Echo Bodine will present "What is the Point and Where are We Headed?" from 12:30-2:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 10, at Minneapolis Convention Center. Advance tickets are $36 available at Ticketworks.com or $39 at the door.
Do you ever wonder if we’re headed for the end of times or a brand new beginning? Echo Bodine, a Minneapolis-based psychic counselor, healer and teacher, has been studying the soul’s perspective of life on earth for more than 40 years. At Edge Life Expo 2007, she will share what she has learned about where this is all leading. In the second hour, she will channel a guided healing meditation, followed by mini readings for as many members of the audience as time will permit.
Echo Bodine first discovered at the age of 17 that she was born with psychic abilities and the gift of healing. Her abilities include clairvoyance (the gift of seeing), clairaudience (the gift of hearing) and clairsentience (the gift of sensing). Twenty-five years ago, Echo left the 9-to-5 work world and became a full-time psychic consultant, healer and ghostbuster. She has also shared her gift with others as a teacher of psychic development and healing. During the last twenty years, she has written eight books, including Echoes of the Soul, Relax It’s Only a Ghost and Hands That Heal. Her most recent book is The Key: Unlock Your Psychic Abilities, in which she presents a clear guide to developing psychic abilities. Echo has been a frequent Edge Life Expo presenter and has appeared on numerous radio and television shows.
At this year’s expo, you’re going to speak on the topic of "What is the point and where are we headed?" What led you to this topic?
Echo Bodine: A lot of people are asking right now, "What is the point of all this?" – of all of the intensity that is going on here on Earth, and why so many calamities and hard times? Financially, people are really struggling, and emotionally they’re going through really tough times. I just want to help people understand the bigger picture and also talk about just where I believe this is all headed, according to psychic readings that I’ve been doing and those of others, as well.
What overall message will you convey about where we’re headed?
EB: That a lot of where we’re headed is up to us. And I will emphasize that there is a lot of hope, even though sometimes it doesn’t seem like it. There is a Divine purpose here, and we need to jump on the wagon and ride with it.
Do you think a lot of people are questioning the point of life in general?
EB: Yes, I really do. My sense is that a lot of people are contemplating suicide. I seem to keep running into that. Sometimes I can see it in their aura, that they’re really questioning whether they want to stay or not. Suicide is definitely not the answer. So I just want to encourage everyone that we just need to hang in there a little bit longer-and there are ways to do that. I will share tips to make life a little easier.
What do you sense about this moment that we’re in right now? Many speakers are talking about the significance of 2012 in the next five years. Do you sense that this is a unique moment in our history? And how would you summarize the past five years and where we’re headed?
EB: I do sense that it is a unique moment. We’ve been experiencing the breaking down of the old way. We need to break down the old way so that we can usher in the new, and that’s what’s been tough for people.
People who have had the same job for a long time find themselves laid off, and there are two ways they can look at that. They can either stay at home and feel really bad for themselves and say, "What has life done to me? What is God doing to me?" Or they can see it as an opportunity to discover other parts of themselves. It’s been a challenge for a lot of people to stop looking at life the same old way every day and wake up. There have been lots of wake up calls in the last five to ten years.
What I see coming in the next five years are twice as many wake-up calls. Spirit is really trying to get people’s attention to look at more possibilities, to look at everything from a different perspective. These are opportunities for us to discover other gifts and other abilities that we have.
For someone who’s in that stuck place, what would be an example of a wake-up call?
EB: An example would be after thirty years, your spouse says, "I can’t do this anymore. I want a divorce." And you are caught off guard and can only say, "What?" You may think that your spouse’s decision comes out of left field, and yet there were little signs all along, but you weren’t paying attention. Wake-up calls are for a lot of people who don’t pay attention and think, "Okay, this is how life is every day."
Examples are the people who get laid off from their jobs, or those who have seen something happen to their retirement funds. Suddenly, they have to rely upon God and other people to help them out. Those are wake-up calls. They’ve come up suddenly, "poof"-they come fast and they’re shocking and they’re scary. They are not easy to have. For people who have been holding onto old ways of life for a long time, they can feel devastated.
