This life chose me

By Pauline Stewart.

Verna Carr is Whitianga’s intuitive energy healer, a clairvoyant and a Tarot Card reader.

To spend time chatting with her, you sense a logical thinker, and she can speak on a myriad of subjects. She enjoys public speaking and is very competent at it. Many books occupy the shelves of her colourful but peacefully arranged home. Verna grew up in Hamilton and as an adult, gained her Bachelor of Business degree which seems a long way from being a clairvoyant.

Verna came to Whitianga from Keri Keri several years ago. She had been looking after her sick partner for many years. He had chronic fatigue syndrome and had been sick for 20 of the 23 years they were together. “It was so hard breaking up.” Verna says. “It meant starting again, building a life, a community, and for me creating meaning. I was looking for a place that would enable these things; that would resonate with me. I felt this town was calling me - the beach, the bush and a sense of calm that I felt here. What I did not leave behind was my knowledge and experience and understanding that helps me find happiness, a joyful life and a sense of home.”

“I experience things multi – dimensionally. It’s not logical or rational really, a deep intuition. It feels like a download of insight form a source beyond me. I did not choose this life; it chose me.”

Verna continues: “I knew nothing about metaphysics. It was a death and life choice. In my twenties, I had a big awakening. As a teenager, I had no confidence, no support systems in my life. My weapon of choice was drink, then drive. I just didn’t care. I didn’t value my life enough to care.

One day when I was very sober, I was on a long drive and had patiently followed for a very long time, a vintage car. Suddenly, my patience just snapped. I went to overtake it coming up a hill. A milk tanker came over the rise of that hill at the same time. There was no room – time seemed to slow down. I heard a voice saying, ‘Do you want to live or die? My response was to put my foot down even harder and manoeuvre a way to live - it was a paint job escape (you could scrape the paint with the space I had).”

“I couldn’t understand why I escaped death. The question, ‘Do you want to live or die? - didn’t leave me. My mind had a lingering image of a blue lady - how I can best describe it - a loving being, a light being, with the presence of angels that seemed to be beckoning, ‘Come with us.’

At the same time, I felt I was tumbling, fighting and falling, like walking up the valley of death. Some people talk about walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but for me it was if I climbed out of the valley.

In the three months following, three significant people in my life died. I had not encountered death before in the network of my relationships.

· My adoptive grandmother, she was sick and old, so not a shock that she died but that I knew she died before anyone told me.

· A close friend of mine, only 23, committed suicide. I sensed the exact time she died, when I really had no way of knowing. I asked myself. How did I know this?

· My Uncle John died. I had no connection with him. But I heard a voice, your Uncle John is dead.’ A short while after, my mother got a call from family - her brother had died. I was shocked that I already knew.

Not knowing what to do with this experience, I started going to spiritualist churches – people talking to people who had passed. This was enlightening for me – the life after death path. I became quite immersed in this.

Through the church, there were ladies who did healing.

One lady was teaching me about healing. I was her student, she demonstrated with one man who had come for healing. She asked me to move my hand over this man’s heart space and feel the warmth and project it. I did exactly that, but I felt an uncanny coldness when I moved my hand over the man’s heart space. The women were puzzled and urged me to try again, and I did. The coldness gripped me a second time.

The man who had come for healing died later that day. I felt that somehow through my life experience I had been given a gift of seeing the future sometimes through what I felt and knew. I was in touch with something powerful and knew I should begin to understand it more and use it well. Thus began a journey to understand energy in the human body and spirit and how that energy works. There have been years of reading every book I could find on this subject - on life after death, philosophy, the metaphysical, self- help, psychology, psycho cybernetics. I was blessed to be able to read a lot. Working with Tarot cards came naturally to me – it was as if they talked to each other when I was working with them.

The Informer asked Verna how has society accepted that leading in her life.

“My mother was a Christian, so we had two entirely different belief systems. It wasn’t until the week she died, that she understood me and what I believed. Most of society doesn’t go there. However, I don’t feel compelled to be on a soapbox about it. I meet the people who resonate with me, I don’t want for anything. This is very much a spiritual life. My understanding of God is that “Indifference is the opposite to God. Everybody is soul, energy and everyone is God. I feel as a society, we are far from soul, from God – we are a long way way from peace. People have hungry ghosts that decide their direction when those things don’t need to.”

Verna smiles, “I love this town; there are a lot of kind people here, a lot of supportive people. I lead a coffee group on a Tuesday - it’s very inclusive and it’s where I have made good friends.”

You will see Verna at the Saturday Whiti markets – people come to have their cards read and to get insight into their future.