This goes along with the current “conventional wisdom” of using practical action when you are trying to manifest a goal or, as I prefer to call it, your “Dire Desire”. The “YES!” card mentions your intuition as the thing that can point you toward the right actions to take, but it does not tell you that your “actions” should be energetic actions, rather than practical ones.

Can manifestation work without practical action? As the card says, YES! But ideally, you should focus on both your energetic efforts and your practical actions.

That being said, the energetic part is actually more important.

· If you don’t feel worthy,

· if you don’t believe in yourself or your manifestation,

· if you are not connected to the divine,

· if you don’t “git yer mind right”,

no amount of action will bring you what you want. Or a lot of striving and trying might get you to your goal, but most likely in a way that you don’t like, e.g., being “forced” into starting your own business by getting fired, instead of choosing to start the business and quitting your job on your own terms.

You’ve probably learned “goal-setting” at some point in your life, maybe in high school athletics or in a corporate job, maybe from a motivational speaker.

The process goes something like this: What is your goal? Write that at the top of the page/whiteboard/foggy mirror. Then, write down the steps that you need to take in order to reach that goal.

For example, let’s pretend you want a better-paying job. Your list of “action steps” or “objectives” might read like this:

· Enroll in program for certification in my field.

· Successfully complete the program.

· Update my resume.

· Distribute my resume.

· Follow up with employers with whom I have applied.

· Repeat until desired position is achieved.

Notice that none of the action steps are “energetic” or spiritual. They are all tangible and/or practical, like making phone calls to follow up.

The way manifestation works is that you line up your energy first. And you use energetic tools that work toward your Dire Desire. Thus, if you wanted to use the “goal and action-item list” method, your new list of action steps to land a better-paying job might look more like this:

· Meditate daily.

· Create fresh affirmations to use during meditation.

· Journal about my worthiness for the new job.

· Follow the guidance I receive from the divine (or higher self or subconscious).

Now, following the guidance may induce you to “take action” like the first list. But you can see the huge difference between “practical-ing” it and “energy-ing” it.

There are many energetic/spiritual tools you can use for manifestation. My favorites, of course, are the ones I share with my clients. Learn more about that here.

Oooh, big-ass woo-woo revelation! I’m a witch! A real, house-haunting, broom-riding, cauldron-stirring witch.*

I have always known, but I didn’t know, you know?

As a child, I was deeply interested in magic, witches, fairies, genies, anything mystical and magical. My favorite TV shows were “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeannie,” both about secretly-magical women. It bothered me that they had to keep their abilities a secret, particularly because it was at the behest of their men. But I didn’t know I was a feminist back then either.

A favorite book was No Flying in the House, about a little girl who didn’t know she was half-fairy and had to live apart from her parents until she chose to be human. That sucked. I mean, I wouldn’t want to live away from my parents either, but who wouldn’t want to be a fairy? Cheese and rice.

At slumber parties, I would hold an object and “read the energy” from it, playing “fortune-teller” for my friends. I was eight years old-how the hell did I even know how to do that?

But back to that keeping-it-secret thing. History provides endless examples of persecution/execution of women who were suspected of practicing witchcraft. And we all know that’s just more patriarchy bullshit, but bullshit can get you killed, as it has millions of women over the centuries. It goes on to this day in some places in the world.

I recently read a novel about witches around the turn of the 19 thcentury in England. I won’t share the title, because it wasn’t a very good book, but it revealed to me information I had not thought about before-or at least, in a very long time. The “Craft” or practice of witchcraft is not a thing in the world except the Divine Feminine at work. And these days, we often call it Law of Attraction, manifestation, or simply prayer.

Really. Very broadly, men work in the concrete, women in the abstract. Men are about building and destroying material things, women are about connecting with and nurturing people. Women are by nature highly spiritual and connected to the natural and the divine.

As I said, that is a broad assertion, with many exceptions. There are certainly men who are also spiritual and connection-oriented, just as there are many women who are solidly-founded in the material world.

But by a majority, women are the life-givers, the nurturers, the healers, the teachers, the connectors. Going back through history, women’s work became men’s work as men were able to make money doing women’s work. For example, not too many centuries past, it was the women who almost exclusively brewed the ale, dyed the fabrics, nursed the sick, delivered the babies, and many other tasks. When men determined that they could make money doing these jobs, they took them away from the women and called those women witches.

Midwifery was always the realm of women, until male doctors decided they had to do it. Did you know that the position of lying on your back to deliver a baby is only for the doctor’s convenience? Midwives have always encouraged a laboring mother to assume whatever position feels right to her, allowing her the most comfort and control for her delivery.

Likewise, male doctors in the middle of the 20 thcentury began prescribing enemas for women in labor, ostensibly to keep the delivery zone “sterile”, but it’s not sterile to start with and a little poop on baby’s skin doesn’t hurt anything. So those enemas were for the doctor’s convenience, too. The practice has mostly abated in the United States and other developed countries, but you will still find it here and there.

