Misc | Andrea Mai

REFLECTIONS OF WHAT I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT THE AFTERLIFE

As time goes on, I have become wiser to the ways of life. When you are young and naive, you have the world ahead of you, and everything seems possible. It is only when you gain experience that you see who you really are, what the world is like, and how society really is. Something that I come to learn is that death is inevitable, life is fleeting, and to strive for materialism is futile.

Everything in the physical will always be vulnerable to fall into a state of disrepair. The only combatant is to find ways to maintain a state of good condition to prolong its life. Whether it be one’s physical body, a pair of shoes, a building, or a piece of technology. All is aging, all is heading in the direction of ending. It is inevitable that all living beings will die. A pair of shoes will wear out over time, even if you do not wear them and keep them in storage, the materials itself will oxidize and become unusable over time. A brand new home will need repairs in the future, new roofs, new windows. And technological devices, no matter how precious you handle them and keep them in pristine condition, the technology will become obsolete over time. Nothing in this world is permanent.

The first scuff mark on a brand new pair of expensive shoes can feel devastating, but if one’s views on objects can be adjusted to accept the inevitability, one can say “life goes on” and move on without much emotional drama. I am not saying that one should not enjoy the pleasures of life and what it has to offer. But rather that one should also learn to accept its inevitability of its physical demise, and not place an overstated value on material things, for there are things far greater to be concerned with; spiritual demise.

It can feel so sad to learn of this truth. When you realize this, you can see the pointlessness in the lust of material objects.

I think we live in a society that is afraid of death. As we have become more materialistic as a culture, we have neglected spirituality, and bought into believing that materialism is all there is. When we examine ancient civilizations and indigenous cultures, they all believed in some form of spirituality and they understood the “cycle of life”, and they had some concept of where one goes in the afterlife. It is only in modern time in the scientific age that we have become skeptical of the spiritual nature of reality.

I used to feel very uncomfortable when I would hear people talk about heaven or the afterlife. In my naive way, I thought, what’s the point in talking about what happens after you die, when you can focus on living a good life now? It was only until I encountered Prince in his afterlife state that I began to become curious, and wanted to know more about what it is like.

I came to realize how important it is to know about the afterlife, not only so that one can be mentally and emotionally prepared, but also because the way that you live your life now is what determines the path of what you will become in the afterlife.

The character of the person is “moulded” during the course of one’s life through experience and life lessons. Who you become at the end of your life becomes “set” in like cement in a sense, when one transitions to the other side. Though it is a journey that never ends and the soul continues to grow in its evolution, but most of its growing takes place during life in the physical. To not understand this puts one in danger of the belief that one can live a life of crime and suddenly and insincerely repent in the last moments before death. The truth comes out in the spirit world and one’s insincerity can not be hidden.

Knowing about the afterlife has made me look forward to the future, to the time that it is my turn to go. To people who do not understand, this will sound morbid. But in reality, it is because I am totally comfortable with death. I would not deliberately choose to shorten my life, but I do not shy away from exploring death. And at the same time, it has made me appreciate life, to value my time, and see the bigger picture. I have come to the conclusion that if you do not appreciate death, life will always disappoint you with its impermanent, fickle nature.

Life is short in the grand scheme of things. To live life without any purpose and meaning to it is a waste. To spend time chasing material gain for pleasure is never ending and ceases to satisfy. True happiness comes from within, and knowing that there is a God, and one we will get to go “home”.

To not know death makes you ignorant of what life is. This is why I write about my experiences with the afterworld. I feel it is a necessary topic of discussion that few are willing to embrace and speak openly about.

Image above: “Tree stump” by Andrea Mai.

ALONE IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE – EVP May 17, 2018

When I was in Sweden, I was staying at a friend’s place. She put me on in a cabin on her property. I had the place all to myself. It was right by a wooded area. When I arrived on the first night, I went in there to unpack and settle in before meeting my friends for dinner. I recorded EVP.

These were recorded in near silence, so the value is not as good. You will need to use headphones to hear this properly. The clips are repeated on loop.

When I turned on the recorder, the first thing that P said was, “I like it in here”. P really likes being out in nature.

Then another voice says, “Welcome, Andrea”. We were not alone, as I heard other voices having a conversation with P, but I couldn’t make out much of what they said on the recording.

