What the World Needs Now is Love

In my city, a young Egyptian boy at the high school has been harassed every day since the Boston bombings. It’s not local news, but his older sister is heartbroken for him. Someone even wrote “terrorist” on his locker in permanent marker, because he looks different. Because people are afraid and that fear trickles down to their children. But this boy and his family fled Egypt because it was no longer safe for them to be there. What happened in Boston was their every day. And an innocent boy is being asked to bear the brunt of our fear because they think he looks like someone else who did an awful thing.

This is what happens when we feed our fear. We create more. Fear breeds fear.  You would think that a city with such a large refugee population would be more tolerant of its diversity. We become strange creatures when we feed our fear instead of our love.

I saw the same thing happen in 2001, when I started my first day of work in a new city on September 12, at a grocery store catering largely to veiled women. I watched an older customer scream when a Muslim woman entered with her three children. She left her cart where it was, grabbed her purse, and ran out of the store. I listened to a woman rant for twenty minutes about how you could never know if it was a man or a woman “under there” and how that wasn’t fair to Americans. The more people fed into their fear, the uglier it became.

We always try to make this about those who are other than us. But Timothy McVeigh, who was responsible for the bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995, was American. He was born in my hometown and raised just outside of it in my working class, All-American blue collar corner of the state. This isn’t about 9/11, Oklahoma City, or the Boston bombings. It’s about the horrible things that happen every day and the tools we use to bear them. It’s about truly believing, beneath the skin, that we are all relations.

If I trace my genetic DNA back far enough, what strange soil might I find their lines journeying through? I know, right now, that there are men and women in Poland, Ireland, Germany, Scotland, and the Netherlands who can trace themselves back to the same ancestors as me. These men and women are my cousins. However distantly, we share blood. We are all relations.

I see the eyes of cousins in the eyes of strangers in the street. I smile at them and wish them wellness and happiness like I would wish it for a loved one. I would not forcefully take anything from them, whether I am in need or not. I deny no one their humanity or personhood.

I see you and I wish you happiness.

We are each responsible for our actions, and for how we respond to events in the world. We are not our race or our gender. We are not where we live or what job we take. We are magic-makers, capable of changing the world with acts of simple kindness. The easiest thing you can do, in times of great stress, is to feed the world your love, instead of your fear and hate.

It is easier to lash out at others from our fear-place. History shows that we have done it and we will continue to do it. We forcibly relocated native tribes, who had already been living here, because of the few tribes that even they were in battle with, who held different, more aggressive beliefs. And we wanted to claim ownership of their land. We held all the indigenous people responsible for a few. We mustn’t forget that. We were wrong.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941, we responded in fear to the large Japanese-American presence on the West coast. In 1942 the government rounded up 127,000 Japanese-Americans and put them in internment camps. Their crime was having Japanese ancestry. Two-thirds of them had been born here and they were forced to sell off their lands, homes, cars, businesses, etc in order to comply with the government, hoping they could reclaim them when the scare was over. Ten relocation camps were built in seven states. Those families lost everything they had because of choices our government made from a place of fear. They were held for up to four years in inadequate housing with poor food supplies, like prisoners.

I only learned about that when my Interfaith youth group spoke to a man who had grown up inside one of those camps. It was hard for my naïve mind to believe. When I returned home and pulled out my Global Studies text book, I could only find one sentence that said, and I have never forgotten, “For their own safety, some Japanese-Americans were located to camps during the war.” That was it.

In this current time of crisis and fear, it would be easy to segregate ourselves from the unknown things that scare us. It would be easy to jump into the trust-no-one pool of thought. What would be brave and courageous, would be to continue to believe that people are good people, and that people want to be good people. I choose to believe that one smile or one kind word make a difference to someone on the edge of choosing to feed their hate.

I am afraid. I see that you are afraid. We are afraid. Let us not be afraid of each other.

To best honor my ancestors, I will learn from the mistakes they made from their places of fear. I will feed my love and give that to the world. I will ask questions before I assume or accuse. I will be patient and tolerant with the differences between us while working towards a way of living together harmoniously. I choose to be brave.

Read actor George Takei's blog post about growing up in a Japanese-American camp.

A Funeral in 2004

I have attended a lot of funerals in my lifetime, which has not been nearly as long as should warrant that statement. But I tend to see that fact more as the result of all the people I have known whose lives have touched mine. Each funeral is double-edged. There is grief in the loss of a loved one and simultaneous gratitude for the friendship that created the grief.

My first experience with attending to the details of the dead came with my Grandparents, who died three years apart. I admit that the detail-planning was a lot to take in amidst the thickness of the grief. When my Grandma died I was more of a spectator, learning the process of death for the first time. With my Grandpa, I was more invested.

My Grandpa died in the hospital at 9:03 at night. The nurses told us to take all the time we needed, and asked who we wanted them to call. My mom gave them the name of the funeral home we were using. When we left, my Grandpa’s body remained at the hospital for the Funeral Director to pick up. My Grandpa and my mom had decided to use the same funeral home as we had used for my Grandma but other than that, little arrangements had been made ahead of time.

My Grandpa had been fighting his cancer. He thought he was winning. But when the doctor told him that the treatments weren’t working, and he was looking at weeks, not months, my Grandpa slipped into unconsciousness that same night. I will always believe it was a choice he made to be done. To stop fighting. He was in a lot of pain. By the next evening, surrounded by loved ones, he was gone. He never regained consciousness.

When we went to meet with the Funeral Director the next morning, he was kind, walking through the checklist of choices we needed to make and information he needed to retrieve. He took down the details for the obituary; names of living relatives, work history, local groups he belonged to, etc. He told us he would send the obituary into the local newspaper for printing.

When asked if we wanted to have a viewing, we said yes. The Funeral Director said that we’d have to have the embalming then, and added it to the sheet on his clipboard and we moved on. We walked into the show room and picked out a casket.

            When we picked out a casket for my Grandma, he said whichever one we wanted for her, and we picked one of Oak. It was pricey, but compared to the caskets in the showroom, not ridiculous. When we entered the same showroom for my Grandpa, money was an object. It’s something I’ve been hearing from a lot of people about the choices they’ve made for their own loved ones. Often finances have to come before what they would want to do for their loved one. Which speaks to the industry that death has become in our culture.

            For my Grandpa, we chose a Pine casket, which looked very much like every other wooden casket in the room. Not that any casket is less than another. All wood is sacred. And it only matters in the moment of purchasing it. No one is going to see it when it’s in the ground. It is kind of set up to make you feel like if-you-loved-them-more-you-would-show-it-by-picking-a-better-casket. It must be hard and overwhelming for those trying to make these choices from a place of extreme grief. We didn’t need the fancy linings or the fancy pillows, or the secret compartment in the casket for belongings and we were all in agreement on that. If you knew my Grandpa, he would have approved of the simple and classic choice we made.

Then we picked out a vault, which can be required when a body is embalmed in some states. I have also learned that some cemeteries will require the use of a vault whether the person is embalmed or not, and whether the state requires it or not. Using a vault assists with the ease of their ground maintenance, as vaults help keep the ground from shifting too much as the casket settles.

We planned the dates for the viewings with a simple service at the funeral home through the use of their retired minister. My Great-Grandparents were Roman Catholic but my Grandpa never claimed any religion as his own. What the funeral home could offer seemed the best option. The funeral home made arrangements with the cemetery for opening and closing the grave site for us, but only because we were using them for our service.