“Witchcraft” became men’s word for anything women did that men either didn’t understand or wanted to make money from-or both. Many women bought into the idea too, such was and is the power of the patriarchy.

By the time I came along, in the latter half of the 20 thcentury, nobody really believed in witches anymore. Oh, there were still a number of practitioners of the Craft, certainly, but there was nothing really mainstream. Except in fiction. Which I gobbled up like Hallowe’en candy.

I was raised in the Presbyterian Church, and happily so. My parents were both raised Baptist, with my father even planning to become a minister, like his grandfather, who was a Baptist preacher and Daddy’s hero. Daddy changed his mind shortly before college graduation, but I still grew up with four Baptist grandparents. If you were at my dad’s parents’ house on Sunday morning, you were Baptist too! I like to say I was half Presbyterian and half Baptist.

In spite of regular church attendance, I never considered my family to be very religious. Maybe we actually were and I just didn’t know the difference! I was involved in youth group, Sunday school, and church choir until I graduated from high school. I got involved again in my mid-twenties and that lasted until some time in my 30s, when I wandered away from the church and wondered toward, “What are my gifts and how do I use them in service to others?”

The idea of using your God-given talents in service to others definitely comes straight out of the Bible. I learned it in church as well as at home, and I have since analyzed my understanding of it to be sure I want to hold that value as my own. I don’t feel that way about everything I learned in church, trust me.

When I was a psychic child who felt spirits around me, unseen except in my mind’s eye, I gave little thought to such abilities. My mom said I had a wonderful imagination and “What a lovely quality!” I shrugged and assumed that all creative people shared my “woo-woo” experiences.

But there I was in my thirties, wondering if being a property manager was what God or the divine or my own soul intended for me to do. I loved my job and I was good at it, I was a good boss, I was a great project manager (still love project management!), and I made pretty good money for a woman at that time and in that field. But I just had this nagging feeling, the tug of Fate, if you will, that there was something else I was supposed to share with the world.

“Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” -Matthew 5:15–16

See? I told you it was in the Bible. And that I can quote the scriptures, being a Presbyaptist.

I no longer believe in the “church God” and I don’t believe that Jesus is my Lord and Savior. In fact, from what I have learned and read about Jesus, I don’t believe he even wanted to be anyone’s Lord and Savior. He was the Great Messenger, in my book, a prophet with some really great, really feminine ideas and ideals! The other night, while trying to sleep, I suddenly thought, maybe Jesus was actually a woman. That would explain all his divine-feminine teachings of love, help, support, nurturing, sharing, etc. And why the men were so very afraid of him!

But I do believe that there is a vast collection of divine entities and energies, which together comprise the force that creates the physical world/universe we live in. Each of us has a chunk of this divine collective, which we commonly call a soul, living within us. (I call my soul Chunky Divine. It just works.)

In my search, I discovered that I was actually quite woo-woo. I began practicing as a psychic and discovered what those unseen spirits were: the late loved ones of my clients. (When I was a kid, they were only people who had passed away, because I didn’t have any clients.) And I was off and running! It was very exciting to be a psychic and a medium! I loved it! I regularly hung up the phone after a reading and sat on the sofa in my office, agape at the power of my abilities and the connection they created between me and my clients and the divine. It truly was a wonder, and I was overwhelmingly grateful.

After almost fifteen years of that practice, I started feeling the tug again. My angels and guides let me know that I needed to expand my services to use ever more of my gifts in service to others.

“More of my gifts?” Hm… I had offered life and/or business coaching as an intuitive off and on throughout my practice as a psychic medium. I love teaching, training, supporting, encouraging others and helping them figure out their own path. So I began to pursue coaching in earnest. I opened the doors to my Mighty MoJo Club and enrolled other midlife women who wanted to use their gifts in service to others, make their lives better, and figure out their destinies.

This new endeavor struggled to get off the ground. I absolutely loved it and knew it was right, but I still wasn’t sure that I was doing enough. My ever-patient angels and guides kept nudging me. The Club and my individual coaching clients became a broader part of my work, and my psychic practice dwindled. This also felt right and actually quite good, because I had grown tired of giving readings. What had once left me agape now left me slightly bored and, if you’ll forgive me, disspirited. Talking to spirits, as special as it could be for my clients, had always felt a little bit like a parlor trick. I mean, it’s real, no sleight-of-hand, but it’s the kind of thing that makes people go, “Ooh! Ahh!”, it’s showy and show-offy. Showman though I am, I was just tired of it. Like an actress having played Ophelia on stage for fifteen years-the appeal had worn smooth.

The Club grew so very slowly; I hired a friend from a coaching group I belonged to (as a client, not as the coach) to help me with marketing. She was an “out” witch. And I vaguely knew I was a witch too, but I didn’t have any form of practice, except regular meditation and communing with my guides. I don’t care much for rituals, either, although I had become a true genius with manifestation, which, technically, yeah, that’s kind of ritualistic and, dare I say, magical? My process of manifestation is actually a ritual that could be labelled spellcasting. No question.