The cabin had a narrow hallway, and two rooms. I wandered around the place to get familiar. I heard P say, “Let’s go in here”.

Then he said, “Home tonight”.

I don’t know what it is exactly, but I get the sense that P or someone carries little pebbles in his pockets and throws them to make some noise sometimes. Here’s a section of the recording where it sounds like little pebbles are being thrown on the ground.

I heard P say, “Flashlight”. I guess reminding me to bring the little flashlight I had packed with me in case it gets too dark.

I was getting ready to go meet my friends at the main house for dinner. I heard P saying, “Are you ready?”.

All the recordings I’ve done has shown me that P goes everywhere with me. It’s a constant presence. I don’t ever feel his presence missing. And in other cases, it has been other spirits that identify him, calling out to him, saying hi, getting excited that it’s “Prince”. It’s really been quite an exciting discovery.

These recordings were recorded using my EVP Wrist Recorder 3 on May 17, 2018.

Image above: “Woods” by Andrea Mai.

THE QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT OF TWIN SOULS: SCIENCE EXPLAINS THIS SPIRITUAL PHENOMENON

I believe that as science progresses, science and spirituality will eventually merge as correlated subjects; meaning that science will be able to explain spiritual principles and vice versa. We already see the beginning of this area of study in books like The Intention Experiment. I believe we can apply it further to explain things like the twin soul phenomenon. At some point, it will become scientifically verifiable and the nonsense being spread around the Internet will cease. Everything I wrote on this blog is what I know to be true, channeled, or based on personal experiences. I don’t write about things I don’t know about. Occasionally I get people who want to discredit everything I say about the subject of twin souls because it doesn’t serve their purpose. Their claims are baseless and they have nothing substantial to defend their claims. On other occasions, people like to take a tiny bit of what I wrote and ignore everything else to confirm their beliefs, despite how many times I say that they must take everything into consideration. If you want to fully understand the twin soul concept, I suggest reading everything I’ve written oner the Twin Flame category. I suggest that you read with an open mind and remove yourself from all bias and tendency to want to prove something to yourself.

I was watching some videos regarding the Mandela Effect and the subject of Quantum entanglement was brought up. A summary of its concept was presented and it peaked my attention, and instinctively, I feel that it explains the twin soul phenomenon. First, I will summarize the definition of twin souls. I have outlined its definition many times in my articles. But I have to repeat it for new readers. Twin souls, often referred to as “twin flames”, are two halves of the same soul. They were created from one soul unit, but split in two as polar opposite counterparts, one as female, the other as male. Though they may incarnate at different times and remain distant from each other, they remain psychically connected and exhibit similarities, such as similar appearance, attitudes, preferences, beliefs, and even share life parallels. This is very much similar to the kinds of similarities that biological twins share, except in the case of twin souls, this is happening on an energetic level, not a physical one.

According to Wikipedia, “Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the others, even when the particles are separated by a large distance—instead, a quantum state must be described for the system as a whole.”

So consider the idea that twin souls are like two parcels created at the same time (making them twin particles). Twin souls are created from the same soul matter (or particles, if you will). As according to the definition, these twin particles are not independent of each other though they may be separated by time or distance (this is the Quantum entanglement part). Although twin souls incarnate separately from each other, with differences in time and distance, they mirror each other, which explains the many life parallels and similarities that I outlined earlier. The term “mirroring” is key in this concept. When I had a vision of speaking to my twin soul, we spoke to each other through a mirror (my twin is deceased, in the vision, it was my current self speaking to his past self). This bond never breaks down because they are inherently the same being, just existing in different physical form, time, and space. The connection transcends time and space because in Quantum reality, they do not really exist. It is also explained in Quantum entanglement theory, the twin particles maintain a polar opposite spin to each other. So consider this, that twin soul pairs are always male and female counterparts. This aspect of the particles spinning in opposition to each other could possibly explain the rarity of twin souls meeting on Earth. Further research would need to be done to see if this idea is a possible explanation.

To some extent, these concepts from Quantum entanglement can also be applied to soul mates and soul family. However, it is not the same experience, as members from a soul group are merely of the same cloth, so to speak, and not of the same soul. Soul groups are perhaps more loosely connected. So there is less of a coherence compared to what we see happening in the case of twin souls.

