Sherwood's Daughter, Kismet, and Channel Mediums

When we were wee lil' towheads in diapers and yellow slickers, my first friend borrowed my Thriller album. I remember because somewhere there is a photo of us. Me with the album, and Liera hitting her plastic military drum with batons. Our moms had written lengthy letters to each other by beeswax candlelight about metaphysical ideas, lucid dreams, astrological events and lovers while my friend's mom was living in a tiny unheated apartment in France, subsisting off croissants and herbal teas. Our mothers met as teenagers when they were original members of the Mythopoeic Society, a group of young fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, who wrote plays and acted out scenes from the works of the Inklings, long before Sherwood (my mom's friend) became a fantasy author. My baby friend, Sherwood's daughter, Liera, had the prettiest name I'd ever heard and it stuck with me over the years.

Fast forward to high school. At an arts-focused boarding school, my pals and I got to talking about baby names, because what else do Renaissance-garland-crafting, vintage-dress-wearing girls who sew with floss and drink whiskey from flasks do, when they are not reading Victorian literature? I told her I wanted to name my first baby girl Liera (her middle name unknown to me). And after some debate about the uniqueness of her name, coined by her literary mother, we realized kismet had brought us together again. She started telling me tales about my Appalachian mammau, her uncanny psychic ability and her Cherokee blood. She waxed poetic about my mammau's love of Edgar Cayce and channel mediums like Seth Speaks' author Jane Roberts. It wasn't until several years later that I read anything by either of them, but at that point I learned that it was my grandmother who introduced my mom to channel mediums and their far out ideas. It kind of blew my mind, even though I'd heard of some of her mystical experiences, because God bless her soul, she was quite a hillbilly.

On November 20th my interview with Peter Woodbury, of Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment, will be speaking me about the life and work of Edgar Cayce. Mr. Woodbury received his undergraduate degree in psychology from Harvard University and his master’s degree in social work from Boston University. He trained in hypnotherapy and past-life regression techniques with Dr. Brian Weiss, Dr. Allen Chips, and Dan Brown, PhD. Peter is in private practice as a psycho-therapist and hypnotherapist in Virginia Beach, with a focus on the use of spirituality and faith as tools for personal transformation and liberation. He is Edgar Cayce presenter, global tour guide, and aregular contributor to A.R.E.’s member magazine Venture Inward and somehow finds time to play Edgar Cayce in the popular one-man show titled “An Evening with Edgar Cayce.” Listen for my upcoming shows Thursdays at 9am EST on 92.1 WOMR FM in Provincetown, 91.3 WFMR FM Orleans, and streaming globally at http://womr.org