An Interview with Colette Baron-Reid

Wisdom: What does it mean to you, to be an intuitive?

Colette: As an intuitive, I pick up information in a number of ways, about people. I also have a background in Psychology. I help them by analyzing what I am picking up and seeing patterns in their life. I actually see maps...ok, this is what happened here, this is why you made this decision...I help them chart their own course. It’s an aptitude that I have to know intimate details of someone’s life that enables to me to empower them to make authentic decisions.

Wisdom: It reminds me of something I call the ‘Hansel and Gretel Breadcrumb Trail’ where they look back and said "This step led to this experience, which led to this person, and this decision which tells me that you have survived everything that has ever happened to you and you’ll make it through this too." I just don’t predict outward from there like you do.

Colette: It’s not just about predicting outward. What I do, is without knowing the person, I know the Hansel and Gretel trail. I can tell them, "when you were 8 years old, you were sexually abused, is that correct?" "Yes." "So is it accurate that your father, Henry left your family when you were 12, yes or no?" "Yes." In essence, the aptitude that I have is that I am able to tell them what the questions are and they can credibly say to me that it is accurate. I fast-track it, because I don’t do cognitive therapy and sit there working with people until the story comes out. I have access to the story immediately. That is what my work as an intuitive is about. I tour and am usually in front of audiences of about 2-3,000 people. I don’t demonstrate to show what I do. I demonstrate to show how consciousness is shared. I do radio interviews and just now I got off the phone with a radio show in upstate New York. I took a caller who said she had written the show to ask a question. She asked, "My mother had just died, what can you tell me about her?" I thought that there were communication difficulties having to do with the estate, but in fact had a very difficult relationship with her mother prior to her passing and with the husband she had left behind who was now her father. So she ended up calling the show and confirmed what I had seen. When she called, I was then able to tap into the fact that her mother was an alcoholic. I knew that right away. "What were the irises?" She said, "Oh, my God, I gave my mother irises all the time." I was able to name the father of the child. I said, "You have to clean up this thing with Michael or Marty." (It was Marty) It’s not about me, it’s about us. I do this to show that us that consciousness is immortal. Consciousness is shared and that what we believe about ourselves being completely separate is an absolute fallacy and that the material world is the finite, be-all and end all is not true at all. I prove that it’s not true at all. It’s not "anomalous activity" as scientists call it. You can’t use empirical means to prove subjectivity. The point is, this is consistent for me and for a lot of people. We need a new dialogue and new language when it comes to this phenomenon. I am hoping to make this as mainstream as possible so people understand intuition or psychic phenomenon. I use the word ‘intuition’ because of the pejorative connotation of the word ‘psychic’. In fact, the paranormal is normal. I saw an interview with Dr. Gary Schwartz who is one of my favorite people who did all this consciousness research in Arizona. He talked about the idea that science is now proving the capacity to perceive reality is like the difference between a grain of sand and the entire Empire State building. In fact, reality as we know it, constitutes the Empire State Building, but our capacity and limitations allow us only to perceive the grain of sand. I think many people are evolving to access intuitive information more and more, because it is part of a consciousness evolution. More and more people are talking about this. That’s why our entertainment is filled with this. You turn on the tv and we have "Medium" and "Ghost Whisperer", I have a tv show in development, Lisa Williams is on Lifetime, James Van Praagh has a television show, my friend John Holland has a show. We are part of the entertainment charts. It’s in our collective psyche.

Wisdom: We are all soaking in it, so naturally we are absorbing it. Do you think some people are born with intuitive abilities or is it a developed skill?

Colette: Some people are born with it. I was like a child prodigy. You're going to have people who can play piano. Everyone can plunk on a piano and make a noise. Everyone has an inherent capacity for six sensory awareness. I have an aptitude that I was born with that was abnormal. None of us do this because we wake up and say "Let’s go to psychic school!" It’s not what happens. We have these strange experiences and think "I’d better find out what it’s about." Unfortunately, our culture in the past 2,000 years, especially in America, monotheism has become quite a challenge to get around if you’re going to believe we live in a hamburger universe and God is a white guy upstairs and we’re all bad. We have to find a common denominator that is not threatening and is inclusive and more of a holistic spirituality. It includes the ability for us to access information and guidance on our own.

Wisdom: What do you find makes us doubt our guidance?

Colette: Here’s the thing...we have an ego, the personality self that defines itself through limitation and separation in the identity of being unique. We have been indoctrinated to believe that material reality is the only one. Intuition is non-sensical. Osho said that people say intuition is nonsense, when it is a non-sense. Intuitive information many times will go against the logic of things. If you have a map that says you are supposed to turn right at the next corner, but you have such a strong feeling that you are supposed to go to the following corner and then your friend is saying "No, you’re doing it wrong." and you say "I have to go there." and you turn on the radio and find that you just missed a horrible accident or a wire had fallen down on the street you were supposed to turn on, at that moment. Those are the kind of things that average people experience all the time, but it is completely illogical that you would know that.

Wisdom: Those things do happen every day and I am paying attention to it. A few years ago, I saw a huge tree fall in front of me, in a wind storm, moments after thinking, "I wonder what would happen if a tree fell.", and then, boom, it came crashing down. I didn’t cause the tree to fall down and would never logically assume it would happen, but there it was...a 100 foot tall oak tree.