Then we waited until the viewings, sitting in quiet, sharing stories, cleaning to keep hands busy. We called family and friends and received them at my parent’s house. The viewings at the funeral home were a blur. Lots of reunions with people I hadn’t seen since childhood. It was an unfortunate circumstance and yet I thought my Grandpa, who enjoyed his alone time as much as he enjoyed socializing, would have approved at how much laughter filled that cold and somber room.

The morning of the service was a joke. I know the retired minister meant well, but he couldn’t remember my Grandpa’s name and he used the opportunity to throw every Bible story he had ever been fond of into his eulogy- and that is me being kind. I wish I had been a bit older. I wish I had anticipated the end was coming. I wish I could have stood up there and spoken to the awesomeness that my Grandpa had been made of. Still, the comical eulogy served as the source of much laughter during the afternoon.

We divvied up the flower arrangements, deciding what would go to the grave site. The plants we separated up for family to take home to grow and renew. It was touching to see the flowers come in from people we didn’t really know, whose lives my Grandpa had touched. The webs we weave in life are far larger than we can perceive.

It was a warm spring day, just after equinox in the cemetery. Standing graveside was the most natural part of the entire experience for me.  The sun was shining. Birds were singing. The ground sat open in wait. The strangest part of the morning was deciding who would ride in what vehicle with whom to get to the cemetery.

I don’t know how it is in large cities, but in my hometown we still ascribe to the funeral procession. The hearse takes the lead, with family cars behind it, and other cars behind them, safety lights flashing. It’s a slow crawl through red lights and stop signs. Life paused in breathes as we wound through town, picking back up in our wake.

Afterwards we gathered at a family member’s house for food and conversation. When my Grandma died, we gathered together in their house, filling the new void with friends and company. But with the second loss, we let someone else hold that part for us. I think it would have been too much, to see so many people populate a house whose future emptiness we were still coming to terms with. At the same time, I can see how it would have been healing, to bring life back into the house.

And then it was over. We stayed up late and talked. We shared stories and family secrets together at the kitchen table. A few days later my mom and I went back to his house. We walked through an emptiness that suddenly felt massive. The gravity of reality hit us, but now we had time.

We didn’t really know what Grandpa would have liked or would have wanted if he’d been able to choose, but we knew him well enough to make the best choices. And it prompted us to sit around the kitchen table and begin to discuss our own desires after our eventual deaths. It’s important to know what you want, what you don’t want, and what you don’t care about one way or the other. It’s important to share that with the friends and family that may be left to take care of those details. Both because it’s smart and because it’s kind.

What do you want done to best honor the temple that was your body? You might not care, and that’s all right. Don’t feed into the industrial machine death has become, simply because you think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Question everything. And then call around to your local funeral homes and see how close you can get to what you want. 

Experiencing Death VIII: Choosing the Moment

We have an ornament that we hang on our colorfully-decorated tree, in memory of our cat Luna. This is our third holiday season without her. The ornament is a little cream-colored cat with wings and dangling legs. At this time of year, I still find myself looking for her sleeping form beneath the tree. But already the grief has ebbed to longing. That ornament reminds me of the joy Luna brought to our house and that’s what I remember.

The night before she died it was obvious that she wasn’t all right. We had kept an eye on her all day and besides seeming overly tired, the main concern was that she seemed to have difficulty breathing. When I got ready for bed, she was on the couch and she barely responded to me, which was abnormal. Every night before, she would follow me in, and climb on top of me. That particular night she didn’t even twitch as I passed. I didn’t even hesitate. Moved by something greater than me, I lifted her gently and eased her into my lap, noting her whimper when I lifted her. No, she was not all right, and though we would try to convince ourselves she would be okay, I think in that moment, I knew something I couldn’t put words to. I knew our time was precious.

I didn’t sleep. I didn’t even nod off for a second. The spirit world was so ripe to me it was viscous and I was scared to leave Luna unattended. I remember every minute, every labored breath in, every whimpering exhalation and every second-too-long between them, when my heart caught in my throat. I remember the hot heat that emanated from her, like the last coal burning out in the fireplace. The entire night she never tried to move from where I had propped her on my lap. She never shifted her position, and neither did I. Not even for a moment.

I could feel how important each second was, in a bordering-on-obsession way. But as a highly-sensitive person, I have always stopped my world for these moments- the ones I know we can’t do over. Only that night could I feel the full force of how much weight she had so recently lost. I was still awake when my partner woke for work and we agreed we should take Luna to the vet as soon as we could. I fed her a bit of water with a pipette which she seemed thirsty for but soon wouldn’t take more of. I tried to offer her some wet food and she wanted it, crying at me, but she seemed to know better than to eat it. We took her to the walk-in vet.

We weren’t prepared to be forced with a final decision less than three hours later. I wasn’t prepared for the answer to my question of “How long before she’s in pain and it’s too cruel to wait?” to be “Oh, honey.” She only had hours left and her pain wasn’t going to stop.

In that moment, there is no decision to be made. It won’t stop you from second guessing later on, but in the moment it is the only choice available- end the pain. Luna seemed far readier than we were, perched like a rabbit on the floor of the exam room, content and unafraid (totally unusual for her) while we waited for lab results. But after forcing an x-ray on her next, she couldn’t breathe and was in apparent agony.

The reality still stands that we chose for her to be ready to die. And that is not an easy thing to swallow. We women, who can gift life into the world whether we choose to or not, we women who bleed every month for that right and that chance, we women are capable of gifting that kind of mercy death and carrying the burden of that choice. I cannot speak for men because I am not one, and I do not know where the strength for such mercy comes from in them.

I held Luna’s face in my hands and I didn’t look away from her eyes. I told her what a good girl she was and how much we loved her. She was the best girl ever. When the poison was injected, her eyes widened with… fear, pain, fire? Who knows. She had lost so much weight that it barely took a second. I barely had time to breathe in. And then she went limp. Her eyes dulled with the sparkle life gives them. She was gone.

I don’t care what anyone thinks. I ripped her out of the plastic bag they put her in and carried her home in her blanket, the weight of her suddenly so heavy in my arms. She was lighter than a feather in life and heavy as bricks in death. Is it our soul, our spirit that lightens our time upon the earth?

I would not take back sharing her death with her, even though the memory of it causes me pain. It was pain she experienced so that she could finally be at peace and I believe it was important that I share in that truth. In our society, we have trouble letting go, and as long as that is an issue we face, our cultural relationship with death will not change.

I think that one of the hardest life lessons we can make is that sometimes, we have to tell death it’s okay. No one should have to live in pain that’s caused by their body either slowly or quickly shutting down in a way that makes it impossible for them to have any quality of life- unless they want to and choose to ride it out. I could have made the choice to watch Luna slowly die in agony, unable to drink or eat, because I wasn’t ready. That would have been horrifically unfair.

It’s something I think about, watching people with terminal illness in the news, trying to fight for the right to choose their own moment of death, rather than spend their last days unconscious on medication because otherwise they could not tolerate the pain. We are so willing to put down our four-legged friends because it’s the humane thing to do, whether they can consent or not, but we don’t give consenting adults who have been given a death sentence the right to die in peace.

I can’t imagine it would be easy to accept that choice from a loved one. But I think I could come to terms with respecting it. Personally, it still doesn’t feel easy to say, “I opened the door for death to enter.” I still miss Luna terribly, but even looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Relevant Posts:

The Beginning I Saw in the End (published March 23, 2011)

Eulogy I Wish I’d Given (published March 14, 2012)

Experiencing Death: The Unborn Baby (published May 16, 2012)

Experiencing Death II: My Father’s Father (published June 13, 2012)

Experiencing Death III: Squirrel in the Road (published July 11, 2012)

Experiencing Death IV: The Body at Daggett Lake (published August 15, 2012)

Experiencing Death V: Suicide (published September 9, 2012)

Experiencing Death VI: Alone with the Dead (published October 17, 2012)

Experiencing Death VII: There in the Room (published November 14, 2012)

Animal Allies: Owls and the Afterlife

“Humans are part of the animal kingdom, which is part of the vast living world around us. In earth-centered circles, we often adopt animal totems as a means of aligning our energies with specifics elements. The animal world is vast and varied and full of natural magic. Animals are helpful guides in ancestor and spirit work. Where we have lost our connection to the natural world, they have not.

