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Issue 1 – February 21, 2025
Welcome to the first issue of Glimmers Weekly.
A “glimmer” is a faint, unsteady light –a small spark– revealing a brief moment of comfort, hope, joy, or peace.
These tiny moments of magic are breadcrumbs left by the Universe and they are the stories we’ll be sharing and celebrating together every Friday. Right now, perhaps more than ever, we could all use a way to let a little more light in our lives.
“Stories are small prayers” – Brian Doyle
Purple Roses
By Jesse Janelle
My head was killing me. I had never had a headache like this, right front and center between my eyebrows. I had just started meditating everyday using The Silva Ultramind System and was still waiting for those magical stress-reduction effects to kick in. I had practiced tons of different types of meditations over the years – Awakening Through Love, MBSR, visualizations, body scans, the list goes on – but Silva felt different. You see, in Silva, the idea is that you’re training your mind to actually be able to affect reality. It’s heavily spiritual while still being agnostic, connecting you to a higher power while activating the awesome power within you.
I had just finished practicing one of my favorite visualizations from Silva, where you imagine a penny spinning in front of you as you stand in front of a blank wall. Every time you hear the guide snap his fingers, you change the color of the wall in your mind, while keeping the penny spinning in the air. When I came out of the meditation, I realized just how well Silva was working. That constant headache was my third eye, stuck in a wide open aperture as messages and feelings were pouring in so quickly that they became indiscernible from anxiety, stress, and fear. Silva was teaching me how to open things up, but not how to control the flow. We’re not meant to stay so connected all the time. Silva helped me raise my vibration, but that’s no place for a human to stay for long – that’s meant for the angels. It’s like trying to live underwater. Sure, you can visit the beach and pop on some goggles. You can swim out past the break, take a deep breath, and dive underwater to explore the wonders beneath the sea. But eventually, your chest tightens, you feel the whispers of panic, and you need to come back up for air. But it’s so cool under there, you might think. So you find a way to stay under even longer, like scuba diving. But you can’t just strap on some scuba gear and dive into the deep. You need hours of training to withstand the pressure as you descend. You need instruction on how to safely get back to the surface – without it, you will collapse. That was me. No instruction. No idea how to come back up for air. I was drowning.
The added cruelty of it all was that I didn’t know where to turn. My Silva training was just a pre-recorded thirty day course on an app called Mindvalley. If you want to learn to scuba dive, you simply Google “scuba instructors near me” and can enroll in a course with a real, live person to guide you through it. What am I supposed to Google for this?
Mystical mentors in the Boston area?
Spiritual guides near 01969?
What to do when your third eye just won’t close?
I gave it a shot – searching for anything moderately useful. Nothing. I asked around to my friends and colleagues who had some minor interest in spirituality and nobody had any recommendations. Then one day, I was listening to a Gabby Bernstein podcast episode and she had a woman named MaryAnn DiMarco on as a guest talking about her new book, “Medium Mentor.” Even though I did not consider myself a medium and was not trying to be one, I immediately went to her website thinking I might be able to glean something from her offerings. I signed up for her upcoming three hour workshop on developing your psychic gifts.
In the first half of the workshop, MaryAnn gave us some tips for spiritual hygiene, which I hadn’t previously considered. I learned about setting boundaries with my spirit team and allowing them to act as my “bouncers”, keeping any unwanted spiritual connections out of my energetic space. MaryAnn introduced me to the idea of cleansing and protecting my energy, and also how to shut down for the night so I didn’t get disturbed in my sleep. These were exactly the types of tips I needed – something to set me off in the right direction but flexible enough for me to play with and adapt to my needs. I experimented with these concepts over the next few weeks, and while they helped, I still felt as though my spiritual faucet was turned all the way on and I didn’t know how to adjust the flow.
One Tuesday night in October, I had reached a breaking point. I walked into my empty bedroom that night feeling like I had just walked into a frat party. I could feel so many energies around me that I couldn’t discern a single one. Was I drunk? Were they drunk? The air felt too loud and there were way too many people talking – even though I couldn’t hear any voices. I pushed past them to get to my bathroom, uncomfortably trying not to be touched – even though I couldn’t feel them. I felt annoyed. I shouldn’t have to say “excuse me” as I walk through my bedroom, alone.
I don’t know how to leave this party.
I don’t know how to turn down the music.
I don’t know how to tell them to leave – I don’t even know who they are or why they’re here.
I do know that my head hurts.
I went through the motions of getting ready for bed. I closed my eyes in the shower to shampoo my hair and I could feel eyes on me. I brushed my teeth, avoiding the mirror, just in case those horror movies had some truth to them. If I saw a face appear behind me in the mirror, that would have been it – they might as well have admitted me straight to a psych ward. Still annoyed, but more so scared, I grabbed my tarot cards and sat down on the floor for my nightly chat with Grandma and Nana.
As I always do, I began my tarot process by speaking my feelings out loud to Grandma and Nana. I believe that tarot does not give you the answers to your questions and I do not believe in tarot as a tool of fortune telling. I use tarot cards to communicate with my spirit team the same way I would if Grandma and Nana were sitting right in front of me. I say what’s on my mind, and I pose a series of questions that are meant to allow my spirit team to reflect back what I already know to be true, but haven’t yet been able to access. Here is what that conversation looked like:
After expressing my fears and explaining how overwhelmed I felt, I asked,
Question 1: What do I need to know here?
Card: 8 of Wands
This card indicated to me an acknowledgment that things are moving very fast, and it’s understandable that I’d be overwhelmed.
