PART 1: READING FOR DECEMBER 22, 2021

The second Spirit I invited to come forward to provide a holiday message for us was actress Loretta Young. Loretta Young started acting as a child, and had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film The Farmer's Daughter, and received her second Academy Award nomination for her role in Come to the Stable. But, it is her role as Julia, the lonely wife of Bishop Brougham in “The Bishop’s Wife,” that is my favorite Loretta Young movie.

This classic holiday tale is about Bishop Henry Brougham, who prays for divine guidance when he cannot seem to raise the funds to build a cathedral. His relationships with his wife Julia and young daughter are strained by his focus on the cathedral. His prayer is seemingly answered by an Angel named Dudley. However, Dudley's mission is not to help the Bishop build the cathedral, but to spiritually guide him and the people around him. Dudley completes his mission on Christmas Eve.

So for this reading, Loretta wanted me to use The Shaman’s Dream Oracle deck to give her holiday message and she drew card # 25, “Garden of Venus: Rest and Renewal.”

Now, the only other time I have received this beautiful card was during a reading with my brother, Leland, shortly after he had transitioned back into The Light on June 30, 2021. I had asked Leland what he could tell me about his experience in The Light and he gifted me with the Garden of Venus card. He said he was resting and being renewed in the Garden of Love and that all was well. My brother’s health had taken a sudden decline before his passing and it did not surprise me that his soul was in need of rest and renewal.

So when I saw this card from Loretta, I knew that her message for us was that the Garden of Venus is both a place and a state of being. She said that in a world where most people are overly stressed and overwhelmed, their minds, bodies and Spirits are seriously in need of healing. It is when we consciously take the time to disconnect from the material pressures of the outside world, and bask in our personal Garden of Venus, that we are able to unwind, reflect, heal, and restore ourselves.

Loretta tells us that when we are outside in our Garden of Venus, we can engage with the life forces of the butterflies, animals, plants, flowers and trees through our sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. We are able to connect with the beauty of nature that is vibrating all around us and we receive nature's healing/restorative benefits.

When we turn our attention inward to be in our Garden of Venus, we shift our state of being through our breath and our heart and we can engage with our own life force to receive peace and healing.

However, Loretta also offers that our Garden of Venus can include being receptive to seeing the beauty in other people and offering them healing during this time. Healing can be in the form of sharing a kind word and/or smile, offering to hold a door, baking for a neighbor, and/or offering a prayer. For when we are able to heal ourselves, and offering healing to another through a small gesture of compassion, we create more Love in our universal Garden of Venus.

THANK YOU LORETTA YOUNG!

Born January 6, 1913 in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A. and transitioned back into The Light on August 12, 2000 in Santa Monica, California, U.S.A.

“I believe that if we have lived our lives fully and well, and have accomplished, at least in part, the things we were put here to do, we will be prepared - mentally, physically and spiritually - for our separation from this world.” - Loretta Young