A Sandwich & A Spirit Message

I've posted before about how spirit talks to me. I've always been sensitive. It's not the same thing as being psychic or a medium. But I know when the room is full of more people than are standing in it.

That happens a lot.

That's not the same things as hauntings and I've investigated and experienced those. And hauntings aren't always done by spirits. More often I have experienced those as echoes of strong emotion from violent death; more poltergeist than man.

But sometimes spirit talks to me and a ghost walks through. Only, they don't talk to me. I get music. Sometimes the song lyric is important. Sometimes the artist is the clue. Sometimes it's the time period. If you ever hear me humming something repetitively, ask me what it is.

I don't always notice.

I was making a sandwich at lunch and this lyric I have written about before was running through my head and then I realized I was actually singing it out loud. It's a song I was not familiar with originally-- which is why it was a good choice to get my attention with. It's another song spirits use to let me know someone is knocking on the door.

Well, the one that is actually knocking is the theme song from the 70s sitcom Three's Company. This song lyric by Staind, "But I'm on the outside and I'm looking in... I can see through you, see to the real you" means someone has a message.

It's a fun new level-up in my sensitivity.

I caught on to the tune and I laughed. I mean, okay, someone is trying to get my attention. That's still not very helpful. I know someone's there, but who?

Then I started singing "Oh Darlin'" on my way to the garbage can and another Beatles song followed that one and I realized spirit was giving me more clues.

And the Beatles make me think about my dad. They will always mean my dad. Ding, ding, ding! Bells went off. I went through the people who have crossed over that would reach out through him and at one name my heart sighed at the same time as the hairs on my arms lifted.

It was a simple, personal message. Nothing life-altering, thank goodness. As much as I love scary movies I don't want ghosts telling me that someone is coming to get me. Ha ha. But the brief visitation made me smile. Hearing their voice again made me happy. There are so many ways to connect with Spirit and I am grateful that I find an easy bridge in music.

Spirit Workings

Dream visitations are usually benign. I used to get them in the corners of my nightmares but they were always apart from the nightmare. You may be a Scrooge who has karmically earned a visit from Marley, in which case have fun. But there is no reason you should be scared of a dream visitation from spirit.

When you do a lot of work with spirits in dreams sometimes you are called to Work. There are ways to help the dead in their realm.

A friend came to me recently, in a dream. He’s been dead for a decade and his death was disarming and unexpected. As was the dream:

I’m in a hotel, wandering around. There’s some kind of wedding. We were right about coming there. Something cried out for help. We set a trap that involved pushing carts around unnoticed and drawing symbols on specific walls.

That night, another body shows up in bed with us. I hitch my breath.

He came to me as he saw himself, like Voldemort in the train station. He is wasted away to skeleton three-quarters his actual size. It breaks my heart and he cannot bear to look at me. He covers his face with his hands, crying.

He’s crying and apologizing for not working harder. He’s humiliated at how I saw him at the end, at how things ended.

I could ask him what happened.

I could ask him who did it.

I could…

But he is broken, swimming in regret and guilt and shame. And I remembered the light in the hospital that came to me when I felt most broken-- I remembered that and all of the things that he did that were good and made him someone we cared about. I pulled it up and shared that with him.

I took his face in my hands and repeated over and over again that he should be proud of the Work that he did, not what he didn’t do. I tell him to let the rest fall away.

I make him look me in the eye to see how I see him.

He removes his hands and his eyes are so piercingly blue.

It takes hours of unflinching gazing. And then he smiles.

In the end there was peace. For both of us.

Watched Over by Hiram King Wicker

When I was recovering in the bed of the Burn ICU I was existing in the blurred edge of reality, still alive and drugged beyond comprehension but also floating near the edge of death. There were spirits around my bed, standing still and holding vigil while the medical staff watching in and out of them. One spirit stood back, a statue in the center of the room he oversaw the other spectral visitors. I recognized his eyes from family photos. He was my 2x great-grandfather Hiram King Wicker.

Hiram was one of three sons born to Thaddeus Rice Wicker, originally from Connecticut, and Cynthia Lusk of Niagara County, New York.

After the Civil War, Hiram married Emma Angeline Whitcher and settled in Lockport. Hiram and his brother William owned and operated a feed store along the canal. He was a practicing Mason and, according to the markings on his gravestone, at some point he was in a position of authority within the organization. But there was another piece of information I knew about Hiram that was lost in my recovery haze.

I didn't remember until a week ago that H. K. Wicker was one of the first Fire Chiefs of Lockport, NY. A man in California, an avid collector of antique fire badges, sent me a photo of a badge he acquired that belonged to Hiram Wicker. His initials were engraved on the back. I had forgotten.

Of course he came to my aid acting as patriarch and overseer. Of course the man who saw it as his responsibility to keep his town safe from fire and destruction came to attend to his 2x great-granddaughter in one of her darkest moments. Those who love us never truly leave us and he was a man devoted to his family and those he considered in his care.

I'm not trying to convince you that ghosts are real. That ancestors walk with you. But they walk with me. I own my experiences. I am trying to show you my world, what I live as normal. Because the world we all live in is bigger than we can comprehend.

Hiram and Emma had one child, Minnie Estelle, who was the mother of Ruth Emma, who was the mother of my father. Hail the Wickers. Hail the Whitchers. Hail the Rustons.

