My attempt at meditating one evening turned into a bit of a tantrum, rather than a spiritual prayer. I was so discouraged about everything that wasn't working in my life that it became the 'why me?' rant. I complained to the divine and my guardians that I'd been on my spiritual path and had followed every instinct and lead I was given, and yet nothing was working out. I was beyond frustrated. It made me feel stupid to have followed my dreams, each of which seemed to have been dashed against the rocks of my pathetic life.
So, during my tantrum-like meditation, I told the divine to show me something...please!...Give me a sign....anything! I was so tired of struggling all the time. My pleading tantrum over, I went to bed and forgot all about it.
The next night I was back to being my non-tantrum self. I'd finished my meditation and prayers and was in that wonderful twilight that comes just before sleep. Suddenly a list of ingredients appeared before my closed eyes. It was as if I was looking at a 3"x 5" tablet with blue lines and the spiral at the top. The writing was clear as day but my eyes were closed and the room was pitch dark.
At the top of the list was Icelandic sea kelp. Even though I am of Icelandic descent on my father's side, and grew up in what once was The Icelandic Lutheran Church, I'd never heard of such a thing. I knew about vinar tarta, kleinur, and any number ofdelicious Icelandic treats, but I didn't know about Icelandic sea kelp. It wasn't an ingredient in Icelandic baked goods.
The ingredients in my vision were listed down the page. One of them looked like initials to me. The soft, bell like, angelic 'voice' in my head whispered to me to 'get up and write it down'. I was totally comfortable and almost asleep and didn't want to. The 'voice' absolutely would not take no for an answer, and was insisting that I get up and write it down....Now! The intensity of the suggestion was with the same passion that my tantrum-prayer had been the night before, but lacked my pouting immaturity. I reluctantly got up and wrote it down. I am very happy that I did.
The next day I went searching for the ingredients. A friend called me that evening and asked about my day. I told her I'd had a vision of a masque formula and had never heard of one of the ingredients. She said "you what? You dreamed a masque? Janis, you are so strange that you don't even know you're strange anymore!" She looked up the mysterious ingredient in her mother's medical dictionary. It actually was something. I'd thought it was initials. The definition was a 'skin tightener' and 'used to purify water', etc.
At that moment I was hit like a bolt from the sky that the vision I'd had was a gift from the divine and my late Icelandic father Hannes Arthur (now my wonderful Guardian Angel) and that it was very special indeed. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it would be healing to people's skin and that in receiving this gift, I was to make it available to everyone. I was absolutely positive about it.
I had the list of ingredients but quantities and manufacturing instructions weren't specified. As I worked to get the proportions just right for nearly a year, I practically burned my neighbor's faces off (in a good way). They looked so fresh, fabulous, and wrinkle free they didn't mind a bit! When their friends complimented them on their new, glowing skin, they told them about me and the green goo. Strangers were knocking at my door at all hours with empty mayonnaise and jam jars asking for some of the magical green goo.
I didn't have the money to have it laboratory tested, so I put a jar in the trunk of my car in the heat of North Hollywood for an entire year. It remained stable with no sign of deterioration. Same with the jar on my kitchen counter. Meanwhile, my friends and neighbors and I were looking younger and younger as the months went by.
I finally took the handwritten formula to a laboratory in its teaspoons and cups recipe form. The chemist/lab owner took one look at it and said, "You aren't a chemist, are you"?
He wanted to know where the formula came from. I wasn't expecting the question and reluctantly told him the truth (weird woo woo chick) and explained that nothing in the formula could be changed. He said he believed that my receiving the vision was Divine Providence. We argued about adding preservatives. Me, who had never taken a chemistry class and still doesn't know a dram from a tablespoon, having the temerity to tell this professional what he could and couldn't do. Hilarious! Of course he must have thought I was nuts, because it was impossible that it wouldn't spoil. But it didn't. My scalding hot, trunk-of-the-car-testing-lab had been a good one. He was dumbfounded and did all sorts of testing to make it deteriorate. It still didn't. Here's another miracle. He was so blown away, that he did all the testing for Free! Talk about blessings from beyond.
I have several funny stories about messing with the perfect vision formula. Think
I Love Lucy on one of her more challenging adventures… that was me in the flesh, big time!
