My Friend, The Barefoot Medium

Feeling self-conscious and totally awkward about bringing my baby to a local photographer meet-and-greet; I ran into Emma, full on body slam, with my baby girl fast asleep in a sling. “oh I’m so sorry, I’ve been cooped up for weeks and I just wanted to come and be around adults, let alone photographers”
She just laughed and hugged me, we chatted about kids and photography and I totally dug her spirit. We exchanged contact info and wanted to keep in touch, maybe go for coffee.
Fast forward a few months and she became a part of the Photochicks group I belonged to. Photochicks is an amazing sisterhood of friends who are photographers, but also a support network. We get together when we can through the year, but always one weekend a year to end our hectic summer/fall seasons to relax, support, eat, play, sleep and do some fun exercises. Emma is an amazing part of this group offering up her years of photography business techniques, tips and tricks, sharing her little life stories and offering up support to others when we needed it. I would say she’s a pretty integral part of our amazing sisterhood network.

I had not been able to go to the Photochicks weekend for three years prior to my first year; My first weekend, was also Emma’s first year of Photochicks weekend. We car pooled with our friends Amber and Chelsea, and all the 4-ish hours to Prince Albert County talking about family, life, and Emma’s big secret.

That weekend she came out to us, as a medium and empath. I can understand why she felt so nervous. I don’t know if you know what a medium is, but I was skeptical. I was so skeptical, my insides were in full blown, “ya right, I loves ya, but I think you’re crazy….maybe.”
She talked about how as a child she would have ‘imaginary’ real friends that she would play with, but were really people who had passed on. Growing older she mentions that she spent years of her life struggling with anxiety while trying to suppress and forget about her medium abilities. She goes on to describe that the closer she got back to her mediumship the less anxious she feels. She found and connected with other mediums and joined her Spiritualist Church which helped her exercise her mind and expand upon her spirit and connecting with spirits. She then proclaimed that she would do a group reading for the 12 of us that evening.

I had always been a more spiritual Christian, knowing that and feeling that God is around us and in everything we do, that our ancestors are helping us each day. I grew up with an extended family that used religion as a means of control, ways to judge and condemn.  I knew that religion, in that sense of the literal word, was not for me. I always felt close to God but in my own way. This experience that I was about to have with Emma, gave me the confidence that how I felt about my spirituality and god, was truer than I had ever realized.
As she stood barefoot in front of us, she started off explaining who she is, and what she does. “I am a Medium and an Empath, I feel what spirit feels and this helps me connect with them to share their messages for you.”
She explains that when she connects with spirit, she sees, hears and feels spirit. She explains when she sees the spirit it is in many different forms. Sometimes she can physically see them as if they are sitting next to you; she sees a vision in her mind, almost like looking in a mirror; or the spirit will give her an images almost like a drawing but in her mind.
She goes on to explain the empath part of her gift. She feels spirit in a few different ways; Physically, she can take on how the spirit is feeling. If they are sad, she will feel sad. She may even cry with their sadness. She may even feel like she wants to hug you to express their love for you; Movements, she may also take on some of their movements, if they were a dancer or moved in a certain way, she sometimes will find herself doing that; Characterization, she can physically feel their size, their build, their hair and hands; Clarification, she explains that every time she gets something right from the spirit, she’ll get a tingle down her right hand side where all the hairs stand up on end, and if it is really strong her whole body will do this.

She stood there barefoot and explained all of this information and I’m still skeptical. I’m still thinking, the same “whatever” notion inside my head, not in a rude voice, but a curious one.
Then she explains that she cannot promise to connect with a specific spirit that you are looking to connect with, whomever shows up for you, shows up, and at a group reading, the spirits with the more urgent messages will usually come forward first, so you might not get your message that time.
For the ones that have a spirit show up, it might not be someone you think, could be a friend, or loved ones family member, but the message will always be for you.
Emma stood in front of us, turning and drinking her water, and tuning into the spirits. Closed her eyes, her hands embracing each other, head bowed “they are lining up now.”
I’m going to describe for you the part that only pertains to me with this particular group reading, not that the other connections weren’t meaningful but that is someone else’s business to share and not my story to tell.

Flashing back to the reading that changed everything for me, I will describe this like I’m there in the moment.