That’s why I think a lot of people are thinking about suicide. They’re thinking that there is no other way to live their life. People are dying fast, and a lot of people are dying. I’ve heard so many stories of people where one day they’re fine and the next day they’re in the hospital in intensive care. It’s like, "Whoa!"
Those are wake-up calls-not only for the person who is having the medical problem, but for all the members of their family. You know what? You can’t take life for granted. You need to look at all of your options.
And this pattern is going to keep on coming.It’s forcing us to live more and more in the moment. With total awareness.
EB: Oh, God! That’s the best way to put it. Absolutely. To live in the moment.
With so many Baby Boomers, everybody’s talking about retirement: "Oh, when I retire I’m going to do this and we’re going to do that." A lot of time and energy is going into planning the future, and people are not paying attention to what’s going on right in front of them. They also are the ones who are getting the wake-up calls. All of a sudden, they have a stroke or they get laid off from their job-and they didn’t see it coming at all. It’s like the Universe is saying, "Hey, forget about what’s going to happen in six years. Let’s focus on right now."
So those are some of the things I will share in my talk at the expo. What are you most proud of creating or accomplishing thus far in your life?
EB: I’d have to say my books, because they keep things very simple for people, and yet they share a lot of wisdom. I get a lot of really good feedback from people, so I’d have to say they have been my greatest accomplishments.
What do you want to achieve personally in the rest of your life?
EB: I want to just keep educating people and helping people get on their spiritual path. I’m going to be 60 in a year, and so I asked myself, "Okay, so let’s assume, or not assume, that I’m in the last third of my life. So what is important?" And the answer that I always come up with is "Just keep teaching." Teach as much as I can and help people make that shift in their life from religion to spirituality.
What I mean by that is this: a lot of people live the religion that they were raised in and they never question it. They figure, "Okay, this is the way that it is." But when we move to a spiritual path, that’s when we start questioning everything-and that’s when we start getting very close to God. We get to have a real relationship with God, as opposed to just this guy who’s in a book that someone else has taught us about. The most important thing to me is to help people get to that spiritual path where they really feel free inside, free from the old religious stuff, and free to find God for themselves-and understand the Universe better and understand themselves better. I have three more books in the works
In recent years, there has been a tendency for people just to not want to use certain words, such as "New Age," because of how they think the public thinks about it. I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter. New Age defines a belief system that describes an awakening that will take place among humanity, so why not use that term? What do you have a sense about in terms of the role of the New Age now?
EB: For a long time, the words "New Age" took the place of the word "occult," and yet as we continue to move closer to 2012, we really are in a New Age. So to me, the word New Age is very different than it once was, fifteen years ago, when we started using it. Why get caught up in…
Labels?
EB: Yeah. We are in a new time, you know? Call it a "New Time" if people don’t like the words "New Age."
I remember a long, long time ago when I first started doing psychic work for a living. I was 29 years old and I had just quit being a barber. Every sign in my life told me it was time to be a full-time psychic and healer.
One day I said to God, "Okay, now God," because I always think of God as my boss and that we’re in this partnership, "I need to come up with business cards, but, I don’t know what to put on the business card. So, would you give me a really nice word instead of psychic, because it’s got such a negative connotation to it."
And, honest to God, I heard this voice say, "Then turn it into a positive."
And I remember saying, "Well, why do I have to do that?" And there was no response.
So that’s how this is. If something has a negative connotation, we can turn it into a positive. That’s what I think a lot of us are doing.
Why are people afraid of being who they truly are?
EB: You know what I think it is? I think that we are afraid to find out how much power and how amazing we really are. I think it’s a lot easier to play small than to be big, than to allow ourselves to tap into that higher self and live in that place, that Christ place.
How will the world’s people come to experience peace?
EB: Oh, boy! It’s interesting, the image I just got. I’ve received this before: When the mothers of the soldiers come together and demand it-and demand it in a loving way-and put their foot down and say, "No more. No more sons will be killed." When the women step forward with their intuition and their minds and they fight for peace, then that’s when we’re going to see peace.