Naturally, just as had happened when I first learned I was a psychic, people and information crossed my path, teaching me about witchcraft without me even thinking about it. I read an article about young people (“Gen Z”) in particular who are forging a new interest in the Craft. I understood that everyone designs their own path.

And, as so often happens to me, it hit me squarely between the eyes one day. I was having my daily Spray-n-Pray time in the shower, and I got the message. “Oh! Well, duh! Of course, I am a witch!”

Like my friend, “A”, who is a psychic and possibly a medium, parading as an intuitive life coach, I have been a witch in psychic medium’s clothing. My psychic gift is but one of the many under my umbrella witch identity.

That’s it. It’s a new identity. Hello, paradigm shift and existential crisis. Except I am not afraid. I feel like I have come home. And I know there is far more to come. I used to wonder, after a few years in the psychic biz, if there would come a time when I found other gifts and what they might be. How about that?

Oh, and I have dubbed my practice “MoJo-Craft.” Chunky Divine approves.

*That’s a quote from the first episode of “Bewitched”, a childhood favorite of mine, when Samantha reveals and proves to her husband that she is, in fact, a witch.

Originally published at https://mojomedium.com.

Do you get paid for your work? Whatever your job, whether you are a cashier at Wal-Mart or the CEO of a Forbes 500, or anything in between or around, do you receive payment for the work that you do? Yes?

Does it occur to you that those persons listed above (and presumably others) also work hard and deserve to be paid?

This isn’t just about the “exposure” insult (when a client tells a designer, for example, “we can’t pay you, but you’ll get great exposure.” Nobody can eat exposure.). This is about the basic assumption that a person’s work is worth nothing, just because it’s unconventional or because it is a talent that is not actually learnable. A God-given gift, not a degree.

What if an artist, writer, painter, performer, alternative healer, or intuitive actually gave you something of great value? What if you felt changed for the better after your encounter with their art or service? What if it literally changed your life?

If you went to the doctor, would you expecct to be treated for free? If you went to college, would you expect the professors to work for free? Yes, I get it that they have “pedigreed credentials”, where as many artists and “weirdos” do not — but that does not mean that what they offer, with all their blood, sweat, and tears, with their whole heart and soul, lacks value.

And in this world, “value” = you pay for it. Please do not ask any of these such practitioners to work for free.

Susan Morrow-Johnson, aka MoJo Medium, is a Manifestation Genius, Groovy Life Coach, Psychic Medium, and Writer. She’s non-tall, non-skinny, non-young, and very beautiful. She has two grown daughters and one tattoo. If you like what you just read, please do old MoJo a solid and click on that there applause symbol. You can also do yourself a solid by checking out the Mighty MoJo Club online community and/or getting the best psychic reading you’ll ever get, hands down.

Visit MoJo online at MoJoMedium.com and @TheMoJoMedium on Instagram.

Y’all. This is serious.

It is the age-old question. The one that has puzzled philosophers and Joe Blows since time immemorial:

Why are we here?

I was working on this recently, and by “working on”, I mean I was meditating, asking my A&G’s*, and feeling around psychically, as is my wont.

The first answer that came through was one you may have heard before: To make the world a better place.

I like that answer. In the past, I have been told that we are here to be happy, to find what we love to do and do it. I’ve also learned that we all have talents, and we are free to use those talents in service to others, thereby blessing ourselves and those whom we serve. I like those answers too.

But this idea of making the world a better place brought me to another question: Why? Why do we come here, into physical life, to make our physical world a better place?

And here’s what came through. It’s a doozie, so hang on to your hat: We are compelled to do so.

Yeah. It’s not even so much a compulsion as it is an instinct, an innate drive — innate to the body AND the soul! Wow.

You know how the survival instinct is so incredibly strong? How hunger drives you to eat? That, if you want to starve yourself for a hunger strike, it’s physically very difficult. Even someone who wants to kill himself has to override the body’s strong instinct to stay alive. Psychologists say it is almost impossible to commit suicide by drowning, because your body will fight instinctively to overcome the water. Even when a person dies of natural causes, the body will sometimes twitch or spasm as the soul tries to leave. That survival instinct is the most powerful that we are born with.

And the instinct or drive or compulsion to return to the physical from the non-physical — that heavenly place where all is joy and love? — is at least that strong. We HAVE to come back and try to make the world a better place. It’s biology. Not just spirit, which science has yet to fully define.

Before I received this information, I had come to believe, or even to feel that I KNOW, that a soul hangs out in Heaven and plans its next life. Among other things, of course, such as checking in on their loved ones and maybe fitting a round of golf or a game of bridge here and there. (That’s only partly a joke.) Some souls attend classes and meetings, while others seem to be hanging out and enjoying the newly-re-discovered peace and happiness that are Heaven.