Preparing the Way for Spirit to Come Through

Autumn has finally found us here in New York State. As we turn towards All Hallow’s Eve it feels as though winter will not be far behind. Indoors, I make preparations to honor my Ancestral Dead and welcome them into my home and hearth. I do this every day but at this time of year I will do it more formally and intently on a night when the lines between the living and the dead blur.

I see movements out of the corner of my eye, things tucking behind chairs and bookshelves that aren’t there when I look for them straight-on. I feel people entering the room behind me but no matter how certain my body is that I am not alone I cannot see anyone with my naked eye. And my scalp prickles as if a hand has gently touched me. It warms beneath another palm. I no longer reach up to check because I know it is not a physical presence.

This is how I live every October. The blurs are what I refer to as wayward spirits, harmless travelers drawn towards memories of being alive. The closer we get to Samhain the brighter my inner lighthouse gets. The room lurker is currently The German Guy who has made another appearance. I know he belongs to my maternal Grandma Art’s side. As she passed this last spring I am not surprised to see him come to sit with me. And the hand on my scalp is my Great-Grandma Elsie. Always. She is my spirit traffic cop. She is never far.

I leave her cups of tea and horribly salted chicken wings. She lived with us in the summers and was alive until I was seventeen. There is a space in my heart that was shaped by her, a part of me that remembers how she molded me. She saw what others in my family did not see and now, from a grown-up perspective, her experiences with a difficult son dictated her advice to me.

You can’t let the bullies stop you from living your life.

That goes for spirit bullies, too. Sometimes, if you are sensitive to them, they can crowd the room and demand attention. So when I clean my Ancestor Altar and refresh it for the season I call in peaceful spirits here that do not wish us harm. I take a shot of some pungent liquor and make an offering at the edge of our property for those spirits seeking offerings with no regard for the living.

There is room for them all to be honored…just...out there. Not in my home.

On Samhain we feast a Dumb Supper with our ancestors, setting a place for special guests and one place for all the rest to come and join. Together, the collective of us living and dead will say a final farewell to those who have passed since last year and I will ask the Ancestors to safeguard those who may not yet be at peace and to watch over their families.

Some years the names of my Recent Dead are few. This year, the list is long, and the losses are heavy. My Grandmother. My Uncle. One of my wife’s closest friends. My primary doctor and friend. Three members of my spiritual community, the loss for one of them is still rippling out through our hearts. It will be felt for years.

I wish them peace even as I grieve the loss of them, the loss of their physical presence, of their wisdom, of all the time we’ll never have to repair or strengthen wounds and hearts. And I am left to figure out how to move on from unfinished work.

But not alone. Those Who Have Gone Before aid me in my grief. The Ancestral Dead, the centuries of others who have felt such loss, have been deceased long enough that they can hold space for my sorrow. When I am open to it, in my darkest moment, I do not feel alone.

For some people the thought of ghosts is isolating and frightening. We often feel such a way about things we cannot explain. I’ve always trusted what I am experiencing more than just my eyes. We do not see everything and we do not see everything the same way as everyone else. It makes our personal experiences valuable.

Open your heart to the thinning of the walls between this world and the next. Do not try to quantify or qualify. I will tell you that yes, your loved one is gone. And they are alive. And they are reincarnated. And they are with you. All of that is true, all at once, right now.

Now they are gone. Now they are everywhere.

How will you honor them this year?

The Ghost in My Bed

Every night I spend an hour or so in bed watching a movie or drama episode. My cat curls up on me behind the small screen and reaches with her paw. I put my hand out and she spreads her toebeans around my fingertips. And squeezes.

Love floods my heart.

We stay that way until she presses her paw against my palm. And she falls asleep. Deeply. With three cats deceased, this is precious time to me. Some nights I steal to bed early just for a little more connective mindfulness of being together.

I brought it up with my wife because there was something about the recent nights that had stuck with me. I was recalling the sweetness of Mara’s paw in mine and I realized that I was strongly visualizing a small grey tiger cat paw.

Mara is a tuxedo.

My next thought was of Luna, the first of our cats to pass back in 2010. She was my familiar. Any time I meditated she would come and curl in my lap. She slept on me every night and would often appear in my dreams. She didn’t always stay to see them through. I have dreamed with her since she passed, but rarely.

I was sure the feeling of similarity would vanish after I made the connection to Luna, like it was some grief-filled longing that brushed my senses. But that wasn’t the case. The next night that sensation was more certain, so much so that I moved the screen to put my eyes on Mara’s black and white coat.

Even looking at Mara with my eyes, my heart was telling me it was Luna. There was this thing I used to do, with my fingertip spreading Luna’s toe pads. None of the other cats allowed me to do that. Especially not Mara. So I initiated the moment and Mara spread her toes and let me pet her there.

My heart caught in my throat. I didn’t need to prove it. How can you prove such a thing? I just accepted it as a gift. I don’t know how long it will feel like this. I don’t know how long Luna’s ghost will join us in our nightly cuddling.

All I know is how much I miss her after eight years and how joyful my heart has been to feel her again. It is strange to touch Mara’s arms and paws but to feel someone else, to feel Luna. And then an hour later it was not-Luna. It was Mara again.

I curled myself around her, me and Mara, mindful of the love I have for her. Mindful of the different relationships I have had with each of my cats. I am mindful of the lessons I learned from loving them.

