How I Came to Camp Chesterfield

(Or What's a Nice Southern Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?)

When you live in the setting of a potential novel, say a magical and mysterious place like Camp Chesterfield--a place where the Spirits stand so close you can feel their breath on your skin, it's not unusual to be asked a question like, "So how did you get here? And what made you want to live here?" First, let me clarify, I actually like the feel of Spirit close by me, close as the dewy damp autumn fog of today, a palpable coolness that feels like a hug. Some of my favorite times to walk the grounds are when no one else is out--night time or early morning.

But I digress.  I was asked what brought me here.

Well, you see for nearly a decade before I arrived I was writing a novel --and I still haven't finished it-- about my great Aunt Arzelia Ransdall, Daddy's aunt who lived in Kentucky and was a medium. She trained at Camp Chesterfield. Daddy told endless stories about her boarding the train in Louisville and standing on the platform of the final train car in her fox furs, waving dramatically to her husband and children, "Goodbye! Goodbye!" she called, waving a hankie as if she was never coming back. Of course, she didn't need those fox furs. It was May and already getting warm. 

She rode the train all the way to Chesterfield, got off at the train station (where Jazzi's Flower Shop is now and the old depot has fallen down over the last years). She had her steamer trunk hoisted onto a horse-drawn wagon as if she were crossing the Great Plains in search of new prospects and life adventures.. Actually the wagon only pulled Arzelia and her companions about six blocks down the street, through the iron gate into Camp Chesterfield. One of the attending drivers probably carried her trunk into her room in either the Lily Hotel (now gone) or the Sunflower.  

I heard these stories throughout my life. There were many tales of Arzelia's adventures as a medium. I remember stories of, the spirits of her lost children banging their silver spoons on the trays of their high chairs in the kitchen, how the ghosts that visited her seances tipped the tables, and then there were the ones who woke up Arzelia's house guests with messages of hope from beyond the veil. Of course, when you are trying to sleep and not expecting a ghost (as my mother was not--and she had quite a story to tell about her nephew Billy)... well, even a message of hope or an answer to a prayer from beyond was enough to scare the Bejeezus out of anybody.  (Bejeezus is a reverential Southernism, I'm sure.)

Yes, I heard a novel's worth of stories about Camp Chesterfield, and so one deep, snowy January day my husband and I decided for some reason to drive four hours north in the snow. I wanted an adventure and I came to Chesterfield in search of someone who might have heard of my Aunt Arzelia. I'm not even sure what I expected, but at that time the Western Hotel was open and Rev. Mary Beth Hattaway smiled so sweetly at me. "Oh, how wonderful to see you and all of your people!" she said. And even though I wasn't sure what it meant to walk through the hotel door with all of my people then, well, I just felt overjoyed with her very Southern drawl and her smile and twinkling eyes. I exchanged some money for a room with steam heat that was fogging up the windows. 

When I asked where I might find the oldest medium who lived on the grounds and might know of my great aunt, she directed me down the street to an elderly lady of about 97 or so. "Don't be fooled," she advised me. She's still pretty sharp." So I trudged down the Western Avenue to Emma Kruger's house. Yes, she was wonderfully colorful, novel-worthy in fact. I sat and talked with her for about two hours, asking all kinds of questions, such as "How did a nice German lady like yourself come to Chesterfield?" And "Have you always been a medium?"  And other things. She kept trying to give me a reading, telling me about all my people who were standing around me, even though I assured her I had only come to find out about Camp Chesterfield itself and perhaps my aunt's time there.

"And did you live here in the 1950s and 60s?" I asked. "What was it like then?"

She said, "There is someone around you who likes fish.  Do you know someone who likes fish?"

"Maybe," I answered. "I have a lot of Catholic relatives. They eat a lot of fish."

She seemed very nice, not at all put out with me, even though she'd been sitting in her wheelchair for several hours and the television was still rumbling on with some game show in the background. I asked her about her studies there at Chesterfield and what was a platform dress.  I'd heard my Aunt spent a lot of money on her rhinestone dresses, her long white gloves, her shiny black button-up ankle boots. My father was fascinated with my aunt's apparel, for some reason.

"Is there someone around you who likes beer?" Emma asked. "I am sure there is someone around you who just loved his beer. Is it your father?"

"No. My father drank vodka and whisky. My grandfather maybe. He liked his Oertel's 92."

"Me too. I like Oertel's 92," she said.

