Midlife Magic

Midlife Magic

The Journey of

JO ANN RICHARDS

All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published in the United States of America in 2020

Dragonhill Books

1906 NW 25th Avenue #7 Portland OR 97210 USA

Copyright © Text Jo Ann Richards 2020

Copyright © Cover illustration Sonia Finch 2020

The moral right of the author has been asserted

A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the

Library of Congress

ISBN 978-1-7356255-0-8

Printed and bound in the United States of America by Ingram Spark

Typeset by Finches Creative Design & Illustration

Cover design by Sonia Finch,

Finches Creative Design & Illustration

Dedication

To my beloved daughter, Melissa, my rock and source of strength. Thank you for sticking by me through thick and thin. Your encouragement through this process has kept me going. You see me, and I am forever grateful.

Acknowledgments

Were it not for Sandy Kleven asking me several years ago when we first met when my story would be coming out, this book would never have been written. I am most grateful that she’d known I had a story inside me that needed to be told and nudging me over the years to do so.

Thanks to my editors, James Baldwin of Write Stuff Ink and Erin Lund of Sunshine Editor Services, for helping me refine my work into something of which I am most proud. They pulled emotions, memories, and descriptions from me and I appreciate the way they each made me go deeper. They are masters of their craft.

Thank you to my Uncle Norm and my sister, Nancy, for helping me fill in some of the family history details. Thanks to my sister, Nancy, and her husband, Norm, for their great example of what a long-lasting happy marriage looks like.

Thank you to the following test readers: Melissa Cole, Geraldine Orozco, Solaris Blueraven, Pat Mayer, Dorian Miller, Fay Landau, Merrily Milmoe, Judith Kinsinger, Mindy Gerber, Laura Plumb Sayers, Stephanie Mohan, Carola Ruijsch van Dugteren, Erin Lund, Kerry Cassidy, and John Blanpied.

A big thank-you to my husband, Mark Richards, for opening my eyes to the wonderful topics of little-known history, UFOs, extraterrestrials, elementals, and magic. It changed my life. Mark has shown me the meaning of honor, doing one’s duty, and the importance of not being a blind follower.

...thoughtful narrative on subjects that are near and dear to my heart; metaphysics, SSP and spirituality. Also, it fulfilled my desire to get an up-close view of a life, not unlike my own, full of zest and romance of the spontaneous, fearless sort. I also liked the stories of encountering ghosts, elementals and spirits with your psychic friends.

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It was a short easy read. It gave insight into why Joann became who she is today.

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I am a bit of a voyeur, like moste people. So it was nice to have a look into your life. how you developed as a person. You write from your heart, with your mind in the right place. Also the way you show yourself to the larger public matches with the picture you paint in your book.

***

I learned many valuable life lessons, gained strength from the way the author presented her life, her attitude devoid of self pity, her pride in herself for moving forward and free... Great economy of words used throughout kept my interest keen and helped me divine the subtext... Whether it was Raptors, Elementals, or husbands past or present, it was a rare and unique glimpse into the life of a mystical magic accountant grandmother who finally found her own voice and has the courage to share it with the world.

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I liked the way it was written. Down to Earth and makes you feel like you are taking the journey with the author.

Chapter One

Wild Journey to World of Wonder

This book is about my personal transformation from a boring middle-child woman with numerous failed marriages to someone who has found a new path. Although I still have struggles, I now have new sources of strength supporting me. I’ve learned that I’ve always been a strong person. I have learned the importance of claiming my power and standing up for who I am. I am a warrior, and I am determined. I now believe in keeping a gratitude practice, and in the power of manifesting what is for my highest good. I have discovered intuitive abilities that I hadn’t known I possessed. I have gone from being a religious person to a spiritual person by leaving the Mormon Church in my early forties after meeting my current husband Mark, who opened my eyes to the previously-unknown-to-me worlds of magic, faeries, ghosts, UFOs, and aliens, and experiences with each. I am delighting in this newfound world of wonder and want to carry on with it. I have decided that I need at least another forty years -or more- in this lifetime so that I can be this new me in all its glory. I want to revel in all that life has in store for me, whatever it is.