In addition, some years ago, I channeled this message about what happens to people after death:

They are a different kind of energy [from physical] and do not stay with you constantly. Their energy melds with that of the Universe, or God, and returns to a collective stance. They then can check in on you and visit you, but they are doing other work. What is this work? They are finding out what their next life will be and deciding what they want to experience and who to take with them. It is like planning a corporation. The plans always come through. Nothing is ever wasted or done “wrong.”

And I have always found this helpful and inspiring. Then, my husband, who is also my CFO, CPA, Grand Vizier, and Muse, started asking, “Why are we here? Why do we keep coming back? Why wouldn’t we want to stay where there’s so much happiness and we get to be with our loved ones?”

You have probably wondered that yourself. And now, I have an answer. Is it THE answer? We can only speculate at this point. But I am going to act like it’s the Truth with a Big T, and I am going to keep trying to make the world a better place.

If that’s what most people — or even SOME people do — life after life, working to leave the world even a little better than they found it — then the world and all humanity will continue to evolve into a stronger, better, happier, more prosperous, healthier place. And we’re going to want that, since we have to keep coming back just like we have to eat!

• A&G’s = Angels & Guides. Of course. :o)

Susan Morrow-Johnson, aka MoJo Medium, is a Manifestation Genius, Groovy Life Coach, Psychic Medium, and Writer. She’s non-tall, non-skinny, non-young, and very beautiful. She has two grown daughters and one tattoo. If you like what you just read, please do old MoJo a solid and click on that there applause symbol. You can also do yourself a solid by checking out the Mighty MoJo Club online community and/or getting the best psychic reading you’ll ever get, hands down.

Visit MoJo online at MoJoMedium.com and @TheMoJoMedium on Instagram.

These four sets of coins show the things I have always wanted, backed with their opposites. Rich/poor, fat/thin, married/single, popular/unpopular.

You may have other coins, like employed/unemployed, healthy/sick, happy/depressed, even parent/childless. That last one can be a bit tricky to change spiritually, if you are having fertility problems, but everything is energy, so let’s keep going.

I tend to think or believe that I haven’t had the “bright” sides, but that’s not true. For example, my angels guided me to see this: I’m married now — how did I manifest it or receive it? How did I activate it in my experience? I was single a very long time.

The first thing I realize is that I was focused on not being married for a long time. When my first husband died, I felt strongly that I needed to be married, so I got married right away. I quickly discovered that I would much rather be single than married to the wrong man. Divorced him, toute suite.

A year and a half later, I started dating a man whom I soon fell in love with. I wanted to marry him for the entire seven years that we dated, until he dumped me to marry someone else. (His main reason for not marrying me was that I was poor — one of my other coins. Hoo-boy.)

After he dumped me, I declared that I would never again want someone who didn’t want me — and that has served me well in several instances, including friendships. (Are you taking notes?)

I found that, apart from often not having enough money (because it can be hard for a woman to make a good living unless she is a doctor or lawyer or other professional), being single was fine. When I thought about it, I focused on the good things about it, like choosing whatever I wanted — on TV, to buy, to cook or not to cook, to go and do whatever — without having to consult or even consider someone, especially someone who was a terrible husband, like my second one.

I processed the hell out of my past romantic relationships, too, and learned all I could about myself, how I could behave differently, and what I wanted to give and share. And receive. By “processed”, I mean that I scrutinized incidents and conversations and arguments, all to see from my new objective point of view what I could have done differently to show the Universe that I loved and valued myself, not only him. (More notes here.)

I made a couple of different lists of characteristics I wanted in a mate. I eventually tore up and threw away the first one and I posted the other one on Facebook. Not very long after the post, I met Don.

This is what my angels guided me through about the coins. The pairings are sides of one coin. You can’t be both at once, not rich and poor, for example. (Although you can be in between.)

I’ve always wanted to be rich, thin, married, and popular. But I am instead broke, fat, and unpopular — but now married!

And that’s why I am using that married/single coin to figure out how I came to settle on the “wrong” side of the other coins and how to change them. Is it because I liked and embraced being single, the “dark” side of that coin? Have I focused too much on the “dark” sides of the other coins? Does fear have anything to do with it?

Let’s take a look at popular/unpopular. When I was in junior high and high school, all I wanted was to be popular (and thin, but that’s a different coin — and I wasn’t even fat!). By the time I was a senior, I was probably what most people would consider popular: I had plenty of friends and a lot of people knew who I was. But I was never in the “popular crowd”, so I thought I was unpopular — or maybe “not popular”.

In the intervening years, I mostly have felt that I didn’t have enough friends — although I did feel popular for a couple of years when I led a large networking group in Austin. Also, I had a lot of work with my first business — I did not equate that with popularity, but I should have — but I have not had nearly enough clients since then. And in my life now, “popularity” equals “lots of clients”.

Popularity is still important in terms of clients and work. Those “likes” on my Facebook fan page are paramount. How does “Madame Not-Even-Any-Good Psychic” have 10,000 likes? I don’t know that answer any more now than I knew how someone became a cheerleader in high school. If I did, I would have bottled it by now and made a mint!