I'm pretty thick sometimes, but the right question to ask finally hit me like a ton of bricks. "Have you eaten yet today? It's after one o'clock and I've kept you from your lunch."  She said the Meals on Wheels didn't come on Saturdays so she was used to going without lunch. I told her I would go and get her some lunch. "What would you like?"

"A fish sandwich," she said. "And a beer. I'd like a 32-ounce beer," she said. "I've run out and there's none in the refrigerator."

Sure, I said. I'll be right back. And it took about 30 minutes. She ate happily, wheeling herself up to the TV table I found and set in front of her.  Between bites she wanted to tell me about my people, but for some reason if it wasn't about Arzelia, I wasn't interested. Anyway, I hadn't come for a reading.  When I left she was happily sucking on her beer. That was probably not a good thing for me to have left her alone with that beer and other obvious way to dispose of it. I didn't know her daughter didn't like her to have beer.

So I came to Camp Chesterfield to research a novel, to indulge myself in the sensory delights of the past--the sound of a train whistle in the middle of the night, steam pipes knocking, footsteps in the hallway. Wait--! I thought we were the only guests at the hotel! I kept coming back. I started taking classes. I regaled my writing friends in Kentucky with stories of Arzelia and I kept trying to find her factual footprints in the memories of the old mediums and the half-disintegrating hotel registers in the museum.

Finally, I just moved here. I took classes and love it. I developed some really sweet relationships with the people living here, and a few who had passed over, but stayed on in spirit. Some days when the COVID seeps underground and we mediums can return to the platform, you will find me here, standing where my Aunt Arzelia once stood probably. In the meantime, however, I'll be Zooming online to a Message Service near you, or appearing on the roster for the Midwest Mediumship Conference in October. I hope you come to love Camp Chesterfield as much as I have.

And if you've read all the way to the end of this, and you happen to be a publisher, literary agent, or movie producer, I have stories you wouldn't believe. That novel is still open for takers.

Earth Day Shivers

I am waiting in the dark
like one ray of sunlight
Aten
ready to pop out
from behind this cloud.
I am morning
longing for bird song.

I am trillium
with my two budded
lips pursed
suckling cold dew
from the teat of morning.
I am worry, prayer
a trembling kiss.

I am the chattering
pink teeth mark of redbud
waiting to explode
along the arm of tree.
I am the green hearts
of leaves longing
for perfect light.

In a cold viral world
I cry: Wake me!
For goddess sake,
unmask the glory
the aching craving--
this falling in love
with the earth
burning in light.
--Normandi Ellis

2020 is a Power Year

Did you know Pythagoras--yeah, that ancient Greek guy who was responsible for your having to learn the Pythagorean theorem in high school geometry--spent 30 years tramping up and down the Nile, wandering around lost inside the temples of ancient Egypt, begging the old scribes and priests of Ptah and Thoth to teach him everything, or anything, or whatever they knew about magic, the heka of hieroglyphs and numbers.

EGYPT!
That's the source of all our mystical, magical numerology, as well as our geometry and alchemy.  It's a story of secrets and struggle and working against the odds to gain what our heart and mind --nay, our very soul!-- desires.
It's a story fit for a new year--this new year!

Our 2020 is going to be filled with amazing energy.  2+0+2+0 = the Master number 22, which is the foundation of Temple building. Have you been called to build your Temple yet? Do you know how to manifest the desires within yourself as you stand inside your holy of holies, that sacred ground of your spiritual and alchemical constellation?

This planet Earth is undergoing massive changes at the hand of the Divine that has cojoined with our human hands to implement The Great Work. This is the future we've been waiting for. We are entering the wave of the New Age.

Two is the number of partnership, and this year we enter the greatest partnership we can ever imagine, that of partnering with Cosmic Intelligence. Two plus two.  (Isis and Thoth.  You and me.) We stretch out our hands to touch the hands of the divine. That's four hands, folks!  We are linked in a great building partnership. It takes a lot of work, and a lot of love, and a lot of commitment to build this kind of energy to accomplish the Work at hand.

AND that God Force Energy is twice amplified by the repetition of the number Zero, the Ouroboros--the forcefield of creativity from beginning to end, spiraling over on itself, recombining beginning and end. I'd expect a radical re-shifting in your priorities from focus on the material world to amplified visioning in the spiritual world.

Which doesn't mean we will be getting off easy with 2020.  It is the year of the Master Builder. Perhaps you foresee big things in your life. Thoth and Isis, the Ascended Masters, the Daimon, the Angels of Your Higher Nature--call them what you will--are beside you all the way, ready to assist with the building of the staircase that leads to enlightenment. You are ready to set your new life in motion but remember it is a daily re-ignition of the dream that will keep you going. You can achieve whatever you wish, with a bit of angelic help. And a lot of human determination.