Question 2: What am I not seeing?
Card: Temperance
At the time, I understood this card to mean that I was out of balance and just another acknowledgment of my situation. Now that I have built a deeper relationship with the cards and with my guides, whenever the Temperance card comes up, it means my team is with me. It tells me I’m being guided by angels and that I’m spiritually protected. It is one of the most comforting cards in the deck for me.
Question 3: What is the next right action?
Card: High Priestess
This card indicated to me that I should step even further into my spiritual development and truly let go. While this felt aligned with my intuition, it also felt incredibly scary and I was questioning my interpretation.
While I found the conversation somewhat comforting, I still didn’t know what to do. Typically I would close my tarot sessions with a “thank you” and “I love you,” but this time I made a request. I told Nana and Grandma I was scared and needed some reassurance that everything I was feeling was safe and loving. I had been raised Catholic and with that comes so much fear around the spiritual.
Was I going to be taken over by a demon like in the exorcist movie? (Which, of course, I never actually saw because it’s a good Catholic girl’s worst nightmare.)
Was I being haunted by evil spirits?
Should I try to stop this right away?
Do I need to go find myself a Priest? (Oh boy, how am I going to google that one?)
The thing was, nothing I was feeling or experiencing actually felt bad. Sure, it was new and all way too much too fast, but I was conditioned to be scared. I needed some cosmic confirmation.
I asked them for a sign – This was a first; I had never asked for something physical like that before.
If this is all love, if I don’t need to be afraid, please show me a purple rose.
I wanted to ask for something odd, something I couldn’t recall seeing before. One of Nana’s favorite colors was purple and Grandma’s name was Rosalie, so I felt like this sign would be something they could both put their energy into for me. I had learned from that Medium Mentor Workshop that signs can take months to receive, sometimes even years, so my expectations were set for this message to come through some serious snail mail.
I struggled to sleep that night with the relentless humming of energies in my ear and a searing ache in my third eye, knowing I had to be able early in the morning to attend a conference. The next day, I woke up early and caffeinated myself for the long drive West of Boston. The conference was being delivered by the Next Practice Institute, the professional development arm of Mobius Executive Leadership, a company at which I was hoping to land a job. I had been invited to attend this special day of their week-long conference by the CEO and I wanted to make a good impression. I often have trouble following GPS directions, but luckily these ones were easy to follow. I parked in the parking garage next to the Babson Executive Conference Center. I wasn’t exactly sure where to go, so I just followed the crowd of professionally dressed folks heading towards a side door. Everyone already had badges from attending the earlier days in the week and I quickly felt out of place. My mind was shouting, you’re not supposed to be here, when my eyes caught a smiling face near the front entrance.
“Can I help you?,” the woman asked.
“Hi I’m Jesse Janelle. Amy invited me.”
“Oh yes, we have a badge for you!”
She walked behind the staff table and grabbed my lanyard. Now that I had the golden ticket around my neck, I could safely blend into the sea of lanyards getting breakfast down the hall. I walked towards the coffee and saw a familiar face – my dear friend Sofia. Sofia worked at Mobius in the type of role that I wanted to get and was a part of a close-knit professional development cohort with me. She was eager to introduce me to colleagues, but the first session of the day was starting in minutes and we needed to find seats. Mobius had a secondary room – a back stage of sorts – set up for staff to watch the speeches since the main conference room was packed with attendees.
I took my seat in the overflow room and began chatting with my neighbors while we were waiting for the talk to begin. Mobius’ CEO took the stage to introduce the speaker which drew my attention to the big screen at the front of the room. I felt a wave of warmth wash over me as I realized the small floral arrangement on the desk beneath the screen was filled with purple roses. I immediately questioned what I was seeing. Were they really more of a dark pink? I’m not good with flowers… maybe those aren’t even roses. Pleased but still skeptical, I brought my eyes back to the big screen. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before – on either side of the dais were two huge urns filled with purple roses. There was no denying it now. Message received.
It was hard to pay attention to the speaker after that. My mind kept running through thoughts of what this all meant. I felt immensely blessed and powerful. I felt an overwhelming feeling of protection that turned my fears into a desire to deepen my spiritual practice. When I exited the overflow room during the first break, I was struck once again but everything I had missed during my stressful and chaotic entrance into the conference center. The check-in desk was covered with floral arrangements – all filled with purple roses. Every room, every hallway had the same arrangements. Everywhere I looked, I found more purple roses. I got more than just a yes to my question about whether everything I was experiencing was love. I now knew with absolute certainty that I was not walking this path alone and that I would continue to be guided and protected.
About the Author: Jesse Janelle is a writer, tarot reader, and spiritual coach. She writes “Glimmers Weekly”, a newsletter dedicated to sharing small stories of everyday magic, joy, and comfort. As the creator of Soul Sessions, Jesse uses tarot cards as a tool of transformational coaching to guide clients to more intuitive decision making and spiritual alignment. She earned a BA in Psychology from Boston College and is currently completing her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Bay Path University. Jesse lives in Rowley, MA with her husband and three children.
Thanks for reading.
See you again next week,
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Next Steps:
- If you have a piece that you’d like to have considered for publication in Glimmers Weekly, please email jesse@jessejanelle.com with “Glimmers Submission” in the subject line and include a google doc link in the body of the email (no attachments please).
- I offer 1:1 tarot based coaching for intuitive development and spiritual guidance. I open a handful of sessions each month for new clients. You can book a session here.