Not all ghosts bring sadness and sorrow. Some bring love. When you stand in the river of your Ancestors, the only thing you can do with all that love is pass it on.

Bhagavad Gita 2.20:

The soul is neither born, nor does it ever die;

nor having once existed, does it ever cease to be.

The soul is without birth, eternal, immortal, and ageless.

It is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.

How I Keep the Dead Alive

Snuggling with Luna the day before she passed.

I used to go to the local zoo when they housed Bison. I have a special affinity for the buffalo and would sit with them, sharing the day. I spent time telling them stories about their ancestors. I told them about the giant aurochs and the time of the mammoths.

"Your ancestors were giants," I whispered.

When it is quiet at night and my tiny tuxedo cat Mara is curled in my lap, I tell her stories of the furry sisters she never knew. I tell her about Luna's moth hunting skills and how she once drained milk out of a cup without knocking it over or off the side table. I tell her about how Bella had vision problems and lived under the bed for eight years. I tell her about how Bella concussed herself twice slamming head-first into furniture. I tell her how Zami was kinder before her two younger sisters died. I tell Mara that Zami, known at 22 as Crazy Grams, would miss her if she died first.

And then we talk about how she's going to live a very long life.

But no one lives forever. I have a list of loved loves lost to time, some recently inked in. And we miss them forever. We ever get over the loss. We're not meant to. We miss them forever. It just hurts less as time passes. We add more to our life stories and some experiences begin to fill in the cracks.

We become repaired, healing things, more beautiful for the new joys.

When I am feeling insecure I talk out loud to my Great-Grandma Elsie. She used to make sure I knew that I was fine just the way I was. In fact she loved me for it. She would try to explain why people treated me the way they did. She gave me their perspective while affirming that I had a right to be hurt. So I talk to her and I smell her in the room and I feel her sitting beside me.

When I am lost I talk to my Grandpa Dick. He was beloved, the only Grandpa present in my life. He had a way of telling me how reality was while not making me feel wrong. He could help me break down a situation and logically show me where I misunderstood. And I would know I had to apologize, and he would squeeze my hand with pride. And then he would tell me he was sorry I had felt hurt. And he would set his mouth and look at me and I always felt like he really understood.

I was in the room when he died. I felt him leave. But I talk to him still. I ask him for guidance, for help in knowing what the right direction is... and I smell the inside of his Cadillac and I feel like no matter what choice I make, he's along for the ride with me. I'm not alone.

I share the stories of my beloveds. It's how I keep the dead alive.

Grandpa Dick and me during  family generational photo, around '87.

Have Gratitude for the Day

I stood in the warm spring sunshine of the morning, cleaning out the garbage pail. The most current tenants across the way played something they probably called music on their phone at a volume that rivaled any boom box of my youth. Another neighbor walks her dogs, spilling gossip and unrealized hate from behind a white face mask. The kitty-corner renters, an elderly mother and daughter argue over whose turn it is to run to the gas station for cigarettes. And yet another neighbor smiles and me and waves good morning.

Her smile is enough to make me blind to the garbage littering the street. This is where I live. This is my life.

And it is good. It is heartfelt. It is honest. And that is enough to make me smile.

My thoughts turn to spring planting and the coming summer months and scheduling and before I know it, I am already mapping out October again. And I have to stop myself. And turn my face to the sun. It’s a balm, even though my eyes are hidden behind wrap-around glasses.

I let myself think of summer. I have to prepare myself for the coming days of compression garments and heat. I am still recovering and the road I am on is long. But there is sweetness in the distant promise of fresh strawberries. The bright red berry pops into my head and I think of my Great-Grandma Elsie, and the summers she spent with us.

Strawberries were a delight for her.

And in that moment, she is standing with me, face to the sun, in the small patch of yard in front of the apartment we rent. I was taller than her when she died. A lot of people were taller than her. But I see her ghostlight shimmering below my chin and I can feel Elsie take my hand. Even in death hers is always cool to the touch. She squeezes gently with all of the wisdom of her old age.

This time is a gift. Enjoy each moment. Have gratitude for the day. For right now. For what you have. For where you are. Count your blessings.

You were always one of mine.  

I totally cried in my front yard, unabashedly. She died when I was seventeen and my heart still yearns for her. Elsie loved summer. And I loved Elsie.

I turn my face to the sun, grateful for its heat and the warming winds. I know in my bones that those who came before me had the same moment of gratitude, over and over each spring. They were all New Englanders. We are connected in this gratitude. It transcends time within me.

And surely every creature who has survived a darkness, has that moment of knowing the worst of it has passed and a reprieve has come. And they turn themselves to the light.

Have gratitude for the day. For right now. For what you have. For where you are. Count your blessings.

Celebrating Spirit with a Silent Supper

“And in one house they could see an old grandfather mummy being taken out of a closet and put in the place of honor at the head of the table, with food set before him. And the members of the family sat down to their evening meal and lifted their glasses and drank to the dead one seated there, all dust and dry silence…”

~ Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree, 1972

Dine with the Dead

Bradbury’s text was my first introduction to the idea of the silent dinner with the dead, also known as a Dumb Supper. This formal sit-down is traditionally done any night between October thirty-first and November third. I enjoy it most when we can set the table on Halloween evening, also known as Samhain (sow-in), which we are planning to do this year. This one is also special as it marks the first anniversary of the accident where I almost died.

