A New Ghost in the House

I am spirit-sensitive but that doesn’t mean I see them in detail. I usually feel a chill, or see a wavering in the air, like the heat over a fire. Sometimes there will be the impression of a silhouette that gives me some guesses at details.

Recently, I had a very different experience.

My wife and I were talking and suddenly I felt a being sitting overtop of me. I did not disappear from the encounter. I did not feel pushed aside. I was not being ridden.

She considered it a greeting, an introduction. And she was so jazzed to be there, her energy was visceral in my body and I was flooded with sensory impressions. I rattled them off to my wife.

A woman was so excited to finally make it to our party. She likely meant our annual Dumb Supper. She had a drink in her hand, like a champagne glass. She punctuated her words with her shoulders. Her energy was very animated. She had short, curly hair and was wearing a fancy dress. She is very poised… in her dress. She was not just a wayward spirit. She was here for one of us.

Her dress was very late 20s/early 30s but her makeup and hair were still mid-20s. After checking my genealogy and my wife’s genealogy, we know who our new visitor is. One of her grandmother’s sisters, one of her great-aunts. She was a secretary in the 20s in Chicago, and there are family stories about them working all day, partying all night, and then using speed to go work again all day.

We’re pretty sure we just met her, and, let me tell you, she is a pip.

[All photos are stock photos from on-line, representative of the time period she would have been living it up through.]

When Death Settles in for a Long Visit

Our eldest cat is old. At 22 years she's roughly 98-102 in people years. That's the toll her long life has taken on her body. She has outlived two of her sisters. She still uses her litter box. She still prowls the house at night, even though it involves more yowling and getting lost in the dark. Her instincts to hunt are strong but her eyesight is not.

She has slight dementia. It's been a long three years of worrying over her, reassuring her, finding her, calming her, etc. We love her. Of course we do. But some days it's like having a stranger in our home. And death is a shadow fixated on her movements.

Even as I type this, I am prepared to change tenses. I am accepting of the reality that even in the few days before I post this Zami may pass. Every day carries the possibility that she may no longer be with us. And yet she might live another five years.

Who knows?

It's hard to live at that edge, that boundary. Anyone who has ever cared for a dying loved one knows this space. That place of difficulty when they get forgetful. When you have to get up during the night to check on them. When you haven't seen them in a while and you raw straws or play rock-paper-scissors to see who is going to make sure they're breathing. And you make deals with your deities for more time, longer days, and that they pass peacefully in their sleep.

There are days and moments where you will wish their ending to come swiftly. Because you're human and to be a caretaker is to be drained and running on fumes and unable to say fuck it when you need to because there is care to be given. We are human.

We're readying ourselves for a retreat to the mountain. We will tell her we love her before we leave. We will snuggle her and tell her what a beautiful girl she is and how much we love her. And we will tell her that if she is ready, we understand.

You wish kindness for their suffering, but what of your suffering heart?

Let the living care for you. We do what we must for those we love. Listen to your instincts. Listen to your heart. Listen to your head. They will not agree but if you look for the light, the way will become clear. Only you know the best choices for your loved o

The poet Mary Oliver has a piece called "In Blackwater Woods" that has a delicious ending that I cling to when death involves my loved ones. It's easy to be strong for other people. But it's hard when the potentiality of death is in our home. Every breath is precious.

"...To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go."

Disclaimer: I did not get to post this piece before I left on my retreat. Zami was gone when we returned yesterday, which made it feel all-the-more important to publish this as it originally was.

The Mothers That Bore Me

Whitcher sisters Ellen, Harriet, Emma*, & Frances.

Across the country today, women are standing up and stepping forward and being seen. In my heart I am thinking of the women who paved the way for me to be here, walking this earth and living in this beautiful world, fighting to be seen as a person wearing female skin. My thoughts are with the generations that came before me. My heart lives in the daughters and son of my sister and brother, who will inherit this world after me.

The First Generation above me is my mother, still living. She sacrificed a lot to give us a childhood free of worry, no matter what circumstances we found ourselves in. She’s the reason I believe in Santa Claus still. She always encouraged me to dream big. She is a deep well of conversations and dreaming, and she inspires me constantly in the ways she manifests her own dreams into action and gives them life. She instilled in me that the worst thing that can happen is you fail and have to try again, but if you never try, you’ll never win. She’s one of my closest friends and our summer time visits sustain me.