Speaking of unpopular, last year, two groups of friends dumped me — turned on me, even. One was my little clutch from late high school/college — the really tight besties. The other was a bunch of childhood friends who had always been in my life. Both hurt.

I’ve known for some time that I always thought I was fat when I wasn’t. I was adorable when I was younger and thinner! (I am actually fat now. Even the doctor says so.) Most of us have this trouble, never thin enough, right? But I have been mostly in body-acceptance mode for about 10 years or so. That “fat thing” is so very deeply ingrained in Western women, it’s hard to overcome. If I go by my “married coin”, my acceptance and even love for my fat body should do the trick, right? Well, as of this writing, I’m down ten pounds. Shrug.

Now, for the “rich/poor” coin. I have been comfortable (never “rich”) at times in my life, but I have mostly focused on the times of struggle, even discounting the prosperous times as exceptions, too few and far between. I’m not sure what the reality is, as I have been in the “poor” zone for a very long time now. I fear/ed poverty and struggle and not-enough-ness…

And maybe fear is the key. According to the Law of Attraction, what you focus on expands. Being afraid is one way of focusing your vibration. I was afraid of being single when Tim died, but not at all when I divorced Number Two. I came to embrace and even like being single, in large part because I knew how bad it was to be married to the wrong person. I don’t want to be single now only because I love Don and want to be with him. But I’m not afraid of being single.

So…

I’m not afraid of being fat.

I’m not afraid of being poor.

I’m not afraid of being unpopular.

Of course, with affirmations, we use positive words:

I embrace being fat.

I embrace being poor.

I embrace being unpopular.

Whew! Heady stuff.

Next: What’s good or “to like” about being fat, poor, and unpopular? Maybe you can extrapolate these for your own coins.

Fat = still pretty, more feminine/womanly, empathetic to other fat women, might help others overcome their fear of fatness, will survive and ice age, and won’t ever freeze to death

Poor = makes you get creative (with food, clothes, décor), you find out who loves you unconditionally (and who doesn’t — no, really, people will abandon or hate you when you are poor), you really appreciate bargains and cheap entertainment — which you can continue when you have more money too

Unpopular = plenty of “me-time”? Appreciate yourself? Make changes that make you more likeable? Get creative with how to meet/reach people? Obviously, this one is still tripping me up.

Start off with embracing what is now and what you’ve got. While you are “haunted” by your fears of the “dark” side of your coin, your coins cannot change.

Appreciate moments that were what you like, if any. Remember a time you had that and enjoy the memories, being careful not to be resentful that those times are no more.

And finally, look forward to improvements, but don’t depend on them for your happiness. Let your happiness stand on its own, enjoying and giving thanks for what is here and now, remembering and cherishing the good things that used to be, and smiling at your imagination of the “bright” side of the coin that is coming.

And get ready — those coins can flip very quickly!

Susan Morrow-Johnson, aka MoJo Medium, is a Manifestation Genius, Groovy Life Coach, Psychic Medium, and Writer, who always has a lot of projects going on. She’s non-tall, non-skinny, non-young, and very beautiful. She has two grown daughters and one tattoo. If you like what you just read, please do old MoJo a solid and click on that there applause symbol. You can also do yourself a solid by checking out the Mighty MoJo Club online community and/or getting the best psychic reading you’ll ever get, hands down.

Visit MoJo online at MoJoMedium.com and @TheMoJoMedium on Instagram.

In “7 Ways to Be Insufferable on Facebook”, by Tim Urban, on www.WaitButWhy.com (http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/07/7-ways-to-be-insufferable-on-facebook.html), Tim tells us that, “A Facebook status is annoying if it primarily serves the author and does nothing positive for anyone reading it.” He goes on to say, “To be unannoying, a Facebook status typically has to be one of two things: 1) Interesting/Informative or 2) Funny/Amusing/Entertaining”.

He then goes on to list all the ways that people are narcissistic and lonely and other undesirable adjectives on Facebook. All of his examples are almost all of what is actually on Facebook, which makes me think he is trying to convince us all to just stop. He advises us to contact our closest friends via email, text, and personal conversation, if we want to brag about an achievement or talk about what we had for lunch. He leaves nothing to post on Facebook and offers no further suggestions of what he might consider “unannoying”.

After delighting in this writer’s complaints, I decided to develop a list of my own.

7 Ways to Be/Have Fun on Facebook

1.) A Picture Paints — Word around the water cooler is that Facebook “prioritizes” photos, so be sure to include a photo — or video — with each post. You readers like pictures, too, just like toddlers who can’t read yet. Personally, a picture draws me in, but if you don’t even want to add words, that’s okay, too.

2.) Got Vague? — Vaguebooking is the term for telling your readers nothing, even though you typed a few or more words. For example, “Oh, this does not look good.” While this does annoy some people (Personally, I apologize if I feel required to vaguebook), it can A) start a dialog and B) relieve your feelings of needing to vent while being unable, due to the wrong people seeing your post. Pro Tip: Facebook has provided a new way to be more open while refraining from offending the party/s in question: you can post to only some friends and exclude others. It’s the Facebook equivalent of a high-school clique. Try it!