This is certainly an intriguing area of study. I’ve been studying metaphysics since my mid-mid-twnties, so to see it connected to Quantum theory is truly exciting. This is all that I can explain for now. I have an intuitive understanding of the concepts, but it can be difficult for me to explain in words, as I do not have the scientific vocabulary to express it any further.

Image above: “Cosmic Journey” by Prince in spirit.

STATIONERY LOVE: PERSONAL EMBOSSER

I’m excited to share something that I’ve been wanting to get for a very long time. It’s a personalized embosser. I’m a lover of classy-looking stationery and this is it! I was over the moon about finding a vendor that does fully customized plates. When I placed my order, they sent an email asking me to submit my design. I was expecting that they would ask me to select a design from a catalog that they would personalize for me. But no, they said I could put my own logo and choose my own font for the design. I received the order in about a week’s time. It came with a case for storage. This is a hand-held version, which is great for saving space. I read a lot of reviews before buying and was concerned, but it turned out that there was nothing to worry about. The plates can be changed, which is really cool if I want more plates with other designs. My first attempts at using it was a failure because I didn’t install the plates properly, so it might account for some of the complaints I read on Amazon. It works brilliantly. I plan to use it for my packaging and sales documents. Some people use it for wedding invitations and napkins, which would totally work. I can also imagine using it on gift tags and stickers. It’s a really great gift for stationary lovers or the person who has everything. I made my order through Amazon, but if you’d like to check out this supplier, it’s a company called Imprue.

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KNOW THYSELF AND STICK WITH IT

The other day, a friend and I were chatting about how much easier things get when you know yourself and you stick with what works. The conversation had stared about shoes and the fact that some of us need more support on our feet than others. I personally, cannot stand a shoe with too much structure. Simple ballet flats with less support is more comfortable for me than that with lots of support. My friend then mentioned that she had gotten a fashion consultation for what clothes work best for her. She said it made her shopping so much easier because she simply avoided the things she knew didn’t work for her and sought out the clothes that did.

I think in both career and business, it’s best to take some time to get to know yourself better and to figure out what solutions work best accordingly. There’s no sense in trying to force something to work when it just isn’t ideal for you. Working like this is working in resistance to who you are, rather than working to your strengths.

For instance, I learned of a typing system called Wealth Dynamics. It’s an archetypal system to figure out what methods of wealth generating is suitable based on your personality. I discovered that I am the Creator type, and that part of my challenge is learning to delegate tasks to others so that I can do more of the actual creative work. This made me realize how much I need to enlist the help of others to promote and sell my work. I’m currently in the process of creating systems in place to help me with this. But one aspect had bee missing until now: People who will help me generate buzz. This is why I have created an affiliate program for selling my work. Affiliate members will receive 20% commission on sales for helping me to reach customers. Interestingly, in the Wealth Dynamics profiles, the people whom I think are likely to do well with referral sales are the Supporter and Stars. Supporters love to connect with people and they are great at netowrking. And the Star is great at being an influence on others.

If you want to find out more about Wealth Dynamics, click here. I recommend finding out what type you are and working with it. Are you good at connecting with people, list building and generating web traffic? Maybe you’d like to join my affiliate program. I offer a great commission rate compared to other affiliate programs, and all you have to do is help me get the word out there about my work. To apply as an affiliate, go here.

ROCKS AND ICE IN SHANDONG

We travelled to Tai’an to see the mountains. It is a less popular attraction during the winter. But I do have to say that it is worth going to. The waters streaming from the mountains are frozen and it offers a spectacular sight to behold. The rock formations are stunning with its vibrant colours and textures.

#breathtaking #China #landscape #mountains #hiking #nature #beauty

MAGIC IN MISSISSAUGA

Yesterday I was at Square One in Mississauga with my friend, and noticed the new installation of a huge chandelier in the centre court. We just thought it was the most magical looking thing. I thought that it had a very Cinderella feeling to it. I did a quick portrait of Becca with it in the background.

The plaque for the chandelier says that it is also made with LED, so I’m guessing it must light up in the evening. I would be looking forward to seeing that!

#Lambent :SquareOne #Cinderella #magical #chandelier #light #interiordesign

REVIEW OF CANON EOS M3

I recently bought a new camera and it has opened up some new creative avenues. I was mainly buying this camera to upgrade my video quality. But because of the photography capacities, I am hooked on taking photos!