My mother’s mother is still living and my father’s stepmother is still living. Both women have had long, often difficult lives, and have courageously battled cancer. I have seen such bravery and quiet strength in the women I have known, especially my Great-Grandma Elsie. She was a guiding force for me as a child and she continues to be one for me through my dreams. I have to believe that spirit is embodied in some way in the women I never met. This is how I honor them.

Those Who Have Gone Before Me

Second Generation

maternal father’s line

Donna MacDonald (1938-2001) age 62

paternal mother’s line

Ruth Emma Ruston (1916-1959) age 42

Third Generation

maternal mother’s line

Margaret Loretta Burke (1899-1938) age 35

maternal father’s line

Elsie Elizabeth Durant (1904-1994) age 89

paternal mother’s line

Minnie Estelle Wicker (1890-1964) age 73

paternal father’s line

Hattie Eva Smith (1882-1969) age 86

Fourth Generation

maternal mother’s line

Eliza Conners (b.1866)

Katherine S. Pils (1871-1946) age 74

maternal father’s line

Emma Louise Burnah (1869-1939) age 69

Frances Gillette (1877-1963) age 85

paternal mother’s line

Emma Angeline Whitcher (1845-1929) age 83 [*photo above]

Ruth Ireland (1861-1940) age 78

paternal father’s line

Hattie Eva Dutcher (1857-1882) age 24 in childbirth

Theresa Cordelia Tenney (1850-1930) age 79

Fifth Generation

maternal mother’s line

Ellen unknown (b.1836)

Mary Dowd (b.1834)

Mary Burzee

Katherine Maria Schmeelk (d.1901) –or- Ana Catherine Blume (1833-1901) age 68

maternal father’s line

Jane Berry (1841-1901) age 59

Rosella LaValley (1843-1921) age 77

Sarah Clickner (1830-1876) age 45

paternal mother’s line

Ordelia De Lozier (1810-1888) age 77

Cynthia Lusk (1819-1888) age 68

Phoebe Lenton (1826-1887) age 60

Anna Richardson (b.1822)

paternal father’s line

Eliza Marsh Bird (1837-1926) age 88

Sophia Sears (1829-1909) age 79

Malvina H. Targee (1829-1852) age 23

Hannah Ann Treadwell (1817-1884) age 66

Sixth Generation

maternal mother’s line

Wilhemenia Wernersbach (b.1798 GER-US)

Ann unknown

Betsey unknown

maternal father’s line

Esther LaLonde (1811 PQ-1894 US) age 83

Rosella LaRoche (1805-1871) age 65

Elizabeth Ann Hill (1825-1899) age 73

Mary Ann Boots (1825-1899) age 73

Mary Ann Hayner (b.1793)

Abigail Chaffee (d.1829)

paternal mother’s line

Lucy Raymond (1789-1874) age 84 [**photo below]

Dorcas Kittredge (1774-1828) age 53

Rebecca unknown

Chloe Morgan (1792-1850) age 58

Mary Wilson (b.1785)

Jane Brooks (b.1794)

paternal father’s line

Irene Pond Marsh (b.1803)

Cynthia Ann Feagles (1814-1890) age 75

Clarissa DeBois (1806-1873) age 67

Betsey unknown

Ellen S. unknown

Esther unknown

Fermicy ‘Fanny’ Peters (1798-1875) age 77

Lucy Gould (1777-1840) age 62

Seventh Generation

maternal father’s line

Marie Amable Langevin (1795-1840) age 44

Gertrude Dixon (1783-1855) age 71

Harriet Gower (1806-1886) age 80

Abigail Hannah (b.1780)

Elizabeth Weager (d.1844)

Engle ‘Angelica’ Coonradt (1746-1833) age 87

Deborah unknown

Mary/Polly Thomas (b.1760)

paternal mother’s line

Lucy Richmond (1755-1841) age 86

Eleanor Erkells (1767-1789) age 22

Mary ‘Molly’ Bailey (1730-1815) age 85

Elizabeth Dow (1735-1776) age 41

Mary A. ‘Polly’ unknown (1795-1895) age 100

Susannah Parker (1750-1825) age 75

Elizabeth Wright (b.1748)

paternal father’s line

Mary ‘Polly’ Coleman

Jane “Jennie” Palmer (1762-1815) age 52

Abigail Andrews (b.1776)

