"Bear, bear..anyone? Bear-...there's something about a bear", said the medium to the group of fourteen attendees. No one responded. He must be mistaken. No bears here.
Jane and I were there that day, listening to Jonathan Louis, psychic/medium. This was our 2nd visit to see him. Jane was hoping to make contact with her sister, Pam, who had died the year before. We arrived at the Denver hotel where the meeting was to take place. It was scheduled to start at 2:30 pm. The session was to last for 2 hours. At the appointed time we convened in the small conference room, but no Jonathan Louis. We all waited for an hour, tried to find him, but he was not in the hotel. Jane and I went outside to the street and immediately saw a car with the license plate 'PAM'. This comforted Jane; she felt her sister was with her. We went back in, but still no Jonathan. We were a bit miffed by now. After all, Jane and I had just driven 5 hours to get here from Santa Fe. We were tired, but looking forward to the session with Jonathan. We would not be happy campers if he did not show.
Finally around 4 pm someone located Jonathan. He had the time wrong - he thought the meeting was at 7 pm. Evidently his amazing psychic powers did not cue him to be on time. To Jonathan's credit, he apologized profusely and proceeded to be with us for the next 3 1/2 hours.
Anyway getting no takers for his bear hit, Jonathan gave up and continued to give readings to the audience. About 2 or so hours into the session, Jonathan opened the floor to questions. Jane was posing a question when suddenly Jonathan interrupts and says to us, "Do you have a Madonna in your house?" We think about it. "Maybe," we say. After all we live in New Mexico and it's hard not to have a Madonna image hanging around somewhere.. like on a postcard or magazine. But nothing blaring jumped out. It didn't click with us. He repeats "a Madonna", then he says "Did it break?" Still no connection, then I remembered.....
Our dog, Paako becomes rather excitable when someone rings our doorbell. He's an amazing dog, half golden retriever and half border collie. We tend relate to him as a border collie since he is so intelligent, well behaved and has that collie nose. He loves to lie on our bed, and when I deem it's time for him to get down I just have to flick my finger and he's off. However, with visitors to our home, Paako can be quite naughty. He becomes uncontrollable as if every guest has come from a far away land just to see him. Every inch of his body writhes and squirms like a little piglet trying to free itself. Actually, he's a 'love dog' and thrives on giving and receiving affection. Embarrassingly so at times, especially when he spears his pointy nose like a heat seeking missile directly into an unsuspecting guest's groin area. Ouch! We've had to apologize many a time. Well one day, the doorbell rings and Paako runs to the door, wagging that big tail of his and knocks our American Indian bear fetish onto the floor. It breaks in half. Indian fetishes are hand-carved objects, which represent the spirits of animals or the forces of nature. It saddened me that it broke as it was a gift from my son. I also felt fear, like breaking a mirror or something. Was it an omen? I quickly quelled that feeling - didn't want to let any bad juju in.
So, I told Jonathan that a fetish had broken. He says, "What's a fetish?" He had no clue, yet on some level he knew some spiritual object had broken. I found this fascinating as it gave me insight into how psychic/mediums work, at least how this one works. Jonathan receives images and often they are symbolic much like a dream. Having no clue what a fetish was, he received a spiritual symbol he could relate to - Madonna. Maybe he's Catholic. I don't know. Spirituality has many faces- Madonna, Allah, Great Spirit, Jehovah and also Bear. Having a spiritual object break, along with the impact it made on my psyche no doubt sent ripples through the psychic airwaves.
So I went on to tell Jonathan how my dog's wagging tail broke the fetish. He says to me "Border Collie?" Yes! Jonathan is known for his ability to 'tune-in' to dogs. It's a joke amongst his fellow psychic medium friends. Someday I will tell you our John Edwards/Jonathan Louis, Snoopy story.
Later, after the session, Jane and I were talking when it dawned on me. Jonathan started the session off with "Bear, bear..anyone? Bear-...there's something about a bear," We, of course, were thinking about real live bears and bear encounters and not about bear fetishes. Yet, bear was still in middle of the room for those 2 hours, patiently waiting for recognition.
I still have the fetish. It's still broken. I could glue it back together, it was a clean break, but I won't- it is more meaningful to me now - as a broken bear.