My Ancestors stood at my bedside with me, helping to channel the healing energy. I was so near death myself that I saw them clearly. A few were faces I recognized but most were new to me, with eyes or jaws or mouths set in familiar slants and patterns. When I was closest to the other side, I was least alone. My wife and I will be celebrating life as we honor those who aided my healing from the spirit world.

It’s meant to be silent but it does not have to be a solemn or somber event. Hold the supper sacred and keep conversation on the experience at hand; it is not a place to chit chat about the workday or chores that need to be done as such mundane life can keep the timid dead away who no longer recognize the world-as-is. Perhaps there was a time when true silence was possible but for the scraping of forks and howling of the wind, but in this day, when our homes are filled with the not-so-quiet hum and thrum of electronics, appliances, traffic and plumbing, I try to use the electrical aids to entice the dead to visit.

We play some kind of music that might appeal to our invited guests. We often listen to the radio drama of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree, which pulls the spirit energy into our home. I grew up sitting around the radio with my family, listening to music. A generation before us it was music and radio serials. The emotional sensation that fills our home when we play the radio drama is one of a joyous family reunion.

The event itself can be as simple or elaborate as your circumstances require. The intention is the magic. Welcome in any weary travelers from the other world and offer them an extra place at your table. Feed them before you feed the living. Allow them an evening of humanity on the night when the overlapping worlds bleed through.

What We Do

We use the dumb supper to open a space for the living and dead to dine together. We have greatly ritualized the evening, though we keep it family-style-casual. At the heart of the evening, it is about honoring Those Who Came Before. We may make a connection and touch spirit world, but that is just an aside. It is not about us. So imagine you are gently trying to lull spirits who have been in other world back into the familiar trappings of life. Think about it like you are starting at the end and moving backwards, like a mirror image of their last breath.

It may seem like a stretch, but apply that to the table itself. I think of the table and meal like a reflection, a photo-negative image of your mundane life. Whatever order you would normally eat dinner courses, serve them backwards. However you would place-set the table, set it backwards. Do you usually put forks on the left and water glass on the right? Reverse them. Whether it makes sense or not, it works, and is one of the oldest guidelines for hosting a supper for the dead.

Prepare the Food

Planning the menu is part of the fun. What foods will you serve? I like to make items that were meaningful to my family as well as items I find that hearken to the cultural heritage I am discovering in my genealogical research: German, Polish, Irish, Dutch, English, French-Canadian, etc. What lines live in your bloodstream?

In order to highlight what makes this supper different, it’s helpful to plan a series of courses. It ends up being a bit more formal than a meal we would normally prepare, but for us, this is a special occasion. It may be helpful to note that pungent and fragrant scents are more enticing to the dead who no longer eat.

Plate the Table

We set a chair at the head of the table and shroud it in black fabric to represent the Spirit Chair. A candle is placed in the center of its plate. This is the setting for all those who wander the night and wish the living no harm. During each of the courses, this chair is the guest of honor.

Then we each set out an extra chair for our personally invited spirit guest. It cannot be someone who has died within the last year. We write the name of our invited guest on a piece of paper and place it beneath their plate. Sometimes I actually write letters or ask a question I am hoping to gain spiritual insight on. If you do not have a particular ancestor you wish to invoke, you may simply write the ancestors of your name, your bloodline, your spiritual heart, etc.

A candle is placed on the center of the plate. I place my guest’s chair across from me, so that I may gaze into the space there, like divination, during the meal. Ultimately, where you place them is not important. What is important is that you serve the Spirit Chair first, your invited guests next, and then yourself. It’s the intention of hospitality that matters most.

Open the Door and Light the Way

At the beginning of the meal, we stand behind the head chair and invite our ancestors to come and dine with us. I even go so far as to open the front door and invite them into my home. We light the candle on the Spirit plate and pour a libation into the cup at the head of the table. I call in the Ancestors with this prayer:

To those who have gone before,

To those whose names live in our hearts and dance upon our lips,

To those whose names have been lost in the sea of time,

To those whose bones lie above and below the earth,

To those whose ashes have travelled on the winds,

We, the living, bid you welcome and entrance.

This action opens door for your personal guests to step in, too. We light the candles on our invited guests’ plates and call them by name. This year I am inviting my unknown-to-me-in-life paternal great-grandmother Hattie Eva Smith. She trained to be a nurse late in life after her husband died. She stood at my left thigh most of the time I was in the ICU.

Enjoy the Evening

A place set for our beloved cats.

The meal itself is also a reflected image of what the dead would remember. We start with the dessert course and sit down to enjoy it. Next, the main course, then the sides. Then the soup and salad, followed by any appetizers and pre-dinner cocktails. You should structure your meal in a way that seems appropriate to you, your heritage and your family traditions- just backwards from whatever that might be.

During each pause in courses, while we are eating, I focus on the space across from me and the multiple sensory impressions I receive. In years past, I have invited my Great-Grandma (known-to-me-in-life) Elsie Durant Riddle to dine with me. From the ether I have been chastised for not salting her meatballs or being stingy on the chocolate cake. I have also heard the gentle trebling of her voice and felt the cool paper of her skin as our hands brushed while I was serving her. I have found myself responding to an unspoken request from her spirit for another napkin. On this night, they can allow themselves the human moments they had in life and we can be reminded of them; Elsie did often need an extra napkin.