Abigail Darby (1765-1837) age 72

Delilah unknown

Anne Arnold (1752-1833) age 81

Hepsibah Skiff (1733-1800) age 66

Eighth Generation

maternal father’s line

Amable DuClos (1766-1795) age 29

Marie Agathe Charland (1751-1800) age 48

Nancy Machet (1767-1844) age 76

Margaret Anthony (1773-1819) age 46

Mary Glyde (1760-1812) age 52

Mary Calhoun (1732-1798) age 65

Julianna Merchant

Rhoda Cady (1739-1799) age 60

Rebekah Moulton (b.1742)

paternal mother’s line

Hannah Caswell (1729-1756) age 27

Elizabeth Blackmer (1716-1765) age 49

Fytje Sophia Zabriski (b.1707)

Sarah Fowle (1696-1739) age 43

Martha Hanniford (b.1721)

Jemima Davis (1706-1753) age 47

Jane Pearson (1724-1811) age 87

Abiah Washburn (1726-1812) age 86

Elizabeth unknown

Elizabeth Porter (b.1715)

paternal father’s line

Silence/Celenia Lyon (1755-1821) age 65

Jemima VanDeusen (1744-1831) age 87

Helena “Lina” Eleanor Van Deusen (1713-1769) age 55

Susannah Townsend (1740-1782) age 42

Lucretia Cleveland (1736-1824) age 88

Mary Bingham (1734-1821) age 87

Tabitha Luther (d.1746)

Elizabeth Brooks (1731-1815) age 84

Elizabeth Hatch (1697-1743) age 46

Elizabeth Parker (1700-1739) age 38

Ninth Generation

maternal father’s line

Marie Agathe Bourgault (b.1745)

Marie Madeleine Coulon (1732-1799) age 66

Katherine Coe (1700-1732) age 31

Margaret unknown

Mercy Smith (1720-1793) age 72

Abigail Lee (1703-1782) age 79

Jemima Chadwick (1686-1759) age 73

Rebekah Walker (1717-1802) age 84

paternal mother’s line

Elizabeth Barney (1691-1757) age 66

Mehitable Deane (1697-1745) age 48

Mary Mercy Brickett (1698-1725) age 27

Deborah Balch (1693-1717) age 24

Antje Terhune (1681-1758) age 77

Tryntie Catherine Slote (1671-1708) age 36

Susanna Blaney (1673-1711) age 38

Hannah French (1664-1755) age 91

Jemima Eastman (1677-1760) age 83

Mary Hoyt (1664-1723) age 59

Jane P. Noyes (1704-1773) age 69

Sarah Lillie (1702-1775) age 73

Hannah Johnson (1694-1780) age 86

Rebekah unknown

Sarah unknown

paternal father’s line

Lydia Perry (1729-1763) age 33

Lena Vosburgh (b.1714)

Rachel Fowler (1702-1780) age 78

Jacomyntje VanSchoonhoven (1678-1777) age 79

Jannetje Hendrickse Bondt (1677-1721) age 44

Huldah Hopkins (d.1731)

Desire Tobey (1707-1781) age 74

Dorothy/Deborah Hyde (1702-1769) age 67

Elizabeth Spaulding (1698-1770) age 72

Ruth Post (1711-1796) age 85

Abigail Wood (1700-1776) age 76

Ann Coggeshall (1699-1726) age 25

Mary Bateman (1696-1726) age 22

Priscilla Bateman (1687-1730) age 43

Amy Allen (1663-1709) age 46

Hepsibah Codman (1658-1696) age 38

Thankful Hemingway (1668-1736) age 68

Lydia Gay (1679-1748) age 68

I am that they were.

**Lucy Richmond, married DeLozier, my 4x great-grandma and one of the oldest generational photos we have.

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.]

When Buffalo Brother Visits

When I was in the Burn ICU, I suffered from night terrors after waking out of my medically-induced coma. I was beyond fearful for a while. I was terror-filled and terrified. One night, when my room was maddeningly growing around me and I struggled to catch my racing heartbeat, a musky scent filled the room and I heard the familiar snorting of a bison.

