Guy Spiro: Linda, I usually start by asking people to briefly tell their stories.
Linda Howe: I had an ordinary story. I grew up in Chicago, in a large Irish-Catholic family, went to college and got a degree in history. But I found myself driven by a few compelling questions. What am doing here? What is this life about? Is there a God? What is all of this?
GS: All the easy ones.
[laughter]
LH: I was living the ordinary life, but underneath there was a great sense of urgency to find out what was going on. In my early 20s I woke up one day and realized that on the surface I had done everything right. I had been a good girl, went to college, had a great job, a beautiful apartment and everything looked terrific. But I felt, what was for me, the pain of the ages. I felt so hollow inside that it broke my heart and I was truly baffled. I thought, you line everything up around you and experience satisfaction and fulfillment, but it didn’t work. I started praying what was for me a very desperate prayer, and it was, God, if you’re there, I need help. Within six weeks I had a remarkable, profound spiritual experience. There was a tree outside my window and I was staring at it, crying and feeling terrible, when out of nowhere, somewhere within me and simultaneously beyond me, I had an awareness that I was one with this tree. It blew me away, and as that occurred, I was flooded with an experience of very strong energy. I had the sense that I am loved and I got that mentally, but the thing I really got is that I am liked, appreciated, and thoroughly known by this force.
GS: It is one thing to know that intellectually and another to feel it.
LH: It rocked my world. Thirty years later I’m still not over it. I’m still growing into that awareness and the
search goes on. My question was how do I cultivate this, how do I live in this state? Once you’ve experienced the light, there’s no turning back and nothing to go back to. I tried everything, went everywhere, did everything and had a wonderful journey. Along the way, I had a tarot practice. The tarot is a powerful tool. We would have great wisdom and insights, but people would come back a year later with the same problems. I saw that knowledge and insight are great, but they don’t always solve the problem. What was missing was power. At that point, I moved into classic core shamanism. I had a practice doing that for many years and it was wonderful. That was all about the direct experience of power and right use of the life force. It was tremendous, but at some point it dawned on me that I was tired of dragging the drums around.
[laughter]
But it was wonderful and I grew through it.
My next great prayer was, there has to be a way to access knowledge and power that’s simple. Soon enough, I found myself on a panel talking about shamanism and there was another woman speaking about the Akashic Records. I was captivated, went to her class, followed her directions and had another amazing and profound experience. I opened up the Records, and to this day, it was the closest I have come to that initial experience when I was 24. It was so moving to me that I let go of my card reading practice, let go of shamanism, and moved into working in the Records. That was 1994 and by 1996 I was teaching. It was clear to me the people coming to me were very sophisticated, very together, and that there’s no reason they shouldn’t have direct access to their own Records. The Records are an infinite spiritual resource. They are the bridge of light through which we can have direct experience to know our souls. The Akashic Record is a soul level dimension of consciousness that holds the vibrational record of every being and their journey through time.
