[Interview] Dyan Garris

Dyan Garris is a clairvoyant, musician and author.

She has written and produced six music compilations, among them, A Healing Journey: The Voice of the Angels CD, Reflection and Patterns.

Her books include The Book of Daily Channeled Messages, Voice of the Angels Cookbook: Talk to Your Food! Intuitive Cooking and A Healing Journey: Spiritual Journey Cards, which were all published by Journeymakers, Inc. during the course of this year.

In a recent interview, Dyan Garris spoke about the work she is doing.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

Writing has always been an outlet and a way to express the many reflections of what is deep in my soul for as long as I could put pen to paper. I can't remember a time when I didn't write, draw or express on paper.

I think I first knew I had a talent for it and a love for it in ninth grade Creative Writing class. When everyone else would cringe at a creative writing assignment, I would be ecstatic. My teacher told me that my imagination seemed limitless. She inspired me to keep writing and I did.

How would you describe your writing?

I write mostly nonfiction, although I just wrote a short fiction book, Fish Tale of Woe: Lost at Sea.

I am a spiritual teacher so what I write always has the spiritual element and the goal is always to teach and help people get more in touch with themselves on more than just the physical level. For example, my cookbook, Talk to Your Food! Intuitive Cooking, teaches a way to use one's intuition and innate creativity while preparing food. It isn't just a cookbook with recipes to blindly follow. It is about opening up and putting the whole self into the cooking process, thus opening up other avenues for energy to flow in one's life.

My next book is a book on manifesting and money and the energy of money and how to open channels to money flow and work effectively with it. This is about applying universal principles (the law of attraction, for example) to the energy of money. If you try to force the opposing sides of two magnets together you won't ever get them to stick together no matter how hard you try. They repel. Turn one of them over and suddenly they stick. In this new book I teach people how to turn the other one over so they can attract what they desire.

I can't really pinpoint exactly what motivated me to begin writing in this genre. I just let it flow. It's in my soul and what I write is just a reflection of that.

Who is your target audience?

My audience is anyone who really wants to understand the deeper meaning and purpose of their lives. I write for people who want a change and people who want to bring their lives into focus and balance.

The key is to bring all layers of who you are, mind, body and spirit, into harmony with each other. This is where we find life becoming synchronous. This is where we are able to manifest our desires.

Who would you say has influenced you the most?

My ninth grade English teacher had so much influence. She inspired me to constantly create and my style has always been to wrap up the deeper meaning of things into my stories. I remember wanting to inspire her too. She was really my only audience at the time. I loved having a basic parameter and being able to expand more fully into that.

My mother also influenced me at a very early age by reading to us every evening and by teaching me to read at age three. By the time I got to first grade I had already read all of the stories they presented us with.

My real love of books came when my mother took me to my first book fair at age four. I still remember the thrill and excitement of seeing all of those books laid out on the tables. I was fascinated. She told me I could pick out any book I wanted.

I chose The Blue Fairy. I still have it.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

My main concern as a writer is being able to effectively convey higher concepts to the readers in such a way that they can integrate them into their lives. My motivation is to help those that want to improve their quality of life be able to do that.

Sometimes I see the concept of what I am trying to bring forth in a more multidimensional way and it can be challenging to get that down in a manner that is simple to grasp and then implement in a practical way.

I like to look at challenges as opportunities rather than obstacles.

I find one of my biggest challenges to be that I seem to thrive on doing several things at once. For me this is like composing a song. I don't just want to write two or three notes. I want to write the whole melody and then fill it in with the harmonies and other layers. And then I want to get all of those integrated so I can hear the whole song.

I try to enjoy the process and stay in the moment, knowing that ultimately each note and nuance is what makes the finished product or song so completely enjoyable.

How many books have you written so far?

Voice of the Angels: A Healing Journey Spiritual Cards is a deck of 30 cards to be used for spiritual growth and divination. Each card has an uplifting channeled message in verse. For example, The Dolphins card has this verse: "Your friends are near and very dear, helping you on this day. This is the thing that you must trust as they guide you on your way."

The deck comes with a 67-page instruction book detailing how to use the cards as tools for transformation and there is also a journal for recording progress, which is available separately. The instruction book contains a Transformational Healing Exercise, healing affirmations, and more.

I drew and developed these cards in 1993.

The artwork on the cards are all scenes from A Healing Journey Guided Fantasy, which is a guided meditation I wrote and developed into a music and meditation CD.

When you put all the verses of the cards in order, they form the story of A Healing Journey.