Bid the Dead to Rest

When the meal is finished, we express our gratitude to those who came and supped with us. That mostly consists of speaking our thoughts and feelings out loud. When the evening feels over, I thank my guest for coming and I open the front door, wishing them a safe journey for the rest of their evening. I put their candle out. (If I use tea light, I just let them burn out.)

I thank the Ancestors for dining with us and I snuff out the candle on the Spirit Chair. I carry the libation from the Spirit cup, usually water, outside and pour it on the ground:

To those who have gone before,

To those whose names live in our hearts and dance upon our lips,

To those whose names have been lost in the sea of time,

To those whose bones lie above and below the earth,

To those whose ashes have travelled on the winds,

We, the living, thank you for dining with us.

We, the living, bid you safe travels.

Ideally, the food would also be disposed of sacredly, either burned, buried or, traditionally, placed in running water. For me, it means leaving it out in the woods for critters, an offering of the bones of spirit-eaten food to other life in need. When I dispose of it, I do so with sacred intention.

Death is a part of the natural cycle we are all a part of and it’s healthy to find ways of acknowledging it as we celebrate the lives we lead. Our Dumb Suppers are portals that allow us, for one moment, whether we truly believe or not, to open up the part of ourselves that remembers the imagination of our childhoods. And we can believe that we might not know what comes after. And we can allow ourselves to speak words to the dead that would otherwise seem foolish.

            Many blessings to you and your family, both living and dead on this day. I have much gratitude to the Ancestors who lived, who opened the Way that we might walk this earth together. May we walk this earth softly, that those who come after us will speak our names in joy. May the peace and stillness of the season be with you. 

May the Ancestors walk with us, always.

[Article revamped from a post originally published October 31, 2012.]

Blessed Be the Caretakers

Hattie Eva Smith, married Eaton.

In the midst of pain, in the lull of heavy drugs in the Burn ICU, I experienced seeing my ancestors standing around my hospital bed. I thought at first that they were visitors or hospital staff. For me, time was distorted and it was a while until I realized that they were clearly defined to me, but also various shades of transparent translucency.

Some of them moved so swiftly around my bed they were a blur of action, but some of them stayed with me long enough to be recognizable. My paternal 2x great-grandfather, Hiram King Wicker, stood at the foot of my bed, acting as patriarch and traffic controller of the ether room. His blue eyes twinkled at me merrily and I knew I would be all right.

My maternal great-grandmother Elsie Elizabeth Durant Riddle sat to my right. She always manifests to my right. She held my hand and I could feel the soft smoothness of her skin. I was too hazy to realize that my hands were bandaged up into tight balls to stop the burns from contracting.

There was another woman in the room, unknown to me by appearance. She wore a long skirt and full blouse that could belong to any nondescript time period. Her face was sober and serious and her head was bent in half-prayer.

Then there was a last permanent guest, who I didn't recognize at first. Her age threw me off, as most of the photos I'd seen of her were either much younger or much older, like my father remembered her, my paternal great-grandma Hattie Eva Smith Eaton. She stood on my left side, with her hands open, palms down, on my left thigh, just above my knee. Her face was also serious, but when she saw me watching her, she'd smile crookedly, reassuring me.

My great-grandma Hattie was a nurse. In 1931, my great-grandpa Royal Levant Eaton died as a result of diabetic complications after a wound inflicted during his work as a prison guard. Being the depression, the government refused to pay out his pension due to his death from a pre-existing condition and Hattie had to find work so that she could care for her children. She went to school and was a nurse for the rest of her life. And then, in her afterlife, she was with me, attentive and unmoving, watching my other ghostly visitors.

In the hospital, every time my dressing changes were done and my legs had healed more, and looked better, the nurses would ask me, "Are you sure you're diabetic?" I knew that was Hattie, standing with me. As the drugs faded and I grew more tangible in my body, my guests paled and became air around me, invisible to my eyes. But I could still feel them in the room with me. I feel them with me still.

Leave the Recent Dead to Rest

This is the time of year when neighbors decorate their yards with fake cemetery stones, when cobweb-covered skeletons hang from trees and porches. Leaves around us dry, fall and die, leaving the bare branches visible, and our minds wander to thoughts of loss. It is this time of year when those we have recently lost are close to our hearts and in our thoughts.

In my Ancestor practice, I talk a lot about actually working with your dead. For my purposes, there are three levels of dead. There is your Ancestral Dead, comprising those of your family line you never knew in life. Your Beloved Dead are those you knew and loved in this life that are passed, whether of your bloodline or not. And then there is your Recent Dead, those who have died within this last year, or since last Samhain, if you regularly wish your recent dead rest. Just remember that time is not consistent, for us or them.

I spend a lot of time honoring the Recent Dead in Samhain rituals, lighting candles for them and wishing them safe passage. I shepherd lost souls across to whatever comes next. I know some spirits wander because they do not know where to go. It’s like standing at a subway station and the train comes and the door opens and all that exists beyond it is space without firmament. The spirits who are still attached to their physical bodies don’t know how to move through that space, thinking in terms that no longer apply, so they don’t.

Mostly what I want to tell you about is why I don’t do work or call upon my recent dead. And why you shouldn’t either. It’s not about them. It’s about you.

