I live in the Sierra Foothills and was part of a spiritual meeting group that met once a week near Placerville. We met at a woman’s home who owned a metaphysical store in Shingle Springs. Her name is Panda and she was well connected with everyone who knew metaphysics and spiritual practice in the area. I was in my 30s when I joined the group and was surprised at how much fun the entire experience was. That was the secret to the success of the group because they kept it light and fun but also encouraged our personal development and worked with each person to help them find their gifts.
One of my favorite aspects of the weekly meetings was when it was “basket time”. This was a training and fun exercise we did every week to develop psychometry skills. Everyone would reach on their pockets and pull out all kinds of things (rings, coins, mementos, you name it!), cup them in their hands and then hide what they put in the basket. It could be anything. The only rule was NOT to look at what people put in. When it was all done with, a person would then carry the basket around with all of us sitting in a circle and we’d each reach a hand into the basket. It was covered with a cloth napkin and we’d reach under, feel around and pull out whatever felt good to grab out. The rule was then to close your hand around the object and then go into a meditative state to “read” the energy of the object.
Sometimes it was easily apparent what the object was that you held. Rings were especially easy, but somethings you’d get an object you just couldn’t figure out on feel. But that wasn’t the important part. The thing was to READ the object and tell everyone what impressions you got. There are NO wrong answers in this sort of work. You just give it your best and believe that it will work. It’s really that simple!
The wonderful thing is that we ALL got really good at reading impressions of the owners of these objects. Sometimes you would see people’s faces in your mind’s eye. Other times you’d get the gist of conversations that this object had been in the presence of. Or you would feel strong emotions. Sometimes it would just been weird facts that would come spilling out of your mouth with words or phrases. People’s names would be spoken as well whom you didn’t know. It ran the gamut and it almost always worked out that each of us got SOMETHING.
The BIG rule was NOT to edit the impressions! The group insisted on telling it like you saw, heard, felt or got impressions of. Anytime you edited things, the energy just went away and you’d have to start over. So, we learned to just dive in and trust what came from the objects and let the words fly out of our mouths.
It was some of the most fun I remember from those magical meetings all those years ago. Many of those beautiful people have now passed on. And I miss them. My friend Panda sold the store and moved away to Idaho and still lives there to this day. But I’ve never forgotten the basket readings and love to pull out my basket when I have guests to the house and have a lot of laughs doing psychometry.
The Berlin Wall
Some years back a guest came to my home and he was a skeptic. He knew we were going to play the Basket game because his girlfriend warned him about our little habit of playing it. We all sat in my living room and I put the basket out and in went the objects. As the basket was passed to me and my turn came to select an object, I put my hand in the basket and my hand closed around a rock. It was no ordinary rock. It was rough on one side and smooth on the other. I was a little mystified at first because there were so many impressions that came from this rock that I could tell it had seen a LOT of people pass by it or who had touched it. Feelings of oppression, terrible strife and death came from it. I was a little shocked at this. But then things changed. More impressions came in. Feelings of joy. Release. Hope.
I looked up and knew then who had brought it. His name was Steve. I opened my hand and said to him that this rock was his and he nodded. Then I explained what I had felt. I said I couldn’t exactly guess where it was from but it had seen much history and that the overriding and dual nature of this rock was both of life and death, sorrow and then happiness and most of all… Hope. Hope for a better future.
He looked a little shocked at me. He then opened up and said he had been a U.S. Military security guard. And he had been in Germany when the Berlin wall had fallen. The piece of rock I was holding was a piece of that wall.
Yes… Psychometry works. If you let the impressions come in and share it as you get it. This is one of my favorite memories of psychometry as a skill set and what can happen when you open your mind to let it work.
Jon.