3.) Let’s Eat! — Ah, food. That favorite topic of Facebookers everywhere. We love our videos of how to make moo shu pork in the slow cooker or ice cream in the microwave. Keep those “Tasty” videos comin’! And who doesn’t like to see that you have joined the Clean Plate Club? One of my favorite food shares is a picture of something that I think is particularly artful, such as spaghetti with deep-green steamed broccoli on the side, especially when there is an attractive place-setting and a tempting glass of Tempranillo to go with.

4.) Is It Getting Political in Here or Is It Just Me? — Yeah. Politics. I do it all the time. I can’t help myself. I feel passionately about many political and social issues of our time. Don’t you????

5.) To Die For — Celebrity deaths are always a favorite topic, and deaths of your own loved ones will elicit great sympathy. Facebook gives us the chance to share our condolences, even if we are unable to attend the funeral or we’re not really close enough to send a card. Share a pic of your loved one (see #1, above) and/or write some words of your own. Share the obituary, if any. I am very interested, and so are your other FB friends.

6.) Let’s Talk Dirty to the Animals — (That’s an old Gilda Radner song, if you didn’t know. Hie thee to You Tube and look it up!) Our pets are our family. Share info and pictures of your pets as often as possible. Don’t you eat up posts about animals? What about that video with the dog who puts his back feet down on the pool bottom and stops swimming, holding his front paws up in front so cute? OMG! Head exploded! And I like to share posts from my local shelter, hoping to help people adopt furbabies into their fur-ever homes.

7.) There’s No Business Like Your Business — Promote yourself and your services. It’s best to have a personal page and a business page and talk about your business on both. The friends on your personal page care and want to know how it’s going and might want to be customers or refer someone to you. And your followers on your business page need to know what you’re offering, right? So don’t be shy. Shout out every day!

Is this tongue-in-cheek? Not exactly. This really is what I do and what you do and what we like on Facebook. Maybe we are silly, maybe we are “annoying” or “insufferable”, but we’re still doing it, aren’t we? If we get tired of all this, we’ll quit FB. Yeah. Like that’s ever going to happen.

Footnote. I notice that Wait But Why has a considerable presence on Facebook.

Susan Morrow-Johnson, aka MoJo Medium, is a Manifestation Genius, Groovy Life Coach, Psychic Medium, and Writer. She’s non-tall, non-skinny, non-young, and very beautiful. She has two grown daughters and one tattoo. If you like what you just read, please do old MoJo a solid and click on that there applause symbol. You can also do yourself a solid by checking out the Mighty MoJo Club online community and/or getting the best psychic reading you’ll ever get, hands down.

Visit MoJo online at MoJoMedium.com and @TheMoJoMedium on Instagram.

She and my dad were married almost 28 years. I was 24 when they wed, so I did not have the chance to know her in my formative years. It’s a little different, I think, when your parent remarries when you’re an adult, compared to when you are growing up.

It takes longer to get to know your step-parent and your step-siblings. I never had the pleasure of knowing my step-brother very well before he died tragically just before his 40th birthday.

But what did happen is that I found pretty quickly how happy my dad was with her. They seemed to buoy one another up, not only in that horror of my step-brother’s death, but in everyday life. Daddy was committed to her and she to him, in marriage, in support, in encouragement, in lifting-up. He became successful in his business with her support, and credits her with that success. They traveled endlessly around the world and created cherished memories of a happy and interesting life.

And they had fun. As I read over this tribute, I realized I forgot to mention that. They were serious about their relationship, but having fun was a basis of that. My dad is a comic, and she didn’t used to “guffaw”, so he taught her to cut loose and laugh heartily. He was forever telling me the latest funny they shared and laughed about.

Along the way, I got to know this woman who made my dad so happy. When he was out of town on business, and I knew she was home alone, I would call her up and visit for a few minutes. I liked the idea of having my own relationship with her, not just as “my father’s wife”.

She was so gracious and never let on how my chattering style bothered her. I never knew until after her passing that I was not her “type of person”, because she just loved me all the same. She sincerely enjoyed my company, even if it wasn’t her favorite type of company.

She was officially one of my children’s three grandmothers, dubbed “Memaw” by her oldest grandchild. They adored her and her popovers (Camille owns the old popover pan) and her welcoming, accepting way. With her golden needle and unsurpassed talent, she needle-pointed their special Christmas stockings, something she did for ALL the grandchildren and, eventually, shortly before her death, the great-grandchildren.

Some years into their marriage, I was delighted to discover that she and I wore the same size shoe, although we were built nothing alike otherwise, she being statuesque and blonde, and I being, well — the opposite of that. She had wonderful taste and beautiful clothes. She handed down to me a pair of shoes that I would never have been able to afford. They were a little ballerina flat in neutrals and metallics. I wore them completely out. Shortly before she died, she gave me a pair of black patent sandals that were meant for walking. I got some use out of them that summer, and they were still in great shape for the next year. Again, they were shoes I would never have bought myself, so that was a treat. Besides, they were hers. And I was glad to have them.