Keep lighting candles. Affirm your positive steps daily. Get out your day planner. Do the work. Be grateful you are here on this planet to do the work. It is a gift, an honor to be here, working elbow to elbow with the Gods, Goddesses, Angels, and Ascended Masters. Roll up your sleeves!!!

Let's go.


I have some 2020 news of my own. My new book Hieroglyphic Words of Power: 
 Symbols for Magic, Divination and Dreamwork will be coming out from Bear & Co in May 2020. You can order it here: 

https://www.innertraditions.com/hieroglyphic-words-of-power

Its writing has been a labor of love for about 10 years, the same amount of time it took to write Awakening Osiris, which began my love affair with hieroglyphs and was published back in 1988. This new book explores why hieroglyphs have entranced  countless Egyptophiles like me throughout the centuries. Symbol and mythology, combined numerology and the pulse of vibration, the music of language... all moving together to create a kaleidoscope of meaning, layer upon layer.  I think you're gonna like it.

AND

There is a deck of cards that can be bought separately to accommodate your interest in using the hieroglyphs in an oracular fashion. I've been doing readings with Egyptian hieroglyphs for about 5 years now. First, I made my own deck of cards, then started meditating with each one of them daily, using them in private readings.  After a while and some work with my guides, I was able to use them clairvoyantly from my public demonstrations at Camp Chesterfield. The book is a result of all those meditations and work.  You can make your own deck, but there is a beautiful ready to go deck called the Oracle of Seshet, which contains the beautiful photographs of hieroglyphs that A. Auset Rohn and I created after a trip through Egypt searching the temples for images that demonstrate the magic of the language. By the way, her photographs appear in the book as well.  And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the handiwork of artist Lexy Hovis also graces the book so that you can draw the hieroglyphs is you like.  If you prefer to order a pre-made set to begin with, go to the bottom of the page here: http://www.thegoddessinside.com/must-have-books

In the early days of working with the hieroglyphs, I teemed up with Jean Houston to do some writing and editing in her book The Passion of Isis and Osiris. That followed the first tour I took in Egypt with her in 1992. For the last five years I have enjoyed traveling around the country teaching my classes in Hieroglyphic Words of Power and giving students the opportunity to learn hieroglyphic oracles by drawing their own cards on slips of papyri.  That's still a wonderful way to do it, but I now have included a deck of the same 60 hieroglyphic oracle cards in HiWoPo. They are called Seshet's Oracle, which can be.

So there's some of my new news.
Interested in studying with me? Contact me at ellisisis@gmail.com.
Stay tuned for more information about my travel plans for Egypt March 2021.

Keeping Sacred Calendars

When the Egyptian god Thoth created the world in his cauldron, according to myths in Heliopolis, he stirred the waters of creation and found there four pairs of beings, that were basically Infinite Light (Ra & Raet), Infinite Darkness  (Kek & Keket) Infinite Time (Heh & Hehet) and Infinite Space (Nu & Nut). Some include these two as well: Infinite Mystery (Amen &Amentet).

This talk evolved in the class I was teaching in sacred calendar, exploring a study of time, space, light, and dark as well as creation of the world.

***

Some of you may think that since the close of the Mayan calendar in 2012 there’s not an imperativeo for learning sacred calendars. I don’t believe that’s true. The sacred calendar lends a basic understanding for any metaphysical practice. In essence, sacred calendar is about learning to understand patterns now so well that you can predict the future and understand the past. Synchronicity is just a larger pattern that we have not yet grasped. It’s all in the timing.

Sacred calendar is steeped in several important phenomenon: Light, Vibration, Pattern, and Timing. And as light workers, which is what spiritualists are – whether Christian or Unitarian or Spiritualist or pagan – sacred calendars help us understand the importance of the liturgical year as well as give us a grass on the underlying power of light and dark, the rhythms of human life.

Meditation is useful as a tool because in it, you practice being in two worlds—stepping into earth time and sitting within eternal time. In meditation in eternal time, you can experience two things. It slows down your body clock enough so that you can move backward and forward across an infinite psychic space. This is the true meaning of the voice that speaks over the waters mentioned in Genesis. Here is how sacred calendars began.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 3Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (New American Standard Bible Genesis 1:1-5)

Thus, the first sacred calendar…

In other versions we are told that this is the voice upon the face of the water. And what is voice but a vibration or read them which sets out an energetic force that we may define as (New American Standard Bible Genesis 1:1-5) consciousness of God or God’s will. This vibration is time that ripples across space and sets the world in motion. From it emerge all atoms, planets and cycles.