I can see Emma walking up and down with her bare feet, strong, pacing and then standing tall. Her eyes are closed as she takes a deep breath, her right hand tucks inside her left and her thumb pinches her thenar space (the space between your index finger and thumb). She is in a meditative stance, the room is quite and she’s breathing deep. She lifts her head and looks out at us. “I am having burning feeling in my throat and I’m finding it hard to breath, it’s something to do with lungs, maybe lung cancer, He’s maybe in his late 50s early 60s and he’s tall, balding, but his hands are rough, they are big, he worked with his hands they are very worn”
My heart sank, could this be my Poppy. “Emma, I can take all of that, I think it’s my Poppy, Gord”
She looks at me and said “my arm just tingled and I know this is for you, but I know you are skeptical so I’m going to ask him for a common place to describe”
She closed her eyes and bowed her head, her hands automatically embracing one another while she squeezes her thenar space, takes a breath, pauses, nods and opens her eyes.
“He is showing me the woods, and rocks like and escarpment, he’s showing me trees by a bungalow, then a path leading up to the bungalow stoop, where you can also walk down beside the house, then hes walking in the front door, off to the front door is a sitting room on the right, but he’s going straight and hes walking straight into a kitchen where it turns slightly to the right where there are glass cupboards overhead, he’s opening the cupboard and pulling something down for you, little figurines, then he’s sitting in a white chair that was right there”

I actually am crying right now typing this, as I cried in that moment.
That was the moment when Emma changed my life. She described my childhood home, and the path one would take to enter my childhood home. It was exactly right, it has changed now but then when I was little and he was there, that is what it was like. Even down to the little glass figurines in the old glass cupboard that I would sneak up to play with.
“Poppy, I exclaimed through tears, I’ve been waiting so long for you”
I’m not going to go into exact details what his message was for me, but I’ll give you the highlights as it was very personal.
When he died, a few days later, I had woken up from a dream and walked out to the kitchen and he was there sitting in a chair, wanting me to sit in another facing him, he motioned me forward. I was walking towards him and he said “Amanda, I want you to give life all you’ve got, and never…..” just as he said “and never” he had stood up to hug me but knocked the chair over and I woke up in my bed. I had been in that place between dreams and asleep where you think you are awake, but you’re still asleep.
During this group reading with Emma, I asked her if I could ask Poppy a question and I asked him what the end of his dream message was for me. Emma closing her eyes and opening said “He wants you to give life all you’ve got and never let what happened to you in your past, affect your future. You need to not carry that forward, you need to let your walls down and let people in. He loves you so much Amanda, I can feel the love and it’s amazing. ”
She had tears in her eyes.
There was a lot more to the message, but alas it was all for me. It gave me closure for sure but also gave me a whole new perspective on life, spirituality and death.
Closing the message, Emma stumbled backward, just like Poppy used to, it was so surreal to see her move like he would have. She opened her eyes and tapped her leg like he used to do when he wanted us to sit on his lap and opened her arms for a hug like he used to do, and hugged me (from him).
I was a mess for a while after that, but so very happy.

I decided in that moment, that my friend Emma, The Barefoot Medium, was a gift. She was and is a gift, she’s the real deal.
This was a few years ago and over the last few years I’ve watched her blossom into her Mediumship, she’s put herself out there more and more, doing one-on-one sessions, group readings and the latest large group readings at a Monigram Rosters Coffee shop in Cambridge.

I’ve had a one-on-one with Emma, where my cousins Mark and Jimmy came to give me a message; She didn’t know specific things about them before the reading, and knew things she couldn’t have known, and my god she’s on point. Jimmy protects my heart and Mark is by my side. The message from that meeting was that things were going to get bumpy but just stay the course and it will be okay. If you want to read some of my past blogs you’ll see how bumpy that time got.
I highly recommend having a one-on-one session with Emma, it is intimate and the messages are more detailed (as the spirit doesn’t want to get too personal at group readings).
We get together for coffee or chat over the Internets, and I cherish my friendship with her. I get excited when she talks about what she’s doing for herself, things she’s doing as an amazing mother and how she’s nurturing her mediumship more and more.

I wrote this post not just as a testament for her, not just as a friend, but as someone that wants to see her shine, to support and share her with the world. There are many mediums out there, even at the spiritualist church which I’ve attended, who are so very talented also, but Emma offers up something unique. True spiritual empathy and connection.  I believe that her ability to connect with spirit will only get that much stronger as she reaches new milestones along her journey.
I’m honored to be her friend and I’m thankful for the gifts she’s shared with me.

If you’d like to follow Emma along with her journey she has a Facebook page you can follow, and I highly recommend doing that, along with booking either a group session, a one-on-one session or attending one of her nights at Monigram roasters.

I’m putting this out there for her, my vision for her is a TV show that followers her to group readings at coffee houses and maybe some one-on-ones, sharing her spiritual guidance and gift with us all.