Not all Recent Dead cross over, but mostly they do. Still, sometimes a part of them stays behind because they’re not ready, or they have unfinished business. And even if they do, that business can wait. Because you need to take care of you.

When we grieve, we are walking in two worlds. The world of the mundane, where life revolves and continues despite our sorrow, and the world where every moment is a reminder of how our loved ones are no longer with us. That’s the world where every time you reach out for them or you turn to talk to them, where every one of those moments is sharp and it cuts. And no one is in that world but you, existing slightly outside of the one everyone else is in.

Sometimes we forget that others around us don’t feel the pain we’re feeling. Sometimes they forget we’re still feeling the pain we’re feeling. So we are not in a stable place, even if we’re functional. That is extremely important. We use our intuitive bodies to do magic. Our intuitive bodies and our emotional bodies are not the same, though they overlap. And our emotional bodies are grieving.

I do not call on my Recent Dead for help or aid. I do not ask them to visit me in my work, in my meditations, or in my dreams. Because it would be too hard if they came. It would be too hard to open my eyes in the morning, after experiencing them, and re-remembering that they are gone.

A decade ago, friends of ours let us stay in their empty house while in town for holiday with my family. They were out of town for Christmas, as earlier that year my friend had taken his life in that house. His wife and son were recovering, choosing to spend their first holiday elsewhere. I woke in the middle of the night and he was standing at the end of the bed. He wanted to know where they were. It was Christmas. He came to be with them. Where was the tree? Where was his son? I took a deep breath. His eyes were so clear and bright, so much like the man I knew before his illness.

I told him he had to leave them alone. I told him it was too hard for them, because of what he did. I told him his being around made it hard for them to move forward. I told him he made his choice and he had to own it.

He was sad. But he disappeared. And I fell back to sleep. The human part of me wanted to ask my friend questions. But even spirits rewrite their own stories. It’s what holds them here. In hauntings, it is always the truth that sets the ghost free. And as a healer, as an Edgewalker, that was all I had to offer him.

Afterwards, my friends’ lives improved. The queer sensations that had been haunting them in the house stopped. Magic is real.

Magic isn’t safe.

So we don’t work with the Recent Dead. At Samhain, we ground that grief with flame and fire and we hold that light in our hearts. We know that peace of sorts will find us. And that we will accept the inevitable nature of death, even as it applies to us. Eventually. And that hope sustains us.

On All Hallow’s Eve I will offer the names of my Recent Dead and I will wish them peace. But I will not open myself to contact. I will not ask them questions. I will offer them tears and reach back to my Beloved and Ancestral Dead for comfort. Until next year, I will leave my most recently deceased to their rest. 

A Prayer for the Passing of a Difficult Relationship

Sometimes when people pass, we find ourselves at a loss for what to say, suffering from conflicting emotions. What happens when we are not saddened by the loss of the person, but saddened by the loss of the chance to change the unsatisfying relationship? Can we find it within ourselves to honor the end of their life despite our ambivalent hearts? For me, the answer has become yes.

I Hope You Knew Peace (Sarah Lyn, 2014)

Wherever you were, whatever you were doing

in that last moment, I hope you knew peace.

Things left unsaid will find their way into the world

as whispers on the winds.

Things left undone were not meant to be done.

Or perhaps they were. Let other hands take up their toil,

let them fade into ether.

The end of this journey is the end of this story.

Now it’s time to start a new one.

May your heart be lighter it’s next turn.

There is no need to hold onto the bones of the earth.

There is no need to hold onto the bones of your flesh.

Those you left behind will follow you.

Those who passed before will be waiting.

Let the living unravel the tangle of your loss.

At the end, it weighs no heavier.

May what is leftover fall to the earth

as you become one with the starry sky.

You are free from pain now.

Be free. I collect letters from language,

rolling them in my hands, forming words…

My hands pray your name. I honor who you were to me.

I speak your name into the waters. I honor that you were.

I speak your name to the earth. I witness what remains for those left behind.

I speak your name to the air. I take in the last breath you released.

I hold the gate as you walk towards ancestral fire.

May you be at peace.

May those who remain find peace.

May it be so.

It is for my own heart that I release residual anger. It is for my own self that I understand that we make choices from places of joy or fear and some people cannot help but choose fear and it is not meant to be personal. It is for my peace of mind that I wish things could have been different but accept them for what they were, for what they are.

I believe everyone deserves a moment of kindness at the end of all things. So I wish them peace, all of those who died alone, all of those who passed with things left unfinished. I wish them peace and a continuing journey. May their spirits cross over, and leave this earthly plane. Ase.

This week I honor the passing of Paul L. Slomba (Oct 4, 1939 – April 2, 2014), the last of my grandfathers, after battling a difficult cancer. 

When You Visit

My Grandpa watching me draw with his great-grandkids on my last birthday before he died.

It’s Saturday. I watch the hands on the mirrored clock, eyes straying to the forest scene held within it, always pulled into those rays of light and their stillness, even as the ticking hands keep their movement. It’s almost noon, every week, my metronome, arriving between 11:59 or 12:01, no earlier or later- unless something was wrong.

The door knob turns and I am in the front room with my lunch, waiting. Your head pokes in first, always with a wink and a twinkling eye. Then your voice rings out a greeting, the magician entering as if his arrival is unexpected and the audience plays along.