Her marriage to my dad has shown and taught me a lot about relationships, and I strive to emulate it every day. I learned, both during my own relationships and outside of them, how to support a spouse, how to love, to be patient and kind, to be thoughtful and communicative, and that marriage is really wonderful when both partners do all that. They made a point of sitting down together every, single day to discuss their feelings and their lives, and to pray together. No one is perfect, and I know she and Daddy must have had their moments, but I never saw them. They protected their marriage and treated it as a treasured and sacred entity, which it was.

What the future holds for my dad, we don’t know, and we don’t need to know right now. I can only feel grateful to have had her in my own life, and far more importantly, that my dad had her in his.

Godspeed, Jean Mosher Kendall.

1. Speed limit — Houston drivers actually meet and regularly exceed it. In Austin, there is no speed limit, because everyone goes 45 or 50 mph in the left lane on the freeways. Unless you’re on I-35, in which case, all hope is lost.

2. Zoo — One of the best in the country, nay, the world. When the Houston Zoo, already one of the top zoos anywhere, went private a few years ago, it hired the designer of Disney World’s Animal Kingdom. ‘Nuff said.

3. Professional football team — Sure, it’s just the Texans, but it’s still a pro team.

4. Flora — Austin is essentially a desert, and Houston is basically a swamp. Kind of a toss-up, except that in Houston, plants will actually grow. A little north of the city lie the Piney Woods with their Big Thicket. In the spring, azaleas blaze all over Houston and East Texas, along with numerous other blooming plants. In Austin, the grass is brown by June and the bluebonnets are long gone, leaving a sad, dry, windy summer, fall, and winter.

5. Reliant Stadium — no supporting info required

6. Roads, freeways, and highways — actually intended to get you where you need to go. In Austin, “You can’t get there from here” is a common phrase. Also, most streets in Houston have a maximum of two names, if that many. In Austin, confusion abounds over the 4 choices of names for any given thoroughfare — and of course, any street called “Loop Something” doesn’t actually go AROUND anything.

7. Proximity to the coast — Galveston, less than an hour away. Say what you will about Galveston’s beaches, but hey, the beach is the beach, AND Galveston is an amazing place with some very cool history and science. Oh, and how about the easy opp to drive down for lunch at Gaido’s?

8. Medicine and science — And speaking of science, Houston’s medical center is among the very best in the world. Research in medicine and other sciences exceeds that in most cities in the country. True, Austin has UT, but no major medical center. If I got cancer, I’d head to M.D. Anderson.

9. Restaurants — I have to admit, this is almost a tie, but the scales tip in Houston’s favor by sheer numbers alone. Due in large part to a highly eclectic population, Houston’s restaurants offer every possible cuisine in the world. Austin’s offerings, while admittedly impressive, simply can’t compete. Update: Years ago, I dubbed certain fare to be “Austin food”. It’s that spinach-bananas-pine-nuts chutney over a braised salmon with a blueberry-periwinkle glaze kind of crap that you only find at places like Z-Tejas. I know it’s in Houston too, but it is only in places I can’t afford, so it’s not my problem.

10. Travel and culture — Did you know Houston has more legitimate theatre seats than any city in the U.S. except New York? The museum district boasts a dozen venues, plus there are fascinating smaller museums all over town. I am a fan of the Blanton and the Bob Bullock in Austin, but again, the sheer numbers make Houston the winner. AND the two airports make travel anywhere in the world pretty simple. True, the big one is on the far outreaches of the city, BUT look at Austin’s, which is a half-hour drive minimum from anywhere in the city — IF you can get there from here. And if you’re just hopping to Dallas from Houston, Hobby Airport is right in town.

Reasons Why Austin Is Better than Houston

1. (Former morning radio juggernaut) JB & Sandy — I really miss y’all! And Austin radio in general is better than Houston radio. This is a really subjective topic, but I am surprised that a city of 5 million people doesn’t have better listening options.

2. Jim Spencer — Only the best weatherman in weatherman history!

Sorry, that’s all I can come up with. Please, add to the list!

An old man walked into the James Avery store in Pearland on Saturday. He approached the lady behind the counter and held out the latest James Avery catalog. “I’d like to buy this cross, please,” he told her, indicating a lovely gold cross pendant that had clovers at the end of each bar.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” the lady replied. “We don’t have that one in stock here. I can order it from Kerrville, and it will be here Tuesday.”

The old man’s eyes filled with tears. He felt compelled to tell the nice lady his story. “You see, my wife is dying,” he began. “I’ve been taking care of her for months, and it won’t be long now. Years ago, she had this same James Avery cross, but it was stolen in a break-in. At that time, back in the ‘80’s, James Avery had stopped making this cross, so we were never able to replace it. This morning, my wife was looking through the new catalog and said with happy surprise, ‘Oh, look, honey, here’s that cross I loved so much!’ I told her I would go right out and get it for her, so that she could enjoy it…for a few days.