Our animal allies are a key to help cross the threshold, something known and familiar, and cultures throughout history have often associated specific animals with this task. We take their lessons based on indigenous mythology and animal behavior. They represent some part of me and the way that part of me relates to the world around me. The energy of those animals walk with me in my life and when I need guidance I turn to the spirit of my personal allies for strength.”

[Abridged from Animal Allies: Hummingbird Messengers, March 28, 2012]

Interactions with Owls

In the late 1990s I worked two years doing summer stock theatre in Highlands, North Carolina. It was my first time in the south, fitting as in my spiritual life I was on the edge of opening up to something bigger than me. At the time I was lost in the internal philosophy of questing to find it. Highlands sits on the top of a mountain peak where the blue and smoky mountains meet. At dusk and dawn every day, the clouds would roll through town. No one drove during these intervals, but many locals laughed at the glee with which the girl from New York greeted the “fog.”

My true spiritual awakening happened on top of that mountain. It came in the form of an owl visitation. I was sitting by the creek near our house as the clouds were weeping through the woods. I could feel the drops of water walking across my skin. It never ceased to fascinate me.

Something large blurred past me, silent. An invisible curtain dropped over the natural cacophony of insect life at twilight time. Right before me, on a low tree branch sat the largest bird I have ever seen that had not been there moments before. It was the first owl I saw in person and I held my breath the whole time. Not because I thought I would spook it, but because it’s presence held me spellbound. In the gloaming it was mostly white with some grey and large dandelion-colored eyes which stared into me, without blinking.

We sat that way for a few minutes. Then the owl spun its head around, cried into the night, a call that shook me to the bone, and then it lifted, silent as an assassin, flying so swiftly over me that I fell onto my back beneath its shadow. Its wingspan was as wide as I was tall. It was a reminder of how small I am to this world, of how I was just one more animal trying to live among others. It was a gift of Other World touching me on a night when I felt most alone and unseen, when I needed it most. And something within me broke open in that meeting place of water, earth, air and owl.

I have walked with Owl watching over me ever since. Just last year I spent a delicious evening meditating in the woods when a barred owl starting calling out. I called back and, in the moment, found I was a fair mimic. Fair enough that the owl hooted back. We called back and forth at each other for twenty minutes. After the first few exchanges, it stopped feeling like mimicry. Even though I didn’t know what I was saying, it was clear that this animal creature and I were interacting. It was wonderful to lose myself in its world. In my life, owl delivers messages to and from Other World, and aids my work.

Meditations on Owl

Owl medicine is helpful with personal growth, something at the core of the Work that I do. The Owl is a silent and swift predator, taking in the woods around him, deciding on the path before him before taking flight and catching his prey. His hearing is remarkable and he knows the difference between a falling leaf and mouse rustling beneath it. Once an owl has digested its meal, it purges up what it does not need and cannot digest in the form of a small pellet. Owl knows when it’s time to remove what is unwanted and needed in order to make way for new growth. When they cough up the parts of their prey that they don’t digest, they reveal the bones and flesh of the animal in its simplest form. Where others may be deceived, those with owl medicine know the truth of what is hidden.

Owl sees that which others cannot, which often lends to its solitary nature, which also lends to its ability to see deeper within. This animal is a strong ally for soul retrieval, for seeing the healing within that needs to be attended to and know what medicine is right to heal it. When you feel lost, owl essence will help you find your way back to your path, to your wisdom. Owl’s senses see beyond shadows. They pierce through fear and darkness, through what stands in the way so that you might see the other side, where light, happiness and knowledge exist. The only way out is through and Owl knows this to be true.

Owls in Legend:

• Owl fossils have been discovered that date back 60 million years.
• They are one of the few birds found in early cave paintings.
• They are associated with prophecy, and their cries hold meaning: 1 for impending death, 2 for success in an imminent venture, 3 for a woman will marry into the family, 4 for disturbance, 5 for imminent travel, 6 for guests arriving, 7 for mental distress, 8 for sudden death, and 9 for good fortune.
• Mountain legends say the hoot of an owl at midnight means death is coming. An owl circling the sky during the day means bad news.
• Owl allies bring messages through dreams and meditation.
• Owls are associated with witchcraft, magic, wisdom, the unknown, medicine, weather, death, perception, deception, and dreams.

Greek & Roman Legend:

• The Little Owl, Athene noctua, became the companion of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom after she banished the mischievous prankster, crow.
• The owl was the favored of Athene’s feathered creatures, a symbol of her “light,” allowing her to see beyond half-truths. This owl was protected in Greek culture and lived in the Acropolis in large numbers.
• Owls accompanied Greek armies to war. Sighting them on the battlefield was a sign of impending victory.
• Owls watched over commerce and trade. Minted on one side of the Greek coin, they represented good fortune.
• Roman Mythology tells us that Ascalpus spied Proserpine eating a pomegranate in the garden and told on her. She was only allowed to leave if she didn’t eat anything. For his tattling, he was transformed into “a sluggish Screech Owl, a loathsome bird.”
• Romans believed that a dead owl nailed to the door averted all the misfortune its presence had caused to the household. Romans also believed that witches transformed into owls to suck the blood of babies.
• To the Romans, the hoot of an owl foretold death. The defeat of the Roman army at Charrhea, between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, was supposedly foretold by the hooting of an owl. It is said that the deaths of Julius Caesar, Augustus, Agrippa, and Commodus Aurelius were all preceded by the cry of an owl.
• A 2nd century soothsayer, Artemidorus, claimed that dreaming of an owl meant the traveler would be shipwrecked or robbed.

Celtic Legend:

• Merlin, of Arthurian legend, had an owl as a companion.
• In Celtic mythology, the owl is a guide to the underworld, known as “corpse bird” and “night hag,” associated with wisdom and keen sight.
• Images of owls found in the Celtic Isles pre-date the Greek cults of Athene.
• The Scottish-Gaelic word for old woman is Cailleach and the word for owl is coileach-oidhche which means “night-cockerel.”
• Owls were associated with the Crone aspect of the goddess.
• The owls were guides to the Underworld.
• The myth of Bloudeuwedd, written in the Mabinogi, speaks of a woman magically created as a wife to Lleu. She tricked him into revealing the secret of his mortality and used that to take his life. He avenged his death by transforming her into an owl. The word Bloudeuwedd is still used in Wales to mean owl.
• The Welsh saw the owl as a predator whose time of power was dusk, when it was capable of defeating the falcon.
• The Welsh Goddess Arianrhod was a shapeshifter who transformed into a large owl, looking through owl eyes to see the darkness within humans, as well as the soul.
• The Welsh believed that if an owl was heard hooting among the houses, a young girl had just lost her virginity.
• A cauldron was found sunken in a bog in Bra, Jutland which dates back to the 3rd century B.C. It was broken into pieces before being deposited, most probably as an offering. The handle fittings of the cauldron were owls.