“What kind of sandwich are you having today?” you ask with laughing eyes. The stars could be navigated by my predictability.

“Bologna, cheese, mustard, and potato chip,” I reply.

“What kind of potato chip?” you ask, and I was waiting for you to ask. You know salt and vinegar are my favorite but sometimes I like the ketchup-flavored ones that come in the big metal tubs the man delivers to our house. You pretend to be surprised that I am having a bologna sandwich and I giggle. It’s our thing.

It’s Saturday. I remember the mirrored clock that belonged to my parent’s house. My heart still lives in that forest. The digital blue of my clock flickers, 11:59 to noon- at times like this I miss the ticking reminder of time passing.

The scent of your cologne drifts in as the bells on the back of the front door jingle. The doorknob turns and I pour you a cup of coffee. I make a sandwich I barely have anymore, drawing a smiley face on one piece of bread with the mustard, because that’s how the mustard goes on. I hear my younger voice explaining it to you and I smile.  

I pour a cup of coffee I won’t drink and I leave it for you on the table. As I crunch down into my sandwich, I miss you and I love you and I’m glad you came to visit. It’s our thing. I know you’d never miss it.

My First Imaginary Friend was a Ghost

When I was a little girl, I had five imaginary friends. But one of them was a ghost. Her name was Amy.

I remember waking in the morning, and she’d be sitting on the end of my bed, waiting for me. I called her Amy, because I had trouble saying her full name. I had a speech impediment as a child. She didn’t seem to mind. My adult brain keeps trying to fill her full name in from scattered memories. Amalia? Amelia? Emmeline?

She was a shadow in the house while I dressed, ate breakfast, and brushed my teeth. We didn’t speak inside but her presence was a comfort to me. We walked to school together every day. She always wore the same outfit, a dress that could have come from Little House on the Prairie, a pale blue dress with tiny flowers on it. Her hair hung in one long braid down her back. It was a light brown color. Her eyes were blue. And always, every day, her feet were bare.

We walked together in the snow, my breath hanging in the air in front of me. Not hers. We would walk together all the way to the corner of Grand and Prospect where the crossing guard stood. Amy would stay on my side of Prospect. She couldn’t cross the street. She didn’t know why. Every day, after school, she would be waiting for me there.

I remember knowing enough to hold my tongue until we were out of range of other kids. And I just accept it was true. Why do I believe she was a ghost? Partly because of all the other spectral encounters I have had in my later life that I know are true. But also because, of all my imaginary friends, Amy was the only one who I couldn’t change or control. She always wore the same thin dress. I couldn’t dress her for the appropriate season like I could the others. She was always barefoot. I wish I remembered the conversations we had, for I know we spoke together while we were walking.

I can’t believe I almost forgot that she was a spirit.

Children, untainted, untrained, unschooled, are open vessels to the world. I know a lot of parents who say their children talk about who they were in a past life, or bring up details on historical events they couldn’t yet know about. There are even children who give details about their imaginary friends that, after research, turn out to be people who had really existed. Kids see things we don’t. According to developmental psychologists, when children reach eight years-old, they begin to conform to what they have to believe and think in order to be part of our culture. And one of the first things they let go of is their belief in magic, and their imagination.

We did the same thing when we were kids. As we age we tell ourselves that what we remember couldn’t possibly have happened the way we remember it. And we alter our own origin stories. We tell ourselves that we couldn’t possibly remember what we did when we were four years old, that we must be making it up. But we must remember that just because we didn’t have the language we needed to accurately identify a thing, doesn’t mean that what we remember is wrong. It’s just out of focus.

I have been both cursed and blessed with a long memory for things that emotionally stirred me. I believed in magic as a child. I remember not speaking to Amy out loud in front of others, even though I didn’t speak out loud with my other imaginary friends. I just had conversations with them in my head. But with Amy, I remember thinking other people would not be able to see her. I remember subsequently hiding myself from the world because I felt I was different. I remember how disconnected I felt when I closed myself off to the natural world.

I believe that act was what caused my decades of unexplainable loneliness. The more I work towards reconnecting into the land I live on and within, the more I chip away at that dark place inside me and the less alone I feel. And the more I accept that the quirky life I remember as a little girl was more real than the one of concrete and asphalt.

When I was a little girl, I had five imaginary friends. But one of them was a ghost. Her name was Amy.

When Spirit Knocks

Dom-St-Maria, Augsburg, Germany; by Rebecca Kennison

The Spirit World wants to make contact with you, for we are part of it's world. When Spirit tries to connect, it will try anything to get through to you. You just have to be open to things that repeat that catch your attention. Maybe it’s the light you keep swearing you turn off only to find it on again. Imagination is a tool of the third eye, and the doorway exists at the line between being aware of the higher purpose of a pattern and forcing a connection between events.

Magic is always a hairs’ breath from madness. The fae are always slipping through awareness out of the corner of your eye. We pretend our dreams aren’t real because it gives us comfort. Spirits are standing beside you right now.

In circle with my community at Samhain this year, I heard spirit coming through. We were chanting to our ancestors, when I heard, clear as a bell, an organ playing “East Side, West Side” and I felt the brush of a waltz spinning around me. In my ear a deep female voice was singing breathily, all around the town… Spirit was with us.