“Please go ahead and order it for me, and, if she is still here on Tuesday, I will give it to her.”

The lady at the counter didn’t know what to say. She took a breath and said, “There are other stores here in Houston that have the cross in stock. Would you like for me to call the nearest one and ask them to hold it for you?”

“No. Thank you,” said the old man, “but I can’t be gone from my wife’s side for that long. I have to go back home now. Let’s go ahead and order the one from Kerrville.” And he left.

The next morning, the old man’s phone rang. The lady from the James Avery store was calling. “Sir, I was so touched by your story that I went to the other store and picked up your cross for you. It is here at the Pearland store any time you would like to pick it up.”

“Oh, thank you!” the old man replied with true appreciation. He went to the store that afternoon, picked up the cross, and presented it to his wife. She immediately asked him to put it around her neck, and she admired it and held onto it all afternoon.

She did indeed live past the next Tuesday and, when their daughter came to visit, she showed the cross proudly. “Look what your daddy got for me!”

Later, the old man talked to his best friend. “I don’t know why I bought that cross for her, Bill. I hope it brings her some joy in these last few weeks — or days of her life.”

Bill said, “When she’s gone, you wear the cross. Put it on and wear it under your shirt, and, when you are feeling like maybe you weren’t a good enough husband, you take it out and look at it. And you’ll know that you were good enough.”

See more at www.SusanKMorrow.com.

Ever been attacked? Bullied? Cyber-picked-on? Outright screamed at?

I recently got verbally crucified by a life-long friend. (And I rather doubt the friendship can survive.) For some reason, she posted a diatribe about what a terrible person I was as a comment on a Facebook post of mine. I don’t know what triggered her revelation of her apparently-long-held anger, but she let me have it. Hard. And it hurt.

I removed the post from Facebook and messaged her privately, apologizing for her pain and my contribution to it–which was, of course, innocent. I would never cause her pain on purpose. But I did so accidentally. And she turned it around, years later, to hurt me back.

My many apologies seemed to soften her anger slightly, but she did not forgive me. And she repeatedly described her own pain and anguish, of which I had been a part. She did not acknowledge my own horrific pain at the same time, nor do I think she is aware of it even now. And that makes me think she does not care.

Being excluded, ignored, or treated with apathy may be some of the worst pain in the world, especially when you are suffering from some of life’s hardest blows. Apathy serves to add insult to injury. But I did not defend myself to my friend, I only acknowledged her feelings and apologized again.

Now, this lady is by nature very sweet, one of the nicest people I have ever known. Her unkind behavior and downright cruelty toward me were extremely out of character. I believe that she has been “tutored” by someone to be angry with me. I only hold her accountable for being so ugly to me with absolutely no consideration for where I was coming from.

My response to her was to apologize repeatedly and to make mention of all of us having pain. She didn’t know, probably still does not know, how deeply she hurt me with her harsh words, words that accused me of being just an asshole, someone who doesn’t care at all, or even someone who would hurt another person on purpose.

As I am processing this incident–and it knocked me for a loop–I wrote up a little something on Facebook that I’d like to share with you here. It is for those who have been hurt, but it is also for those who do the hurting, intentional or not. And we all have been both.

Before you accuse someone, before you lash out in anger, before you even have a bad thought about someone, please try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Most people are not trying to hurt or offend you. Most of us are doing the best we can to get through every moment. Life isn’t always easy, but love is what makes it worth it.

Here’s my note:

Have compassion.

Show some compassion today. Not just to one person, but to everyone.

Assume positive intent. Not everyone is being rude or mean on purpose.

Include the person who never goes. Maybe you’ve left her out, thinking she’s shy. Maybe she’s depressed. Maybe including her will do her a world of good that you can’t imagine. Maybe excluding her–again–will hurt her more deeply than you’ll ever know.

Some people get depressed and get treatment for it. Some don’t.
Many people who seek treatment for depression take a long time–years even–to get the right balance of treatment for them to feel okay.

Sometimes a depressed person seems grumpy, because that’s the best she can do to keep from crying in front of you. Or all the time. Sometimes “grumpy” is her M.O., because that’s how she manages to show up for work and tries to get through the day. Maybe it is taking every ounce of courage and energy she has just to get out of bed.

Be kind to someone who is poor. Being poor is not necessarily a reflection on how hard a person works or how willing a person is to work. You know the old saying, “If wealth were the inevitable result of hard work, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.” And so would I.

There is no excuse for showing contempt for someone simply because he is poor. He’s not poor because he wants to be, or because he is trying to cause an affront to you. Nobody enjoys being poor, believe me.

Call your friend who has lost a loved one within the last year or two. Let them know you’re thinking about them and that you care. Grief is a pain that lessens over time but never goes away.

Have compassion today. Show compassion every day.

More: www.susankmorrow.com/blog