European Legend:

• In the British Isles, owls were associated with death and negative energy. Owl feathers were thought to repel those unwanted energies.
• In the Middle Ages, the owl was associated with witchcraft.
• In early English folk remedies, raw owl eggs were used to treat alcoholism. It was believed that children fed raw owl eggs would be gifted a lifetime’s protection against drunkenness.
• Owl eggs, cooked to ash, were imbibed to improve eyesight.
• Owl broth was a common remedy for children suffering from whooping cough, specifically in Yorkshire.
• In the 18th and 19th centuries, poets Robert Blair and William Wordsworth were fond of using the Barn Owl as their “bird of doom.” In other literature of this time period, barn owls were often associated with death. If an owl screeched outside the window of a sick person, it was believed they would die.
• In English folklore, a barn owl screech meant cold weather or a storm was coming. If the screech was heard during bad weather, it meant a change in storm was imminent.
• Into the 19th century, it was customary to nail a dead owl to a barn door in order to ward off evil and lightning, and protect the livestock within.
• Owls were treated with reverence in France, with several species named for dukes. The Long-Eared Owl was called Hibou Moyen-Duc and the European Eagle Owl was called Hibou Grand-Duc. In the Middle Ages, only nobles above the ranking of duke were allowed the honor of wearing a plume of feathers in their cap and it is suspected owls with ears seemed to them to be of nobler rank.
• Lore in the Lorraine region of France, tells that owls would help spinsters find husbands.
• In Romania, souls of sinners who repent, fly to heaven in the form of snowy owls.
• Poland folklore said that unmarried women became doves when they died, and married women transformed into owls.

Native Legend:

• In Native America, the owl is prevalently associated with death and spirits, though each tribe had a different relationship with the animal. Many saw owls as spirits of the recent dead. Other tribes saw them as underworld messengers who shepherded spirits to the world that comes after death. They are spirit protectors.
• Many tribes referred to owls as Night Eagles.
• Some tribes saw owls as healers and would hang feathers in the doorway of a home to keep illness out.
• The Lenni Lenape (New Jersey) said that an owl shown in a dream would become the guardian of the dreamer.
• The Hopi (Arizona) believed the Burrowing Owl was the manifestation of their god of the dead, who was guardian of fire and caretaker for all things underground, including seed germination. Their name for the owl is Ko’ko, meaning “Watcher of the Dark.”
• The Hopi believed that Great Horned Owls helped their peaches to grow.
• The Mojave (Arizona) believed that in death, everyone became an owl for a short time, then reincarnating as a beetle, until finally becoming pure air.
• The Navajo (Arizona/New Mexico/Utah) believe that the owl is the messenger guide of the other world and other earth-bound spirits.
• The Zuni (New Mexico) placed owl feathers in babies’ cribs to keep evil spirits away from the infant.
• The Newuks (California) believed that brave and virtuous men and women became Great Horned Owls after their death. Those who were wicked of heart became Barn Owls.
• Tribes living in the Sierras (California/Nevada) believed Great Horned Owls would snatch the souls of the dead and transport them to their underworld.
• The Cree (Northwest US/Canada) thought that the whistle of the Boreal Owl was a doorway to spirit world. If the person whistled back, and did not hear a response from the owl, it meant they would soon die.
• The Spedis Owl is a petroglyph found on a rock face at The Dalles, the end of the Oregon Trail along the Columbus River between Washington and Oregon. Figures of this same owl have been found in a wide area in that region, but are focally located on there. Legend says the petroglyph was placed on the rock to protect people from the “water devils” that could pull them under.
• The Dalles was the rough edge of the Northwest Coast area of native people. The Kwagiulth/ Kwakiutl (Vancouver Island, BC) believed that owls were manifestations of people’s souls. They would not harm owls, for if the owl died, so would the person who the soul belonged to.
• The Tlingit (Pacific Northwest) thought warriors that heard an owl were receiving a message of coming victory in battle.
• The Inuit (Alaska) have a story that tells of Snowy Owl and Raven making new clothes for each other. Raven made a dress of black and white feather for Owl. Owl made Raven a white dress. But Raven grew so excited when Owl was fitting the dress that she couldn’t sit still. Owl was angry and threw oil lamp at Raven, which soaked through the white dress, turning it black.

Other Legend:

• In many countries in Africa, owls are associated with sorcery and dark magic. A large owl spotted outside a house indicates a powerful shaman lives there. Many people believe owls carry messages between the shaman and the spirit world.
• The Zulu, and other West African nations, believe the bird has strong influence in spellcasting. They think using owl parts imbues the magical user with great strength.
• The Swahili believe owls bring sickness to children.
• Algerians believed that placing the right eye of an Eagle Owl in the hand of a sleeping woman was a truth spell that would make her tell you what you wanted to know.
• Owl amulets were used as protection for pregnant women in Babylon.
• Food was made from owls in India for medicinal use. Owl eye broth aided seizures in children and owl meat helped with rheumatism. Ingesting owl eyes enabled good night vision.
• In Russia, hunters carried owl claws, a tool for their souls to climb to heaven should they die.
• The Kalmuks believed an owl saved Genghis Kahn and held the animal as sacred.
• Malaysians believed that owls ate infants.
• The Ainu people of Hokkaidu, Japan trust owls to warn them of approaching evil. They believe it mediates between gods and men. They see Blakiston’s Fish Owl, Ketupa blakistoni, as their god kotan kor kamuv, which mean “god of the village.”

Into the Labyrinth

In my earliest ancestor meditations, the visual image I received was the same. Flashes of faces all talking at me, talking to me, as if the sound was turned off. Then the scene opened and a woman or man stood at the edge of a body of water, whether an ocean, lake, canal or pond. The water was always grey, that deep slate blue-grey. Their faces were pleasant and happy to see me but tinged with sadness. They were pointing into the water, out to the unknown, and I knew that's where they were telling me I had to go. I dove into my ancestor work, trying to clear and sharpen the image.

For a while, everything was bigger. My support system expanded, as did my ancestral knowledge and my spiritual universe. Everything I experienced deepened, widened, and exposed its layers to me. The web split open, revealing itself, and my world blossomed, colored with dimension, like a crystal prism filling a room with light. In the shadows of that light the edge was exposed and a hidden doorway became visible. This is why I do the work I do.

It's strange to me, in that wyrd way, that my ancestors pointed to the water, the well of emotions and memory. And it felt each time like they were pointing to a specific point of going in where the emotions were deepest. I could feel the tug of it against my breastbone. I have always been afraid of jumping in the deep end, even feet first, and as a child my inner primate refused to dive head first into dark and deep water, so the visual has a double meaning for me. Go to where the fear lives and open the door.

I once jumped 70 feet into a mountain river, high in the Carolinas, after carefully watching over a dozen other people dive in, watching where they hit, being sure all dozen divers emerged unscathed. It was a moment that filled me with such fear I felt my heart might burst and I understood I was taking my life in my hands. One hand towards joy and one hand towards death. What a wonder it was to expose myself to my own mortality… then I took a breath, and I jumped.

For the last few years, my personal work had me finding my out of the labyrinth, weaving my own thread as I crawled out of darkness, winding it out behind me as I altered myself. It’s as if I were replacing the bulbs along the path from fluorescents to sunlight. If I came this way again, I would not carry fear of the unknown with me. If I know the way out, then I know the way in.

Now, in my dreams and meditations, an old woman and an old man lay naked on a stone table in the woods, a living ancestor altar. They are crying and telling me there is something I have to do. They glimmer like spirit in my dream world and I know they are faces from my family tree. They've given me a quest. I have a travelling bag and a weapon, and they are pointing out of the wood, their faces tinged with sadness. They are sending me out into the world, covering ground, seeking something unknown. This dream repeats, without alteration.

