Medium Finds Comfort, Connection in Chosen Field
 Pittsfield's Vicki Baird will be at the Colonial next Sunday with 'Connecting with the Beyond.' |
The local medium said she could see spirits and the energy surrounding others since she was a child.
"There was no one I could talk to about it. No one would understand what I was going through," Baird said in a phone interview with iBerkshires. Not accepting the ability is like rejecting a part of yourself, she said. "But the spirit world is persuasive."
Baird said what she calls her "gift" was never discussed by her parents and she was free to reach her own conclusions about life. "Sometimes this felt very lonely and scary, but I am so grateful that I wasn't told what to think or feel," Baird, now 41, recalled.
After her mother died, she said her ability to connect with the deceased came to the forefront. "I wanted to have my mother again, to see her again." Later, her close friend Ann was stricken with cancer. "One evening my husband and I were having dinner out and I told him 'I have to leave.'" Baird said she went to her friend's bedside helped her "pass over."
After working as an intuitive medium for more than 10 years, Baird said, "I love it. I am in the place where I was meant to be."
According to Baird, it's not that easy to make a connection. She encourages people who have lost loved ones to wait awhile. She said she tells them, "'Let's give them some time to adjust, and after your sorrowing period is clear, I'll give you a reading.' I do that to respect the person sitting in front of me as well as the energy that passed."
She continued that "it's challenging when a person is set on connecting with a spouse and the parents show up. ... This is not 1-800-dial-the-dead."
In addition to private appointments and consulting, she does does venues like the Colonial. After an introduction, "I start with messages ... It feels like something is poking at me, like a child would do as it called out 'Mommy, Mommy' to gain attention."
She doesn't single out an audience member, "but when given the message, which, for example, can be as abstract as a man driving by in a lawn mower, there is a magnetic pull to a person in the audience, for whom it makes sense. ... It can be cathartic."
Most of Baird's clients, however, come to her for reasons other than wanting to connect with loved ones who have died. "The greatest joy in my work is when people come in looking for direction and I am able to use my ability to see the possibilities in their lives and how to apply them," Baird said.
That doesn't mean not relying on those who have died, she said. "Just because they have passed, doesn't mean they know everything.
"We have a higher self, a physical self and a soul self that hold all the knowledge," continued Barid. "I go to the higher self. It's how I'm wired."
Abbie Skettles-Lines, a 48-year-old Pittsfield resident, described the reading she received from Baird as "beautiful and fascinating because I believe what we did incorporated Vicki's life-coaching skills. She was able to put into words who I am. What she said about my innate personality only I knew about. She was right on the dime."
During the reading, Baird told Skettles-Lines that spirits of her relatives had shown up. "She could not have known any of them," said Skettles-Lines. "She recognized my father who passed quite a number of years ago, and asked if he was known for his white coat; my father was a doctor."
Michael Auge's reading was a birthday gift from his wife, who'd had a reading a year or so before she met him. "Vicki told her that when she got out of the unhealthy relationship she was in at the time, someone would be waiting for her and they would marry and have a child," said Auge, 25. He and his wife are the happy parents of a baby daughter.
During Auge's reading, Baird told him she sensed he had a lot of patience and would be good working in law enforcement. "I had already been interested in becoming a police officer," said Auge.
And Baird described a man Auge's wife had befriended when she was younger, even mentioning a leather jacket he wore. "I know he used to lend that jacket to my future wife," said Auge. "He was killed in an accident before he was 22, and it impacted my wife," he continued.
Baird gave Auge a message the deceased man had for his wife: "Let go, don't worry anymore. I'm happy."
At readings, the client doesn't do the talking. "It is more validating if I do the talking," said Baird. Then she quipped, "I get tired of hearing my voice so I look forward to time off."
According to Baird, those who have died do not always wait for her. She may be pumping gas or at home when she sees a spirit.
"They want to get a message to a relative, and I tell them to get the person to my office."
Baird appears at the Colonial on Sunday, Sept. 26, at 3 p.m. as part of the theater's Experiodyssey Series. Her contact information can be found here.