I’ve been married seven times and have one daughter. I had five Mormon husbands, and experienced various forms of abuse by each. Though they were not ideal, that wasn’t the church’s fault. I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom but was only able to do so until my daughter went to kindergarten. I have filed for bankruptcy in the past, and although I’m now close to retirement age, I am not financially prepared for retirement. I spent years giving away my personal power. Don’t feel sorry for me, though. Through all of it, I’ve come out the other side with a long list of successes, for which I’m grateful.

I have a successful bookkeeping business with over forty regular clients. Had it not been for my first divorce and the need to support myself, I would not have discovered my talent for crunching numbers and helping people feel relieved and clear about their finances.

I have a wonderful daughter who considers me her best friend, and nothing is better than that. She has a thriving lactation consultation and wellness practice and three great children of her own. She is my rock by being so supportive of my magic work and other newfound passions.

I am now married to an incredible man. Through knowing him for more than twenty-two years, my life has changed in many ways. I’ve become open to topics that I wouldn’t have considered studying before. I look at our world and universe in new ways. I question. I communicate on deeper levels.

I find more joy in nature than I used to, though I grew up loving the outdoors. I talk to the animals who visit my garden, and I’m sure they understand by the tone of my voice that I mean them no harm, as well as much more.

I grew from not believing in UFOs, aliens, faeries, or ghosts to finding myself immersed in them. I know that many desire to know the information I have. I’ve seen the faces of those who have listened to me speak at various UFO and Paranormal conferences; they appear both fascinated and relieved as they nod to me in agreement, and some tell me they are inspired by my words. They no longer feel so crazy.

In this book, I will tell you about my personal UFO sightings and paranormal experiences. I will share what I know about elementals, including faeries and other energy beings, and magic and witchcraft, and how they each play a part in my life. I’ve put all these various topics into one book because they are all connected in my world. I hope this book will become part of a new teaching career that I strongly feel is meant to be in my future. By reading the book, I hope you will come away open to new possibilities for your own life.

Join me as I share how I stepped through the portal onto my bright new path.

Chapter Two

Growing Up

I grew up in what appeared to be a normal family, as the third of four children with an older sister and brother, and a younger sister. I was mostly a straight-A student, except for PE. I was a good girl and wasn’t rebellious. I did my chores, took side-jobs to earn spending money, went to church, sang in the school choir, and was in Girl Scouts from Brownies up to Senior. You get the picture.

When I was ten, I began attending church services and youth activities with my best friend’s Mormon family. I liked the church’s wholesome family values, so officially joined when I was twelve. My dream was to grow up and live the ideal Mormon family life with a white picket fence, twelve children, and an adoring husband while being a stay-at-home mom. Life had other plans.

My childhood didn’t indicate that I would pursue any otherworldly objectives. When I think of my childhood, I think of more worldly things. Well, mostly.

In the early morning hours of July 26,1954, my Uncle Norm Fawcett had driven my laboring mother and her mother for twenty-seven miles in a fourteen-year-old Mercury Coupe from Hollywood, California, to Fort MacArthur Army Hospital in San Pedro, California. Uncle Norm had been very scared. He had not yet become a father himself and was nervous about transporting a woman in labor. His inexperience aside, I arrived safely at 7:40 AM with brown hair and brown eyes, weighing five pounds and six and a half ounces. Grandpa and Grandma Fawcett always told me that I had been a beautiful baby – not wrinkled like most newborns.

I was born into the Army by default, as Dad was in the Army. While the advantage was that my birth had only cost nine dollars, the disadvantage was that my father had not been present for my birth, as he had been stationed in Korea at the time. A telegram announcing my arrival reached him two days later. Dad and I were not to meet until I was eleven months old.