For the last year, I have been winding in, winding down, going into the recesses of this body and healing. In the twilight glow of autumn, I am both Inanna, going underground to know myself, and Ariadne, the keeper of the secrets of the labyrinth. I know the edge I'm walking towards is the scariest one for me. It's the wall that holds me back, the heavy anchor that holds me in place. So it's important to have your thread as you wind through the labyrinth doors. I know the door that lies at the center of the labyrinth.

I pull the earth energy up into my body and anchor myself to it. I pull the star energy of the ancestors down into me and anchor it in my heart. Where earth and sky meet in me, a door appears. I have only to touch it and it will open.

At the start of the labyrinth, before I step in and cross over, I honor my parents, still breathing in this world, still loving me from this plane. My sister and brother, my nieces and nephew, my great-nephew are my anchors. I carry them with me into the labyrinth.

At the first turn, moving inward, I honor my grandparents, my Beloved Dead, the four who have crossed over to other world, one of whom I never knew: Richard Riddle (factory worker) & Donna MacDonald (pediatric RN) ~ Mark Dutcher Eaton (bookkeeper) & Ruth Emma Ruston.

At the second turn, moving outward, I honor my great-grandparents, all deceased, those who lived and grew up at the turning of a century: Robert George Art (blacksmith) & Margaret Loretta Burke (glovemaker) of Lockport, NY ~ Harold Lafayette Riddle (factory worker) & Elsie Elizabeth Durant of Lockport ~ Frank William Ruston (insurance salesman) & Minnie Estelle Wicker (singer) of Lockport ~ Royal Levant Eaton (prison guard) & Hattie Eva Smith of Auburn, NY.

At the third turn, outward again, I honor my 2x great-grandparents, those who saw this country's Civil War and all the change that came after: George Art (gardener) & Katherine Pils (housekeeper) of Lockport; Frank Burke (lock tender) & Eliza Conners of Lockport ~ Lafayette Riddle (farmer and factory worker) & Frances Gillette of Royalton, NY; George Francis Durant (laborer) & Emma Louise Burnah (housekeeper) of Lockport, from VT ~ Charles Evan Ruston (laborer) & Ruth Ireland of Lockport, immigrants from England; Hiram King Wicker (grain and feed store owner and Mason) & Emma Angeline Whitcher of Lockport ~ Bennett Eaton (farmer) & Theresa Cordelia Tenney of Somerset, NY, from MI;  Silas Parker Smith (farmer) & Hattie Eva Dutcher of Wilson, NY.

At the fourth turn inward, I honor my 3x great-grandparents, the soldiers and farmers who helped villages become towns and towns become cities: Adam Art (soldier) & Katherine Maria Schmeelk of Pendleton, NY, immigrants from Germany; John F. Pils & Mary Burzee, of Pendleton, he an immigrant from Germany; David Conners (laborer) & Mary Dowd of Lockport, both Irish immigrants; Thomas Burke (hack stable owner) & wife Ellen of Lockport ~ Marquis DeLafayette Riddle (farmer) & Sarah Clickner of Royalton, NY; Levi H. Gillette (farmer) & Jane Berry of Royalton; Albert Durant (laborer) & Rosella LaValley of VT, immigrants from Quebec ~ Richard Ruston (wealthy farmer) & Anna Richardson of England; William Ireland & Phoebe Lenton of England; Thaddeus Rice Wicker (carpenter) & Cynthia Lusk of Lockport, from VT; Bailey Harrison Whitcher (shoemaker) & Ordelia DeLozier of Lockport, from VT ~ Solomon Gould Eaton (farmer) & Hannah Ann Treadwell of MI, from Lockport; Philitus Tenney & wife Malvina; Ammi Smith (farmer) & Sophia Sears of Hartland, NY; Reuben Feagles Dutcher (farmer) & Eliza Marsh Bird of Somerset.

At the fifth turn inward, just after, I honor my 4x great-grandparents, the soldiers and farmers who expanded west: Barney Dowd (farm laborer) of Lockport, immigrant from Ireland ~ Freeborn-Moulton Riddle (farmer) & Abigail Chaffee of Batavia, NY, from MA; Ezra Wheeler Gillette & Mary Ann Boots of Royalton, from VT; Francis Berry (farmer) & Elizabeth Hill of Mayfield, NY; Francois Xavier Lavalle & Rosella LaRoche of Dannemora, NY, from Quebec ~ Pliny Wicker (ferryman) & Chloe Morgan of New York, from VT; D.V. Lusk (farmer) & wife Mary of Lockport, from MA; Simeon Whittier & Dorcas Kittredge of VT, from MA; Peter DeLozier (P.O.W. and cabinet maker) & Lucy Raymond of Lockport, from CT ~ Joshua Eaton & Lucy Gould of NY, from CT; Herman Sears & Clarissa Dubois of NY, from CT; Martin Dutcher (soldier and farmer) & Cynthia Ann Feagles of Somerset; Manley Bird (broom maker) & Irene Pond Marsh of Somerset.

At the sixth turn, at the key, at the crossroads, I honor my 5x great-grandparents, the soldiers and farmers who began to move, settling into new territories: Joseph Riddle (soldier) & wife Mary of New York, from Monson, MA; Eliphal Gillette & Abigail Hannah of Royalton, from CT; Joseph Boots (farmer) & Harriet Gower of Royalton, immigrants from England; Thomas Berry & Gertrude Dixon of Mayfield, he immigrated from Ireland; Alexis Lavallee & Marie Amable Langevin of Quebec ~ William Wicker & Susannah Parker of VT, from MA; Abner Whittier, Jr. & Elizabeth Dow of VT, from MA; James Kittredge & Mary Bailey of MA; Oliver DeLozier (soldier) & Eleanor Erkells of NY ~ Benjamin Eaton & Hepsibah Skiff of NY, from CT; Willard Gould & Ann Arnold of NY, from CT; Isaac Sears & Abigail Andrews of NY, from CT; David Dutcher & Jane Palmer of NY; Edmund Bird & Mary Coleman of MA.

At the seventh turn, outwards, I honor my 6x great-grandparents, the immigrants, the children of immigrants, those whose families founded this country and those who came seeking better lives: Pierre Paquier Lavallee & Marie Agathe Charland of Quebec; Walter Dixon & Annatje Goedemoet of Mayfield; John Berry & Nancy Machet of Mayfield, immigrants from Ireland; Alexander Hannah & Mary Calhoun of CT; Wheeler Gillett & Julianna Merchant of CT; Thomas Bootes & Mary Glyde of England; Thomas Ridel & Rebekah Moulton of MA, from Ireland ~ Peter Lozier & Fytje Zabriskie of Hackensack, NJ; Isaac Dow & Martha Hanniford of MA; Jacob Wicker (soldier) & Abiah Washburn of MA; John Parker & Jane Pearson of MA; Abner Whittier & Jemima Davis of MA ~ Thomas Eaton & Elizabeth Parker of CT, from MA; Stephen Skiff & Elizabeth Hatch of CT, from MA; Jeremiah Brooks & Elizabeth Brooks of CT; Caleb Arnold & Tabitha Luther of MA; Knowles Sears & Susannah Townsend of CT, from MA; Henricus De Duyster & Helena Van Deusen of NY; Enoch Bird & Silence Lyon of MA.