Colette: I hope you’re putting that in our interview. It gives it more credibility that this happens. We accept certain things as normal. We expect that we see the spectrum of colors and that things have certain shapes and colors. We all jointly agree on what reality is to us. These intuitive experiences come from another dimension of our day to day lives, that is rarely talked about, although it is happening more and more. Look at Sylvia Brown on the best seller list. You look at Hay House; there are more and more New York Times Best Sellers. People are interested in this, average people. I want to go back to the comment you made about you and the tree, that you didn’t cause the tree to fall. I have taught seminars in metaphysics for as long as I have been doing readings. I say the misinformation of the New Age concept of reality creation is that thought always creates reality when many times we are knowing reality in advance. We have cognitive experiences out of the confines of what we believe is temporal and spatial. What you experienced was a pre-cognitive moment and then in fact, it happened. Really interesting stuff.

Wisdom: What do you think about the concept of free will vs. destiny?

Colette: I think the two go hand and hand. I think there is a play between fate, destiny and free will. I don’t believe that either are 100%. I don’t believe that you can create any reality that you want because you are here to learn specific things. You can even judge by a really detailed astrological chart that will tell you much about your journey and what you are to experience on that journey. You are not going to be the same as somebody else, but you can be the best you within that. There are moments of creative capacity. I am a recovered alcoholic. I am sober 22 ½ years and anytime I look back on my life and realized that had I not surrendered in that moment, my life would have turned out very different. Every day I make a free will choice not to pick up that first drink. When I was gang raped when I was 19, I had every reason to consider myself a victim and did for a number of years, but I choose to be a victor over that today and I choose to have compassion and I have a freedom today over something that was very painful. I have found a deeper meaning of things. Our intuitive ability allows us to tap into this magic to make us stop and think. Those synchronicities are there to remind us that there is a greater experience and deeper meaning than our small, tiny, little world.

Wisdom: You are what I would call a ‘thriver’ because you’re taking your experiences and using them to help other people heal their broken places too.

Colette: Exactly and I am showing other people that they can do the same thing and I show them how and I give them the muscles. Between fate and destiny; I do believe that there are things that are pre-ordained and I can’t deny that. I believe that each of us has a purpose and within that, I believe we have the ability to mess it up or be the best we can be. There’s only one Oprah. She’s going to manifest her life. That’s who she is. You’re not going to sit at home and think you’re going to make dream boards and make a million dollars. If you don’t have the aptitude or passion....do you know what I’m getting at? There has to be more than just wanting something or deciding you’re going to get it.

Wisdom: It’s the idea of putting legs under it. Doing what it takes.

Colette: Our intuitive ability allows us to be in alignment with our inspiration, that voice of the Spirit that tells us where we are meant to be. I’m going off on a different tangent here. The reason I’ve written my books and created the oracle system is to give people tools and make it fun; look at the extraordinary world we live in, that Spirit will speak to us all the time. We just have to tune into the conversation.

Wisdom: It ties in with something I heard the other night. Are you familiar with the book "Eat, Pray, Love"?

Colette: That’s one of my favorite books!

Wisdom: I heard the author, Elizabeth Gilbert speak in New Hope, PA. She was just phenomenal. She was talking about the idea that for any creative person, regardless of the medium, you are the servant to the creation. She didn’t write the book. In a sense, it wrote her and called on her as the mother to allow it come through. Do you feel like your work ‘works you’ that way?

Colette: Oh my gosh, yes. You know I am also a singer songwriter and recording artist on the EMI label and I came to this profession reluctantly. In my work as an intuitive, I have never tried to make it be. The only way it has worked is if I have surrendered to it. When I write my books, only when I try to struggle, does it not work. It tells me what to write. I just created these new oracle cards "The Wisdom of Avalon" and they came to me 15 years ago. It is such an accurate divination system, I wish I was Santa’s divination elf sitting in a corner making cards. There is a system I am now working on called "Wealth Wisdom" and all of a sudden, these beings showed up in my meditation: a web weaver and a nightwalker. An entire mystical world showed up and said "We want to be in the cards." and I said, "O.K." I’m in awe of being the conduit and it’s the same with my music. It’s been inspired by my letting go and letting it be. When I try too hard, when I’ve constructed songs, when I’m not being honest in the songs or trying to be too crafty, you can tell.

Wisdom: The Avalon cards are beautiful.

Colette: I was sort of obsessed with those cards. I don’t have a British bone in my body. I’m a Serbian, Mongolian and then French and Polish Jew. I’ve been obsessed with the Avalon myth ever since I was a kid. When Hay House signed me, I told them I wanted to create these cards. It’s certainly not based 100% on the Druid spiritual tradition, but a modernized version of this. They are uncanny. I don’t know who wrote the booklet. I was looking at the other day and thought "I can’t believe I wrote this."I’ve never advertised in my entire life. For all the years I have been doing work as an intuitive, I thought "If I’m the real deal, people will come and if not, I’ll be a singer." For me, it’s about the authenticity and integrity of the work. It will find its own legs. I’m not a defensive person and I’m also really skeptical. If somebody wants to challenge me, I would say, "Let’s do some research together, but don’t come to me with cynicism." I’m happy to continue a dialogue and I’m convinced that none of us know 100% of this anyway. We have theories. People talk about what Heaven looks like. We don’t know. We know what we think we know. I’m always open; change my mind. All I have is my experiential knowledge which is authentic and real and if it’s consistent enough, I can say "This is what I know consistently." That took awhile. I’m not afraid anymore.

Wisdom: What would you say would be the most profound question you have ever been asked that might have been the hardest to answer?

Colette: That gave me a nice big pause.

Wisdom: Maybe this IS the question.

Colette: What is profound? Somebody asked me once, how I knew that God is in nature. I said "Go outside, pick a rose and ask if you can make that. Ask ‘who made this?’