Sacred calendar is all about seeing the pattern of your life as a mirror of God consciousness. In meditation you tap into that divine eternal creative. We can safely say that learning sacred calendar is part of learning how to use the Law of Vibration and the Law of Rhythm. Rhythm and time are intricately linked, as space and form are linked to vibration. The law of vibration monitors such things as the movement of atoms, the beating of the heart, the tug of the moon tides, the spinning of planets, earth, galaxies and universes. The construction of brain waves is part of what we metaphysicians call the Law of Thought – and thought is vibration.

Vibration is what composes space and time. Space and time themselves create consciousness. Consciousness is the meaning of matter – the things that exist in time and space in relationship to each other.

This study also shows us the powerful Law of Opposition wherein the sacred calendar reflects the potencies of light and dark, day and night, hot and cold, birth and death, sleeping and waking. Without primitive mankind ever knowing that the earth was tilting on its axis, she understood that a pattern was set for creating cold winters and hot summers with temperate springs and autumns. By tracking these patterns of opposition, she could regulate the times when it was important to plant and sow seeds, as well as to reap grains. Observing the movements of planets, stars and the sun he could predict the movement of game across the landscape and thus plan his hunting routes.

Time in general is about understanding cycles and light. (I have to say that as I was working on this material all of the clocks in my house began to check and run backwards. After three days they righted themselves. Make of that what you will. It’s a synchronicity I’ve yet to unravel.)

And so we have used sacred calendars, possibly since the beginning of human history, to help us modulate our life activities. They tracker agricultural seasons so that we don’t plant seeds too early or too late, and so that the shepherd knows when to send his flock or cattle into pasture. Women were probably the early calendar keepers because they noticed that their menstrual cycles and the cycles of the moon were similarly influential. Planetary and stellar cycles influenced the great ancient civilizations: The Mayans tracked the planet Venus with incredible accuracy and the ancient Egyptians tracked the helical rising of the star Sirius to ascertain the timing of the Nile flood.

Even birds, without calendars, migrate North or South based upon the amount of available sunlight in those places where they live. Their mating season and the production of eggs to create new life forms is stimulated by the effect of sunlight on their pineal glands. We are all creatures of light. And as light workers it is especially important to understand the power that the cycles of light manifestation have upon us.

Everything is pattern. Observing pattern is not simply observing things that are the same, but also observing the interaction between things that are somewhat dissimilar and yet hold a relationship between them. Synchronicity is a pattern whose cycle we haven’t understood yet, perhaps because we have not observed other occasions where two seemingly dissimilar things are in conjunction. In truth, the Law of Unity reminds us that everything is connected by the power of the divine.

Sacred calendar shows you your place in the cosmos. If you choose to accept it – and by that we mean work in accordance with it and not against it – your life becomes God-inspired and you reflect the divine spark. In accordance with the Law of Karma, we might say that difficult lives are about correcting the missed timing and actions that are out of rhythm from previous incarnations in a particular place and time. Now you can see that karma is also a cycle of time.

Karma keeps us in balance. Sacred calendar and karma are linked in terms of the Law of Balance. Karma in a psychological sense as well as an experience is equivalent to calendar rectification. If you are out of sequence with time in small ways you must gain or reduce atomic second, which is what NASA has done over the last decade. If you are out of balance in your life, it may require the addition of extra lifetimes (epigominal days) to restore the whole pattern. Balance in your life in large ways may be acquired through many lifetimes, which is the personal equivalent of the precession of the equinoxes.

Any time that you enter into the area of prediction, that is trying to ascertain where and when an event will occur, you are gazing into the time and space of a divine intelligence. The Law of Preponderance tells us that everything is a part of God consciousness. It all moves together like swarms of bees in a pattern that may appear random on the surface but the movement altogether has a kind of intelligence about it. The ancient alchemists who constructed orreries and planetariums in their laboratories understood that the movement of heavenly bodies was like watching the cogs in a wheel. One has only to glance at the Mayan calendar to see that they were making clocks well before the Swiss or Germans. Stellar bodies and planets have consciousness and operate on the Law of Vibration. Natural law is God or infinite intelligence. God is eternal – the past, present and future.

That said, you will find that learning sacred calendar will help you understand such things as astrology, numerology, and full moon meditations, as well as finding its usefulness in your work through the metaphysical journal, practical metaphysics, and ceremony practicum. It is the groundwork for all sacred ritual in every religion.

