Interview with Leontine Hartzell, Runner Up in the WOW! 2021 Summer Flash Fiction Contest

Leontine Hartzell is a writer and shamanic energy healing teacher. She has been a psychic life coach and energy healer for over 30 years. A mystic and visionary, she listens to her helping spirits to bring forth inspiring wisdom through her writing, teaching, music, healing and coaching individuals and Fortune 500 executives. She is also an award winning recording artist, singing healing melodies channeled from the helping spirits. (www.OmajaMusic.com) Leontine finds inspiration from the ancestors, the spirits of the earth, wind and the stars. She was short-listed in the Fish Publishing flash fiction contest in 2019 and published in the Vassar Literary magazine. Her WOW! short story was dictated to her by an ancestral spirit who appeared to her in a vision and insisted she stop working on a different project and write down what she was telling her. Leontine welcomes any inquiries from literary agents and publishers to help publish this powerful woman’s story. Leontine is also currently writing a memoir and a manual of advanced energetic light healing techniques. She is also completing three children’s picture books. Mother of four and grandmother to two, she lives by the sea in New England with her husband, surrounded by glorious flowerbeds and birdsong. 

Find out more at: www.EyeofEagle.org 

Facebook: facebook.com/leontine/hartzell 

Instagram: @leontinehartzellshaman 

Youtube: Leontine Hartzell 

Youtube: OmajaMusic

Read Leontine's powerful story, "Kitchen Help," and return to learn more about Leontine's writing process.

----------Interview by Renee Roberson

WOW: Hi Leontine, and welcome! Congratulations on placing in this contest with such a compelling story. I’m fascinated by your work as an energy healer and psychic life coach and know that this can’t be an easy calling. Do you find it difficult to balance the levels of energy you must be processing 24 hours a day in this line of work? 

Leontine: I've been a full time shamanic energy teacher, healer and psychic intuitive life coach for over 25 years. I love my work, teaching people how to become excellent energy healers, coaching people to live their best lives and bringing healing to individuals and families. No day is ever the same as I work with clients of all ages with a wide variety of issues they want help with. I specialize in soul retrieval, which restores to a person parts of their own energy that they lost because of trauma. It is so exciting to see people heal and create happier lives for themselves! 

Doing this work is not for the faint of heart. It takes attention and learning to manage the healing energy and sound of Divine Light I work with and the energy of clients and students. I have spent years learning and studying with indigenous shamans and other energy healing teachers and practitioners and learning from the spirit guides that guide and empower all the healing and teaching work I do. There has been a lot to learn and I am still learning! This is a lifelong learning path, which I find fascinating and very fulfilling. 

It's all about learning how to work with energy and keeping your own vibration in the right alignment. I teach students how to do this, and keep learning new ways that help me too. For me, and for most healers and energy healing teachers, it requires life-style adjustments and spiritual and meditation practices in order to keep my vibration clear and strong so I can be the best teacher and healer I can be. 

WOW: How long have you been working on your memoir and what is the structure you’ve chosen for it? 

Leontine: I've been working on my memoir for 2 1/2 years. It's about finding love as a divorced mother who is an intuitive empath and energy healer, who has great success helping clients find love, but has more of a challenge finding love for herself. Each chapter centers on one of the fifteen boyfriends I had in the eighteen years I was single. It covers the highs and lows, missteps, magic and mishaps of romance while on a spiritual path both at home and abroad, interwoven with adventures studying with indigenous shamans. I find the humor in the hope and heartbreak until I finally find the man I marry. 

WOW: You were short-listed for the 2019 Fish Publishing flash fiction contest with your story, “Bitter Herbs.” Could you tell us more about what the piece was about? 

Leontine: "Bitter Herbs' is a short piece that was an earlier abbreviated incarnation of "Kitchen Help". Among other things, I am a trained herbalist. The characters in this story know of the many medicinal qualities of hundreds of herbs and plants that grow in the area where they live. This ancient wisdom was so precious to them, and carries a connection to their ancestors and to the power of the earth that plays an important role in their empowerment throughout the rest of the story, which I am having a great time writing. When the main character of this story started telling me about the herbs that were used to heal her, I was immediately captivated! 

WOW: You mentioned that “Kitchen Help,” came to you in a vision from an ancestral spirit. What was your revision process like following the initial version you wrote down? 

Leontine: The story that became "Kitchen Help" was told to me by a spirit that appeared to me when I was lying in bed recovering from a smash on my head. I had a terrible headache and was feeling dizzy and unable to do anything but lie down and hope to sleep. All of a sudden the spirit of a woman appeared to me, hovering over my bed. I could see and hear her, and told me to start writing down what she was telling me, which is her life story. I demured, saying I was not feeling well. She insisted. 

In order to stay true to the spirit and her story, I did minimal revisions on what I had originally written down. With every edit, iIwould ask this spirit if what I changed was alright with her. I still contact her and she is still telling me the rest of her story, which is a powerful testament to courage, love and self-empowerment. 

WOW: I'm so glad you are assisting in telling her story! You are involved in so many things, coaching, writing, music. How do you find the time to balance them all and decide which projects to focus your energy on? 

Leontine: I have lots of projects that I work on and I enjoy the challenge of continually creating and producing. I am a very creative person and am gifted with a lot of energy. One of my assistants once told me that I set out to do so much in one day that I must think I was three people. I responded that there are so many interesting and important things to do. In this world, we should not limit ourselves. 

I have a team of helping compassionate spirits that I work with and communicate with on a daily basis. They are full of wisdom and are part of the Divine energies of the universe. Sometimes they give me ideas of projects, classes, workshops, albums, retreats, writing projects to create. Other times I have ideas and always run my ideas by my spirit team. My helping spirits give me advice, instruction and guidance. It's always interesting, sometimes challenging and, I'm being serious here, an incredible grace and blessing to live the life I'm living. There is never a dull moment! 

Sometimes I work on different things each day, or for half the day, sometimes I work on certain projects for a few months and then move to another. I do best with a schedule, but it is always in flux. And that schedule always includes meditation time, dance or exercise and walking or being out in nature. I do take breaks and vacations. You have to fill the inner well with peace, nature and rest and restoration, that is a critical practice for any creative soul. I love to create and work with Divine spirit to uplift and heal people and teach others how to be excellent healers. That is the force beneath all of my creative endeavors. 

As a shamanic practitioner, I work with compassionate helping spirits, who are part of the Divine energies of the universe. My spirit team guides me and I consult with them every day, sometime all day long, for guidance and assistance on all my projects and in all my work. I live to serve Divine Love and make the world a better place. 

WOW: Thank you again for joining us today. We wish you continued success in all your endeavors and work!