At the eighth, outward, I honor my 7x great-grandparents, more who helped build this land, for good or for bad, with nothing but the hope for better lives for their children: Jean Francois Paquet dit Lavallee II & Marie Madeleine Coulon of Quebec; Baltus Goedemoet & Gertrude Michel of NY, from the Netherlands; David Calhoun & Catherine Coe of CT, he immigrated from Scotland; Hugh Hannah & wife Margaret of CT; Eliphal Gillett II & Mercy Smith of CT; Thomas Bootes & Mary Jennings of England; Solomon Glyde & Mary Hyland of England; Freeborn Moulton (captain, soldier) & Rebekah Walker of MA, from CT ~ Jacob Zabriskie & Antje Terhune of Hackensack, NJ; Nicholas Le Sueur & Tryntje Catherine Slote of NJ; William Wicker & wife Rebekah of MA, immigrated from England; Joseph Washburn & Hannah Johnson of MA; John Parker & Sarah Lillie of MA; James Pearson & Hepzibah Swain of MA; John Whittier & Mary Hoyt of MA; Joseph Davis & Jemima Eastman of MA ~ Thomas Eaton & Lydia Gay of CT, from MA; Thomas Gould & Eunice Brooks of MA; Jabez Brooks & Mary Bateman of CT, from MA; William Benedict Arnold & Ann Coggeshall of RI; Jacob Parker & Thankful Hemenway of MA; James Sears & Desire Tobey of CT, from MA; Direck De Duyster & Jannetje Hendrickse Bondt of NY; Abraham Van Deusen & Jacomyntje Van Schoonhoven; Lemuel Lyon (soldier) & Lydia Perry of MA; Samuel Bird & Anna Atherton of MA.

At the ninth turn, into center, I stop. I stand at center, at heart and home, I honor all those who stand behind the first seven generations and all those who will come after me. I honor them in my quest to be the best and strongest version of me I can be, making choices those who came before me were unable to make. I believe I am altering the larger ancestral pattern behind me and altering the one before me, to better ease the passage of those yet to come.

Working with the Dead

My ancestor work doesn’t just involve honoring those who paved the way for me to be here. In times of hardship and trouble, I make petitions to my ancestors for guidance and aid, but most often simply to watch over us and shield us from harm. I work to keep my connection to them strong so that when I find myself in need, they are right beside me and sharp in my mind. I have always been sensitive to the spirit world. I have always known when spirits were about but not in a psychic way. I get emotional impressions, not factual information.

Fresh out of college, I attended my first Psychic Fair, full of doubt and skepticism, but knowing that I wanted it to be true. After several trips to the spiritualist community of Lilydale during my time in college, I desperately wanted to be a believer. After all, if I thought I could sense spirit activity, I couldn’t be the only one who could do it.

We’re always skeptical about anything we haven’t or can’t experience for ourselves. How do we know something is real if we can’t touch it or see it or hear it or taste it? Even though I was sensitive to spirits, if I couldn’t see them well enough to describe them or hear them say what they wanted, how could I be sure anyone else could? And that’s were faith always comes into play. If I believed I could, I had to trust that others could. If I believed I had a gift that others didn’t, I had to believe that other people could have a gift I didn’t.

I wandered the room, eavesdropping on readings and using my gut responses to feel out people whose readings sounded exactly like I expected them to sound. I know now that my own interpretations are so vague that I perhaps did some of the mediums a disservice by writing them off. But what was missing for me in their readings was the emotional context, the emotional connection to spirit world that I feel. And the people paying for readings were too eager, too open about revealing information that cold readers can use. And I was young.

To be fair, in retrospect, I have worked through the fear of revealing something that might be too personal or raw to people who are practically strangers to me. I understand why people trying to make money with their gifts might hold back from attempting to offer information that would upset a potential client. You have to be good with people, both living and dead to engender trust. When the dead have something to say and they find a doorway into this world they are not going to sugar-coat or tiptoe around why they’re here. And no stranger enjoys mediating family drama between the dead and the living.

Eventually I found a woman who was sitting patiently, not trying to get people to buy her time. She offered to do a reading for me, as she sensed someone coming through. If I felt she had made contact, I could pay her. It was the right way to woo a skeptic and I sat down. She was dressed simply in jeans and a sweater. Her hair was loose. She had a deck of tarot cards with a Native American theme on them in front of her, which she had me shuffle and then laid out.

Something about a mother figure, she said. But no, I said, my mother was still alive. She said it could be grandmother, but I shook my head no. All three of my grandmothers were still alive. Except for my father’s mother. I said so but she said no, it was my maternal side, connected to my mother. I sat expressionless, knowing a thing or two about cold reading. I watched her go into what I now know as a trance state and she began to talk about how this woman visits me and watches over me and sometimes I can feel her touching the top right side of my head and when it happens I wonder for a moment at the sensation and yes, she wants me to know that is her trying to contact me, letting me know I’m not alone.

I was sitting at the table. I remembered that feeling and with it, attached to a thin thread came the memory of sitting at my Great-Grandma Elsie’s knee when she stayed with us for the summer. Her hand was on the top of my head, and it was cool like silk paper. And with that memory the spot on my head began to buzz in the room at the Psychic Fair and the air around me smelled like baby powder, musty blankets, and lilacs. Elsie spent the summers with us and watched us when my mother went out. She was like a mother to me, to everyone who knew her and all of the senses I had learned to trust were trying to tell me she was present.

Me, Elsie, and my brother, 1976.

The woman across the table was staring at me, her eyes open, and she said “She loves you, and she watches over you.” I put my money on the table, thanked her, and walked quietly outside, where I promptly burst into tears. We all want to hear that the people we loved in the world are still with us when they leave it. I do believe part of them is still here, like an echo, like energy of love that was so strong it stays behind, ebbing through the time we have left. Our spirit is only form within our physical bodies and when we die, some of it moves on, some of it becomes something else, some of it becomes part of the energy of the world around us and some of it stays behind like an echo.

I knew I would do anything to reach my Great-Grandmother again. And I started on the path to where I am now. When I received confirmation that Elsie was with me, she had been dead for six years and I had healed my grief over losing her. So I was ready to call on her, to call her to me, to ask for help and guidance from her. She became a doorway to the rest of my ancestors. I consider them like an “intuition upgrade,” adding another sense to my repertoire.

I do not know the exact length of time before you should call on a dead relative for aid, and I think that the time is different for everyone. In the same way that we all handle transitions and transformations differently, some need more time than others. I believe and worry that some spirits need more time to cross over, to adjust to not being part of the material world. I worry that those who are called to stay here before they’re ready get pulled by what is familiar and become ghosts, stuck in between living and whatever happens next. At the same time, if a recently deceased spirit is the one trying to contact you, it would seem prudent to answer, for perhaps they will not pass over until their business is finished.

We need not fear the spirits around us. In my work it would be akin to be afraid of the ring of a telephone. When we open ourselves to accepting the call of our ancestors, we are opening a larger universe of sensation that can only serve to sharpen our experiences of the world we walk upon in our breathing lives.

Experiencing Death IV: The Body at Daggett Lake

This is the fourth installment in a monthly thread, where I am looking back at the early experiences I had with death and reflecting on how those moments shaped my views and fears of it. In order to change my relationship with the concept of death, I have to understand what shaped it to begin with. Our ideas and philosophies are meant to evolve and change, to grow as our own experiences do.

My family went on a camping trip every July for two weeks. We would do a different theme every summer, exploring the sights there were to see in our state: the Finger Lakes, the 1000 Islands, underground caverns and gorges, the Catskills, the Adirondacks, etc. The Adirondacks were one of the last theme trips we took, being the furthest away, and we fell in love with them. We discovered a campground near Lake George that was surrounded by mountain called Daggett Lake. We found ourselves returning there every year and we cultivated a relationship with both the place and the other people drawn to it every summer.

