Wren

Article by Eileen Alexander

Leigh Grace is a woman of simple pleasures, but high energy. The feisty and opinionated redhead relocated from New Orleans to St. Johnsbury last fall following Hurricane Katrina, just days after her book Say Grace, and she hasn't stopped since she touched down in the Northeast Kingdom.

Community activities and psychic work keep her as busy as she'd like. "I did it all on intuition," she says. "After Katrina I could have moved anywhere, but I said I was moving to St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
Her friends and family thought she was out of her mind, but she knew it was the right decision for her. "I told them, 'You can call me 'Crazy Grace,' but now they're saying 'you were smart.'"
Leigh had fallen in love with the St. Johnsbury area two years earlier when she attended the Dowser's Convention held at Lyndon State College. She was drawn there after meeting some people from Vermont who were visiting New Orleans and for whom she had done a reading.
She plays duplicate bridge twice a week, has a monthly spot on WSTJ 1340 AM radio (the third Wednesday at 8:30 a.m.), is planning an oral history project, and works as a psychic. Leigh has been doing psychic work for about 15 years, for clients in the United States and in countries around the world.
As a young woman growing up in the '50s she followed the conventional path, marrying a man with the "right credentials," a successful lawyer, and raising two sons and a daughter. After 23 years she called it quits, and began what she considers some of her most important work, "being out in the world and finding out who you are."

While in therapy, she explored and deepened her intuition and uncovered her ability as a psychic. Over the years she has discovered that her creative outlets - writing, cooking, and psychic work - have supported and strengthened her. As you become more creative, she says, you become more intuitive, and in turn become more divine.
Once Leigh discovered her gift for psychic intuition, she turned her considerable energies to learning all she could. She stepped up her reading, taught herself to do the Tarot, practiced on friends, and waited for the call that would show her the next path to take.
The call came from a woman who owns a shop in the French Quarter of New Orleans, who wanted Leigh to do readings there.
"I sat down with my open self, right there on Bourbon Street. The cards just danced for me." One of her sons, a doctor, was horrified because the job didn't have benefits. But Leigh was undaunted, telling him that the best benefit was getting to meet people from all over the world. "now medicine recognizes that the mind heals the body,: she says.
Leigh doesn't consider her psychic gifts as unnatural. "It's part of me. I'm grateful for it." She follows the advice given to her by a doctor at Tulane Medical School who lectures on the subconscious. "My advice," he told her, "is never think about it. Just do it."
During a reading, Leigh will generally read her client's palm, and then user her Tarot cards.

"I pick up a lot. They are a guide." Using the information she gleans, she tries to give her clients a detour or alternate route that will help them better understand the issues they are concerned with. She also does dream analysis, and departed spirits and past life work. she tapes every session, so her clients will have a record of what was said that they can refer to.
"I feel a deep connection with northern Vermont," she says the New Orleans native, who can trace her family genealogy to the state and her people. "It's been a truly amazing experience. People are wonderful. What you see is what you get."