The EOS M3 is a mirrorless camera. I had considered buying a DSLR such as the mini Canon 100D, but there are several features about this camera that really stood out to me. First, the EOS M3 has a 24 mp sensor, compared to its previous versions that were 18 mp. This means I am getting image quality that is comparable to a DSLR. I also like the tilting screen that can be flipped up fully for easy selfie photos.

The other obvious feature that appealed to me is the weight of the camera. The camera body is lightweight compared to a DSLR, and I wanted something that would be travel-friendly and something that I could just carry in my purse. The camera comes with a zoom lens that is 18-50 mm. I have also ordered the 22mm pancake lens, which will make this camera even more lightweight.

This camera has a port for an external microphone, which gives you more options if you are planning to use this camera for video making. I found that with an adapter, the Rode SmartLav mic can b used with this camera. I think this is a great option because this mic was originally designed for using with a smartphone, so this gives me even more options to work with in terms of mic use.

The only thing about this camera is that it’s not available in North America. I bought this camera from an Ebay seller from Taiwan. A bit of a hassle to source a seller, but I feel that it was worth it because I really enjoy using this camera, and that means I will actually get a lot of use out of it.

LEARNING TO MAKE THINGS WORK INSTEAD OF STARTING OVER

If you are feeling bored or frustrated by your design, it’s very easy to say that you just want to scrap the whole concept and start from scratch. It’s like taking a wrecking ball to your work and starting from the ground up. It’s easy to start something new, it’s a challenge to make something new again. The most elevated designers are masters of this, especially those in the fashion industry. They work season to season, where they must create a new concept, but they must stay within the parameters of their design vision or signature style.

Part of developing your own signature style is committing to your ideas and being confident to stand by them and working to evolve them. It; is about a creative evolution, not a revolution.

By ditching your original concept, you might be cutting yourself short. You already invested time and energy in your idea, and you decide to dump it because you feel frustrated and can’t see it working.

Here’s the thing about starting over. If you start something new as a result of frustration, there is a likelihood that you will scrap this one as well and start again. and again. Until it becomes a vicious cycle of starting something and throwing it out.

Imagine the frustrated writer who types away on his typewriter, only to pull out the page and scrunch it into a ball, then tossing it out. Eventually a pile of paper snowballs around the trash can, because every time he made a mistake, he scraps it. As a result, nothing gets written.

Part of becoming a master of your craft is to not be afraid of your mistakes, to take them on as challenges and working with them anyways. A master can turn a blunder into a masterpiece.

To become a developed creative, commit to your vision by refining your work, rather than starting over. Its a greater challenge to work with what you have. It will make you a better, more versatile designer if you do this. You will also be more daring and confident in your work.

I know this to be true because I have done it many times. Started knitting projects and unravelled it. Started blogs and tore them down. started sewing projects and never saw them through because I made a mistake. While there are some situations where it makes sense to start again, I advise that you don’t make a habit of it.

For instance, I like to hand dye pieces of silk fabric in an array of colours for my designs. However, as one with any kind of dyeing experience might expect, it doesn’t always come out perfectly. The dye job looks even when its wet, but after the fabric dries, blotches of dye color might appear unexpectedly. Silk is not a cheap medium to work with. To simply scrap it is wasteful and disrespectful to the material. I have always come up with creative solutions for laying out the pattern pieces so that the discoloration would be cut away, or not appear visible on the final garment. It takes time and patience to pull this off. It may even require altering my original plans for the piece. But in the end, it all works out and I am happy with the results.

This practice has trained me to consider different problem solving strategies. Whenever I cut a garment, I always consider options that will result in the least amount of waste, and scraps are used for other projects where appropriate.

Starting over and over again is likely to lead into a vicious cycle of failed attempts and lack of commitment to doing something with determination. Knowing that you can always just start again will hold you back from committing to your performance. Instead, put in your full effort and find a away to make it work every time no matter what happens. You will be a better creative for it!

10 YEARS IN THE MAKING

I started blogging about ten years ago when blogging was a relatively new medium. I started out on Blogger with a blog called Making Things. It was a blog geared towards DIY crafts with a particular focus on knitting. Somewhere along the way, I lost interest in the blog for various reasons. Part of the reason was because of its specialized interest that felt too limiting and there were other subject areas I wanted to write about. So finally, I am creating this blog to bridge all the creative gaps I have in my repertoire. I will be showcasing different aspects of my creative lifestyle. Stay tuned for more…