Interview with Normandi Ellis on Jamie Dawn Radio

Here is the link. https://www.12radio.com/hosts/C49CB585C58F6CD8/JamieDawn_2_21_2019.mp3?fbclid=IwAR1Yed5AomNx4xRW4nJ-Op-qrLottpJYP07mmfmSRUmzHTd2kbXj8B0oxgY

Medju Seshet - The Word of the Goddess

When Voices in Spirit say do something, and I get the goose bumps, I usually do it. I don't often know why. Like years ago now, I heard a voice say "You need to start a blog called "The Goddess and the Open Book Test," and I thought 'That's a silly name. Why would I start a blog called that?'

And she said, "Because I say so. … You'll see."

So I did. And now I see.  The Word of the Goddess (Medju Seshet) started out with my telling stories about trips to Egypt, then announcing writing classes, and now here I am several years later having completed a book (February 14th- Kiss me) called Medju Seshet: The Lady's Book of Oracles.*

 It began with classes I taught in Hieroglyphic Thinking, which kept expanding and then went straight into automatic writing and the book began to take shape. It offers up the 30 years of study I've done with the Egyptian hieroglyphs. In addition, I've created a series of meditations for each glyph.  It also offers ways to use the hieroglyphs as oracles. I hope to place them on a deck of cards and offer those as well as the book. And there are ways to do the layouts.

So as if that massive project weren't enough the Goddess said, "I want you to start a priestess school." I said, "What? I can't do that. I'm too busy. I'm not all That!" And then she reminded me of a dream that I had had in which Lady Olivia Robertson, of the Fellowship of Isis, came to me in a dream and said "What will you do for the Fellowship of Isis?" and I told her Lady Olivia, whatever you ask. "Done," she said and disappeared.

So now the voice of the Goddess comes back and says to me, "You already agreed. You said you would do it.  Now is the time."

So now Is the Time! I began a school wherein those who love the Goddess can come to study, and perhaps be ordained if they choose. I didn't know what to call it until I stood outside my favorite little spot in Edfu where Seshet kept the temple prayers on scrolls, and I was leading the meditation with my travelers to receive their Akashic record from Seshet.  Someone took my picture and there was standing across from me, a cluster of orbs that as I looked at them created the outline of the Goddess herself.  The school is called PAHS * or Per Ankh Het Seshet translated as The House of Life in the Temple of Seshet.

And I reckon I'll create a new blog on that. She seems to be talking to me. I better be listening.

* Book will be published by Bear&Co/Inner Traditions Fall 2019 I hope.

WORKING WITH PURPOSE: An Exploration of Spiritual Autobiography

Lately I’ve been waking from deep dreams with the startling realization that after 64 years I am still in this body, and many of my friends are not. I wake with the deep recognition that I shall not always be here. Are you feeling the unanswered questions, too? "My Purpose Is... What have I learned in this journey thus far? Have I engaged with my life as my soul required?"

I find myself going to the bookshelf the moment I leap from bed and I pull down one of my journals from the shelf. I’ve kept a journal since I was nine and while my life has not always been well-crafted prose of my experience, it is my journey. And this is the work I have done--sometimes well and sometimes not so well--to become the person I am thus far.

This body is a container for memory. But often the feeling that our experiences are ours alone leads us into isolation and loneliness. A study of transpersonal astrology has shown me that my experiences are not so dissimilar from the experiences of other women at my various ages. Clinging to one’s personal experience leads to misunderstanding. Rather than imagining that we are writing our daily doings, imagine that the story we inhabit has been written by a divine hand. Imagine that as we share our stories with others, we build strength as a group of awakening souls.

Imagine the Akashic record keepers, writing upon tablets that contain the story of our lives, the story of a divine being sent down to earth to inhabit a form and to do some work that really matters. Our world is composed of the combined stories of all those beings of light whose souls manifest in commitment to the Great Work.

Writing your spiritual autobiography means to come to that deep level of understanding that our life is part of a larger story. Our life is the story of a living, sentient being called Earth. I am calling you to come and write with me. I am calling you to add your voice to a planetary chorus.

Please join me on February 10, 2018 at _______  Southland Drive in Lexington, Kentucky for a day of Writing Spiritual Autobiography. We begin at 9:30 am, break for lunch nearby at 12:30 pm, then reconvene from 2-5 pm. $50. Limit 16 participants. Please preregister by February 3rd.  Need more details? Email ellisisis@gmail.com or Message me at 765-606-7119.