We had a site we liked on the water, where we could dock our little rowboat. We had made close friends with a couple from NYC, Andy and Mary, who camped two sites down from us. Right beside us was one of the best sites on the lake, with a bit of wood attached to it. This specific summer, a lone man was camping there in a pop-up trailer. He got up early each morning and took his boat out fishing, and came back at dusk. He was quiet and not unfriendly.

We had returned from the beach for lunch and a car pulled up to our neighbor’s campsite. A woman got out, not quite dressed for the outdoors, and knocked on the trailer door, calling his name. There was a feeling in the air of disconnection. It’s a feeling I have come to know quite well, one of foreboding that something is out of place. Perhaps I was the only one who felt the change. Maybe it was my high sensitivity, but it felt important. When she asked us if he was in, my father told the woman that the man had been fishing all day every day.

She thanked us tersely, clearly annoyed that he had known she was coming, and went down the little path in the woods to where he moored his boat. The air felt wrong to me, I can remember it clearly. My parents told us to eat and we all sat down with our sandwiches and chips. A few minutes later, the woman came back up the path alone. She began pounding on the door of the camper but it was locked. She came around the end of the trailer and asked when we’d seen him last. His boat was still at the water’s edge.

I think then, we all knew something was wrong. Something had changed. There was a presence in the air around us that was unfamiliar and all the same, we knew it.

My dad told us to stay where we were when the woman asked for help. She was a bit beside herself. She and her husband were in the process of getting a divorce and they were supposed to be meeting for the weekend to see if they could work things out. She was starting to panic. We had a pop-up of our own and my dad knew the canvas snapped onto the frame and he began to take up the end closest to the road.

I will never forget the shrill wail of grief that pierced the sunlit afternoon as the man’s bloody arm became visible. All at once, the woods were altered and we knew that what was visiting with us was death.

What I remember most was the sudden silence in the woods. The woman wailed, a banshee cry of mourning, and every bird on the mountain stopped singing. Every insect in the woods was still. Even the trees paused in their seasonal breathing. Even the natural world paused in the face of death.

Others came running from all ends of the campground at the sound of her despair. Like every mother, mine immediately put herself between death and her children. The quiet old man who had been enjoying his vacation alongside us had been diabetic. Whatever had happened, he had slowly allowed himself to bleed to death in the trailer beside us, quietly during the night. He had insulin in his trailer that he hadn’t used. There were bloody paper towels and rags strewn throughout. The coroner came and took him away and the owners of the campground sat with the woman until her parents folded time to get to the mountains from Rochester.

I knew when my dad was unsnapping the end of the trailer that the man inside it was dead. Maybe it was the absence of life inside that I sensed. Maybe it was the subconscious scent of blood that lit my animal instinct. But when my dad walked over to the other campsite, it felt like I was holding my breath, waiting.

Whatever it was, we had all sensed the wrongness of what was unfolding. Like when the phone rings for the fifth time in a row, but this time, this ring, sounds like bad news. And after you answer the phone, you discover that your gut response had merit.

Our friends Andy and Mary took us to the beach while they took the body away and went through the logistics of packing down the trailer and hitching it up to his vehicle. Andy put me and my sister in a boat and we took to the water, putting a little distance between us and the other playful children whose lives weren’t touched by the darkness that day. Andy usually called us by nicknames he had given us. I was the Professor and my sister, Half-Pint.

That afternoon he talked to us in quiet tones about death and how it just happens sometimes and we shouldn’t take it on for ourselves. And I knew as he stared at the water that he was thinking of the times he had faced death, and I suddenly understood that he loved life with the gusto that he did to balance out the darkness he had seen, which took shape in the water beneath us. Andy tipped the boat, passengers and all, in an attempt to distort the shadowy form and the moment was broken with squeals of laughter.

It was the first time that someone else’s death, someone unknown to me, had intruded upon my innocence and touched me whether I was willing or not. I wasn’t yet old enough to know it wouldn’t be the last. I don’t remember the man’s name. I don’t remember his wife’s either, the woman whose life-shattering moment I was witness to.

What I do remember is my physical response to death, whether you want to philosophize about it or anthropomorphize it. Sometimes, to process through it, we need to distance ourselves from death, but time will do that easily enough for us. Remembering that feeling has helped me sense it’s nearness in my adult life. When I remember that experience, I say a quiet wish for peace for both of them, the departed and the living, and I return from the moment to experience my own life as fully as I can.

Relevant Posts:

Experiencing Death: The Unborn Baby (published May 16, 2012)

Experiencing Death II: My Father’s Father (published June 13, 2012)

Experiencing Death III: Squirrel in the Road (published July 11, 2012)

Making Amends with the Dead

Death doesn’t always give us time to get affairs in order before it comes and more often, when it does, it leaves behind things unfinished for both the dead and the living. There are conversations we needed to have that are no longer possible in the physical world. In my own life, I needed forgiveness from one of my ghosts. I had a friend who ended his life, and my last words to him were said in anger, out of a place of being wounded. In a place of pain, I blamed him for an assault that happened to me and refused to speak to him. And then he was gone.

I never saw his pain. I never knew how deep his wounds were until it was too late and I tortured myself with the guilt I carried. When I eventually came to a place of believing I was worthy of happiness, and needed to take action, I did it for me. Because I was killing myself inside by hanging onto that old wound.

It’s not that I expected him to manifest from ether before me. It’s not like I expected to hear him say he forgave me. But whether we are seeking forgiveness or we are being asked to forgive, I do believe it is the humbleness of being in that moment that is more important than the outcome. If we are forgiven or not, whether we choose to forgive or find we are not ready to, at least the seeker can say they tried everything they could. At the very least, they can forgive themselves and move on. And that is what I needed to do.

I picked a dark moon, when there was no light in the sky but the stars, when the black around me was inky thick. I sat in a place of fear and allowed myself to face it and found that the guilt I carried was heavier than the dark around me. It was long past time to seek peace.

I burned some sage and copal to clear the space around me and call in protective energies to my heart. I called to my friend, using words that would pull his spirit, memories that only his ghost would answer to. I did this until the air around me felt thick with his presence. Whether he appeared on his own like a true spectre or it was my memories that wove him out of the air, the desired outcome was the same. I felt like I was standing in the grove with him.

I cried first, before my voice could find its footing. It felt familiar, the two of us stealing moments to analyze the chaos around us. The familiarity was painful in how pleasant it was. I told him how much I missed him. I asked him to forgive me for not seeing beyond my own pain. And I told him my secret, the one I had kept from him all those years ago.

I finally put words to the event that happened to me. I explained why I blamed him for not being there to protect me. I apologized for my anger. And in the weaving of words previously unspoken I was forced to see my life with clear eyes.

I had made a poppet out of red fabric. I held it in my hands, pouring pain into it as I spoke. When I had no more words to say I told him that I loved him and that I wished him peace. I threw it into the fire and watched it burn. And it burned through me for a moment. I was time travelling backwards to the moment of my past when I chose to lash out at him rather than tell him what had happened to me. Only this time, at that edge, I made a new choice.

It didn’t change the past. It didn’t rewrite history. Somewhere in my heart, I felt the change in me. I felt the pain of then and knew with certainty that today, even facing that same pain, I would never make that same choice. With that knowledge, the past wound was salved and began to heal. So in a sense, I was able to step back in time and make a different choice. That healing work, once finished, rippled outwards through my core, altering other places that had been affected by that pain.

I sought forgiveness for me. Even if he were alive, my guilt and shame might not have been enough to revive our friendship after all this time. But it still would have allowed me the experience of knowing I had changed enough to mean my words. That they were not born from guilt, but of repentance. I would have known that I was a new person who deserved to free myself of such incredible guilt. Even if he were alive and still hurting, I could have allowed myself the freedom to move on, and hope that eventually he would be able to as well.