I’m auditory. I always joke to my friends that I hear dead people. That moment during circle reminded me about my personal doorway to spirit. It’s such a part of my life now that I don’t think it’s weird anymore. I’m the kind of girl who is always singing in her head, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that spirit would use lyrics and melodies to catch my attention.

When I first started sensing spirit more strongly, I got this one song stuck in my head. It was awful, like it was on a timed loop. Or maybe what was really awful was the fact that it looped after the first two lines, over and over and over again. And I’m the kind of clueless that I didn’t even get it until my friends looked at me when I complained about the persistent melody and said, “Hello, ancestor girl. Spirit knocking.”

You could have pushed me over with a feather. I hadn’t thought about it. But I started paying attention. Every time I sense intuitively that spirit is near, the song track plays in the back of my head as a validator. I’ve peeled back another layer and my vision is deeper, wider. I can see more. This doorway of mine… it’s not the kind of song that would win awards. If I had a little more ego or pride I might be too embarrassed to be honest. Sometimes you don’t pick the magic, the magic picks you.

…come and knock on our door,

we’ll be waiting for you…

- Three’s Company television theme song

To Honor the Recent Dead

When working with spirits, I don’t call upon those who are recently deceased. It feels cruel to call upon a soul that may be struggling to let go of it’s human skin. Or maybe it’s cruel to the human grieving. Maybe the more that time passes, the less human their spirits seem to us, and the easier we can open to them. Whichever side of the living or dead needs the time to heal, I don’t call upon or attempt to work with a spirit who has been dead for less than a year. In fact, with spirits who died unwell, I may wait many years before trying.

I keep that in mind in my daily practice, and again at Samhain and Halloween, when the everyday spirits who walk among us are more easily perceived. I make myself still my grief’s desire to call to those who have not been dead long. In my work, I refer to the spirits who die, from Samhain to Samhain, as the Recent Dead. This is the time when I call on my ancestors and ask them to help welcome and shepherd over the Recent Dead, specifically those spirits who might not yet have realized it is time to cross over.

I light my ancestor altar and call my ancestors, the lines of Eaton, Riddle, Ruston, and Art. I call out the names of some of the ancestors I have found on my family tree, calling in the ageless time that is the ancestral pool: Sibilia de Lea, Sir Henry Norreys, Captain Roger Clapp, Waitstill Wyatt, Heman Sears, Hattie Eva Dutcher; Gwethlin Wensliana, Robert Moulton, Rev. William Gylette, Freeborn Wolfe, Isaac-Etienne Paquet de Lavallee, Annatje Goedemoet, Thomas Ridel, Rosella LaRoche; Barnardus Jacobus Turner, Dafydd Riggs, Hester Mathieu, Albrecht Zabriskie, Emma Angeline Whitcher, Hiram King Wicker; Mary Dowd, John F. Pils, Katherine Maria Schmeelk, Margaret Loretta Burke.

I am because you were.

I call the names of my Beloved Dead, of those known in this lifetime, known and loved by me. They are the names of those I think of often and fondly, and though I miss them, I celebrate their memory in the act of reciting their names: Ruth Ruston Eaton, Harold Riddle, Mark Dutcher Eaton, Melinda Tanner, Elizabeth Fricke, Jeff Patterson, Willie Lingenfelter, Elsie Durant Riddle, Gabe Reynolds, Joel Pelletier, Victoria Eaton, Edward J. Jerge, II, Trent Illig, Donna Riddle, Jurgen Banse-Fey, Charles “Sienna Fox” Duvall, Jack Singer, Tommy Amyotte, Paul Seeloff, Richard James Riddle, Brett Elsess, Andrew Begley, Susan Alvarez-Hughes, Coswald Mauri, Norm Herbert, Jad Alexander, Dr. August Staub, Princess Leather Falcor, Martha Dayton, Melvin Chausse, John Croom, Karl Weber, Luna Jackalope, Thomas E. Malinowski, Albert Gritzmacher III, Luna the wolfe, Joshua Verity, Freya Moon Greenleaf.

            I am the better for having known you.

I pour water into a glass, offering a libation to my honored guests. I ask them to watch over and welcome our friends and loved ones who have died in this last year, and then I speak the names of the Recent Dead, known to me and my loved ones, lighting a candle for each person:

John M. Rosenburg, Jr.

Gary French

Patches

Joshua Fingerhut

Barbara Jean Schiffert

Bella, our beloved bear-cat

Russell Whitmire

Ken Koch

Soja Arumpanayil
Meow

After the candles are lit, I sing, because it makes me happy. I sing and I think about all of the warm, joyful memories I have with each of those I lit a candle for. I think about how much they meant to me, and my journey, and I let my heart fill. My heart becomes the focal point for the energy I radiate into the universe. Even in my grief, what I send out is love.

Afterwards, I thank the Ancestors with a Dumb Supper, a Feast for the Dead. We dine in mirror to what the spirits remember, from dessert to appetizer, offering them the first and best of each dish, our honored guests. What is left from the feast is offered to the animals of the natural world, as an offering to the living from the dead.

I owe my breath to all those who came before me. Good or bad, they are branches of living energy that feed down into me. I am because they were. My nieces and nephew are because they were. I honor and I remember.

What is remembered lives. What is remembered never truly dies.

Miss you and love you, Bella Bella.