It’s time because it’s Newroz. March 21 is the celebration of spring and the new year for Kurds. This year in Turkey, it was as it should be: joyous, proud, hopeful.

A perfect storm for peace. All winds shifting to lift oppression, carry fathers and boys home, blow strength and prosperity into community-building. It is a blessed change in the weather.

A fantastic photo at http://www.albawaba.com/news/kurdish-ceasefire-turkey-478975 is well-worth the click- the joy of Newroz and the ceasefire in one snapshot. March 21, 2013 was a good day to be Kurdish in Turkey- and there haven’t been many in the last century.

“Today I start a new process witnessed by millions of people,” Ocalan was reported as saying by the Turkish daily newspaper, Hurriyet, adding, “The period of democratic rights, freedom and equality starts.”

Ocalan told supporters that they must lay down their weapons and move out of Turkey. “We are shifting from armed struggle to democratic struggle,” he said.

More info:

http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=14278

http://www.omantribune.com/index.php?page=news&id=140479&heading=Europe

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=383838

http://www.albawaba.com/news/kurdish-peace-process-turkey-481665

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/anatolia-news-agency-to-start-broadcasting-in-kurdish-in-september.aspx?pageID=238&nID=44389&NewsCatID=341

The Kettle Boys – Worth The Trip

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Laurie Fraser

The Randy Boys, oops, I mean the Kettle Boys, were having a good ol’ time out at Fortune Farms near Almonte (Ontario) this weekend. Beyond the modern maple syrup operation and the free taffy on snow, through the woods and beyond the demo of an early vat system, up the hill and over the crest, you’ll find the Kettle Boys cooking up “the real stuff”. These older men in zippered overalls carry around “the good stuff” like it’s moonshine. In fact, it’s syrup from the 3 huge cast iron kettles hung over a long wood fire. After hours of boiling, it’s filtered…but you never know what’s in it: the round Kettle Boy suggests ashes, leaves and squirrel droppings as possible ingredients. It’s not for sale.

These guys laugh and letch the whole day long, feeding wood to the fire and homemade fudge to the guests who find their way up the hill. Music plays and stories are told. I eat enough syrup to send a large man into shock, but I’m Ontario-born: I need my taste of early spring. That condensed sap flows through my arteries and melts heavy winter right out of my mind.