My friend is still dead. My last words to him were still in anger, but it was a learning experience and a choice I have proven I would not make again. Since that dark moon ritual, I have not been plagued by the nightmares of guilt that I had been. I remember him fondly, without that pang of culpability I would feel over his death before. It was his choice that he made, for no one but himself.

What I can and have done, is to be careful of my words. I choose not to speak words that I may not mean after they burn through me. I have decided that the cycle of anger and hurt will end with me. I will not perpetuate it further.

This is how I made amends with a loved one who is no longer living. Had the rolls been reversed, I might have called on him to forgive him for his words to me as well, again so that I might move on. Life lessons mean nothing if we learn nothing from them. All our magic is for our own healing and growth and if we open ourselves to the larger world around us, we can find peace from those unspoken things that haunt us.

When We Fall

 “Your first parent was a star.”

from Weight by Jeanette Winterson

I do a nightly meditation to relieve my stress and remove the chaos of the day before I sleep. We all carry weights on our shoulders that no one else sees. We are each together in our unspoken burdens. Like our ancestors before us, we soldier forward, unknowingly adapting and evolving to bear the burden of time and knowledge, and we learn to shine brightly despite the residue it leaves behind.

We are each stars in our own dark night. We are each the thing we need to survive, our own bright knight, our own magical kiss to break the spell. We are the conduit between the past of our spirit world that lives in star energy and the past of our physical world that lives in the earth beneath us. Our bodies are the space where earth and sky meet.

I do this as a meditation, pulling energy up from the earth into me and calling energy down from the stars into me. I do this with the lesson of Tree, and I become rooted, hands dancing in the exhalation of breezes softly blowing. I use Tree because they breathe in seasons, slowly. In this meditation, the excess stress and worry drains back into the earth for transformation and transmutation.

I become the root in the earth and the tree staring into the night, and the star lighting up the sky. I am all these things and I am me. I stand on the bones of my ancestors and I look to their memory. And in the dance between yesterday and today I find myself in Now, even if just for a moment. And my world stills, as the world around me continues on. It becomes music, percussion, orchestration that is but does not distract. In this stillness, my weight disappears. I become light. I am light. I exist in the dark night and I am not tarnished. I shine in spite of. I am brilliant.

Yet even stars fall sometimes. We all fall sometimes.

The weight becomes unbearable and we spin out of control. We all have moments in our lives where our worlds lose their compass and we have no sense of direction. We just want to grab onto a buoy and hold on until the storm passes or the waters calm themselves. We need to hold onto something. Anything. We are leaden and forget we can fly. We forget we can shine a beacon so fierce that it will push the gloom away.

What was your darkest night? What, in your life, shook your world to its core so much so that all you wanted to do was to build your own cave, crawl under the covers and pretend nothing existed outside of them? And we have to let ourselves revel in the fall momentarily, to feel the impact it has on our bones and our tissue. To feel the change rippling from within us, moving with an outward trajectory. We have to feel the change before we can stand in it.

There are lessons lying in wait for us in all the events of our lives, if we can see them. Our ancestors who came before us forgot as well, when they fell. They also had moments of hardship where it didn’t seem like things could possibly get better and they sat in fear that they could, or would, get worse. Living and surviving are not easy, even though we have built comforts up around ourselves to pretend they are. We all have these moments because we have always had these moments. But now, in the spirit world, our ancestors remember what we forget in this one.

In shedding the physical they remember the lessons. I call in the wisdom of their bones as I pull energy up from the earth. I call in the guidance of the history of ancestors who are starlight above us. I pull it into me to feed the fire. With their strength, I burn as brightly as I can. I am the only flame I need against gloom and doubt.

Falling is clumsy and painful. Grace lies in how we pick ourselves up. In whether or not we can shake ourselves off and move forward despite the weight of it. And we can. For generations, we have. We must shine brightly, to show others that it is possible. To show others the way.

Who wants to stare up at a night sky devoid of stars?

*photo is courtesy of energytalkradio.wordpress.com

Experiencing Death III: Squirrel in the Road

This is the third installment in a monthly thread, where I will be looking back at the early experiences I had with death and reflecting on how those moments shaped my views and fears of it. In order to change my relationship with the concept of death, I have to understand what shaped it to begin with. Our ideas and philosophies are meant to evolve and change, to grow as our own experiences do.

It was a quiet afternoon. I was young enough that we still played to the edges of our block and looked multiple times, both ways, before running across the street to the other side. Halfway down the block, in front of the only house of apartments, there was a squirrel in the road. I thought it was dead, another casualty of an automobile on our mostly quiet street. But I thought I saw it breathing.

I looked back and forth many times and darted out into the road. I think the fact that in my memory the road seemed bigger than I know it to be, is telling of my age. I was glad I did because the squirrel wasn’t dead. He was gasping for air, looking at the sky. And then he turned his eyes to me.

He started trembling, every instinct telling him to run. His tiny hand opened and closed with his labored breath. He was still alive but I knew he was dying. I wanted to scoop him up and run him home but I worried that the grown-ups would be more mad that I had touched a wild animal than that a squirrel was dying.

I’d seen dead animals in the street before, flat shapes in the road. We all have. All I knew was that I couldn’t leave him in the road, half-alive, to be crushed as he died because he couldn’t run away. I talked very softly to him, told him I wasn’t going to hurt him although it might hurt a little. I remember promising him I wouldn’t touch him, having been told that some animals would reject other wild ones that smelled of human.

He was laying atop a large cluster of leaves and I very slowly and very gently pulled the leaves closer to the side of the road, obsessively watching for traffic. He made no sound and didn’t move. He just opened and closed his little fist as he struggled for air.

I calmed a bit when he was no longer in the open and I sat on the curb, my knees pulled in, sitting with him. Even then I had a sense that he shouldn’t be alone. Who knew how old he was, if he had family? What if animals could feel the way we felt? What if he was scared? It must have been autumn. In my memories leaves fell softly while we sat there.

I talked quietly with him and sang softly to him. I wished I could save him. I’m pretty sure I prayed for him to be okay, that he might get up and walk away. After that, my memory splits.

I remember my mother coming to find me. I remember her sitting beside me for a moment. She asked me if I touched it and I told her I knew I shouldn’t. She wanted me to come home but I didn’t want to leave it alone. She said that I was right that it was dying. Its breathing was already slower and less urgent. She told me I did a wonderful thing for the squirrel and it was time to come home.

I also remember a woman sitting beside me, more ether than flesh, with chestnut hair and a weathered housedress. She wrapped an arm around me and we watched the squirrel as I cried. I think I apologized for not being able to be more help. Maybe they both happened. Maybe the ghost arm became my mother’s when she came to see where I was. I remember there was a woman. Maybe my mother was never there and my brain imposed her face onto another, because she is known to me. All I know for sure is that it wasn’t just me and the squirrel at the curb.

There’s no clear lesson in this experience for me except that I have always remembered the look on that squirrel’s face. It was the first time I recognized the shadow of death without having seen it before. I have never forgotten the feeling of knowing that death was imminent, as if I saw it every day. Often our intuition knows better than we do.

Once we see that shadow, however it manifests for us, we are altered. It is our fear that changes us in harmful ways, closing our minds to the reality of it. Sometimes the alteration is as simple as awareness and we open ourselves to a larger cycle of life. Life and death are intertwined, interconnected and those who can embrace the inevitability of death are the ones who can embrace the wonder of the living world more fully.

Relevant Posts:

Introduction to Death: The Unborn Baby (published May 16, 2012)

Introduction to Death II: My Father’s Father (published June 13, 2012)