Not all of my teachers are from the spirit world.  Some are living, breathing human beings who live in my time and space. I met two of them this week and I learned something from each one that was new and out of the blue.

The first was a real estate assessor from my hometown. I engaged him to instruct me, to place me properly in the market, to tell me, perhaps, why my house hasn’t sold in two and a half years. He sat at my kitchen table possessed with a quiet calm, the kind of calm belonging to long time inhabitants of this area, the kind of calm that stems from a deep connection to the land and the water. He was deliberate in his speech, unhurried. For over an hour, he talked to me about the mortgage money market, local real estate agents, and a view of developments that was formed from forty some years in the business. He was up to date on everything from the newest laws, regulations and building codes, to developments in my own field – standards. He walked through my house, taking his time in every room, upstairs and down, measured the outside, and said he’d get back to me. A few days later, he was back. He came in, sat down at my kitchen table, and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Delaney, but I do not have good news for you.”

He had done his homework and had made a discovery. My house had been assessed (from people looking at it from the outside) at twice the square footage it should have been, not only for me but for the last two owners. My second floor is unfinished and should not have been included in the square footage defined as livable space. Therefore: (1) I’ve been compared with and competing with houses, price-wise and otherwise, with those that have twice the livable space; and (2) For thirteen years, I have paid taxes on twice the amount of livable space that I own. The bottom line: I may have to lower my asking price again. But the county may have to repay me thousands of dollars in overpaid taxes.

The teacher looked at me and said, “I’m not going to give you an assessment. I’m going to give you some advice. Go see your lawyer.” He gave me a sheath of papers with all the facts and figures, and then charged me a third of his original fee. The last thing he said to me was, “Go to your lawyer’s office to make the appointment. They never return calls.” I watched him, dazed, as he got into his car and drove away.

The second teacher was the master acupuncturist I’ve been writing about for the past two weeks. The calm that surrounded him was of a different nature, the kind that comes from years of spiritual development and meditation. I had filled out a questionnaire for him that was designed to reveal the state of my general health and lifestyle. Again, I sat before a teacher who asked me questions and talked to me for almost an hour. He asked me when the heart throbbing in my ear started, and I was able to tell him exactly. It was just after my unpleasant and difficult encounter with the last person to make an offer on my house. (It’s always the house – my other grand teacher.) He smiled and I smiled. I also told him the nasal spray prescribed by the ENT doctor had done nothing to relieve the heart pounding in my ear. I’ve got it, I thought. The cause. The thing we were supposed to look for, the root cause of the physical symptom. He inserted needles into my hands and feet, and left the room. In a while, I felt energy move up my right leg, up the right side of my body, and into the trouble spot, the Eustachian tube. When he came back into the room, I told him. “My,” he said, “you are sensitive.” I was feeling pretty self-satisfied. We were going to lick this thing, and I had pinpointed the cause: the house, the bad guy, the ineffectual real estate agent. We sat down for the after-acupuncture discussion, and I was waiting for him to tell me what I already knew: It was that bad encounter that was the cause of everything.

He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Do you know how to do nothing?”

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To be continued.

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Look for The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney at http://www.Amazon.com