Although these are not books, I also write guided visualizations/journeys and put them to music, which I compose and perform. Some of my music can be heard on Music Choice's Soundscapes cable TV channel. This is my series of music and meditation for self-healing, relaxation, chakra balancing, help in sleeping and vibrational attunement of mind, body and soul. There are six of these in this series and the titles are: A Healing Journey: The Voice of the Angels CD, Moment by Moment: Music for the Soul CD, Reflection CD, Patterns CD, Illusions CD and Connections CD.

Each CD has seven or eight tracks of soothing, instrumental relaxation music and a guided meditation as the last track. Each CD is for a different and specific purpose. A Healing Journey is for healing, meeting guardian angels, chakra balancing and more. Moment by Moment is for breathing and discovering one's power symbol. Reflection is for manifesting our heart's desires. Patterns is for overcoming obstacles and learning forgiven. Illusions is for recovering lost personal power while Connections is for releasing whatever keeps us tied up in endless repetitive cycles. They were all published by Journeymakers, Inc. I began this series in 2005 and completed it in 2006.

Voice of the Angels: Meditation Journal explains how and why to meditate, and includes "How to Create a Sanctuary" and "Grounding and Centering." It teaches different breathing techniques and provides a place to record one's "journeys." It was published by Journeymakers, Inc. in October 2007.

Voice of the Angels: Talk to Your Food! Intuitive Cooking was published by Journeymakers, Inc. in August 2007. The book is an adventure in opening one's creative centers and listening to one's inner voice about what truly nourishes not only the body, but the mind and spirit as well. It includes 12 food-related channeled messages and several "Intuitively Speaking" paragraphs, which explain how to prepare the recipe using one's own unique creativity.

The Book of Daily Channeled Messages contains 180 angelic messages from the past year. Messages such as: Magic, Release, Power, The Future, No Regrets, Transformation, Transition and Miracles, uplift and soothe the mind and spirit and provide comfort and direction. There is more than one way to use this book. One can read it straight through or seek out messages on a particular topic, such as manifesting. Another way is to employ the techniques of Bibliomancy or Libromancy to derive guidance for the day. The book was published by Journeymakers, Inc. in October 2007.

Fish Tale of Woe: Lost at Sea is a fictional story about how to "save" oneself from patterns of entitlement, manipulation and victimhood. It is currently at the printer and will be available in November 2007.

Do you write every day?

I do write every day. I publish the Daily Channeled Message on my Web site. This is a free and inspirational daily message for my Web site visitors.

I don't spend a specific amount of time on writing. Sometimes it just completely flows and other times I will know the theme of what I am to write about. But it takes a little longer to figure out how to say it in such a way that the reader will be able to identify with.

I find all of my projects to be great fun to write and produce. Each one is similar to watching a child grow and mature. What was challenging about the cookbook was deciding which recipes would photograph well and then actually preparing all of those and plating them up for their big day. There are 60 color photographs. So it took me awhile. I think I took over 1,000 photographs to get the ones I wanted to put in the book. It was like food on an endless photo shoot!

The thing that I found the most difficult was actually translating the recipe to paper. I never measure anything, not even when I bake, so trying to explain to the reader that "you just talk to it" was a real challenge. I knew I had to put more in there than just that. I ended up making everything in the book and writing down what the measurements were so I could put those basic guidelines in the recipes.

Which did you enjoy most?

I have a real passion for cooking and entertaining. In the process of making all that food I had a lot of friends over and a big party at the end. That was the frosting on the cake!

The cookbook was a different way to incorporate spiritual concepts into everyday living. I wanted to try to raise the culinary experience to a different level so that readers would begin to feel what they cook and on some level communicate with their food as a way to nourish themselves on every level. I believe that cooking should be fun and inventive, not intimidating. The end result should be a creative exchange rather than a mundane task.

What would you say has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

I'm not sure I've achieved anything significant yet. I think it becomes a matter of how we define significant. What is significant to me might not have any significance to someone else.

I am proud of my body of work and I like that it all works together as tools for transformation. I like that it all integrates, interrelates and works together. Anyone that wants to can now take these tools either individually or as a whole and really make some positive forward movement toward their own life achievements.

I believe one should take all the ingredients in their refrigerator and make something out of them. That is what I try to do on a daily basis.

The other thing I learned along the way is similar to the message of the Raft card in my deck of spiritual cards: "A raft is here for traveling on to places yet unknown. Surrender now to love and light and see how much you've grown." What I love about this card is that the raft has no oars so you can't steer it yourself. You have to give up any control issues you may have and just go with the flow and trust. That's how I get to wherever I am supposed to go. I climb in the raft, gracefully or not, and trust the process.