A large warm body folded itself beside my hospital bed and my heart recognized Tatanka, my animal guide, immediately. (I know his name is redundant.) He laid his head down and I dug my fingers into his hair, griping him like he were the largest grounding stone in the world. I pressed my face to his neck, shutting my eyes against the mad hallucinations and the insistence of their realness. He felt solid beneath me, too. I can still hear the rhythm of his breath and I matched my heartbeat to it. 

Under such traumatic duress, I was so enveloped in spirit, trance,and  not-in-my-body-ness that a door opened and my animal guide came to me in my time of need. He placed himself between me and other doors so that I could rest. So that I could sleep.

I was told that I talked with Tatanka out loud enough that people inquired after it.

I have been building a relationship with buffalo for over a decade and we have been through some trenches together. To honor him, I want to post some previous passages I wrote about having bison as a personal totem.

Meeting Bison

When our local zoo was host to a pair of male bison, I could not resist the opportunity to observe them in the waking world. I had dreamt of them thundering across the plains. I had dreamt of running with them in buffalo skin and walking among them with human feet. At difficult periods in my life, I called on their strength to aid me in putting one foot ahead of the other, to keep moving forward no matter what was coming at me.

            But I had never seen one in person.

I went to the zoo every week, sitting outside their pen. I told them stories about their European ancestors, the ancient aurochs. I thanked them for the generations of bison who have been feeding and sheltering humanity. I told them about the bison cave drawings in Altamira, Spain that date to 12,000 BC. I told them about the drawings in the Niaux Cave of France. Mostly, after a while, I sat in silence, trying to become part of their landscape, more than a mere tourist.

I felt their strength in the sound of their footfall and saw intelligence in their dark eyes, with their beautiful lashes. When the older male looked at me, it was not with a dull gaze. He was observing as much as I was. Despite their girth, there is a grace in the way they graze the grasses. The older male began to greet me at the fence when I arrived. When I went with my visiting mother, we were in the adjacent goat pen. I turned around to find my bison friend’s face inches from mine, where he had stuck it through a hole.

Bison in the Wild

Bison are even-toed ungulates, which are animals that hold their body weight on the tips of their toes while in motion. They are usually hooved. Others among the diverse group of ungulate mammals are the rhinoceros, zebra, camel, alpaca, warthog, pig, hippopotamus, giraffe, deer, elk, moose, caribou, reindeer, gazelle, antelope, yak, auroch, sheep, goat, oryx, and musk ox.

The bison and the buffalo are both animals of the Bovidae family, but the bison is of the genus Bison, while the buffalo is of the genus Syncerus. They are related, but they are not the same creature. Their genes diverged 5 to 10 million years ago. Still, as we called them buffalo before their genus was determined, it is acceptable to refer to them by either name. There are two living species, the American bison, composed of plains bison and wood bison, as well as the European bison. There were four other known bison species that are now extinct.

Bison are the largest terrestrial animals in North America, weighing up to 2,000 pounds. The nomadic grazers travel in a large herd during the reproductive season from June to September. Otherwise, the females travel in their own herd with the young, including males under three years of age. The adult males travel together in a smaller herd; a bull seldom travels alone.

Both the male and female bison have horns, and are good swimmers, crossing rivers over a half-mile wide. Bison enjoy wallowing in small shallows of dirt or mud. They can appear peaceful and unconcerned, but they are unpredictable in temperament. Without warning they might launch into an attack. They can cover large distances at a gallop of up to 35 mph. Bison are most dangerous during mating season, when the older bulls rejoin the herd, hormones are high, and fights occur.

When there is outside danger, the female bison circle up around the young, old, and infirm. The bulls take position on the outside. When danger strikes, they come together to protect each other. The only known predators of the bison are the grey wolf, brown and grizzly bear, coyote, and human.

Buffalo Brother

My friend from the zoo!

I used to have anger issues. I began the Buddhist work of Lovingkindness as a means of reshaping that part of me, embracing gratitude, mindfulness, and compassion. I began to dream of Buffalo Brother, who gave me two options. I could snort and engage him in combat, or I could let my anger dissolve into the earth beneath me and graze quietly with him in the grasses. In our world, bison are humble and quiet and content to roam the wilds, but when provoked, they become giant, lumbering, movable mountains. I took this lesson to heart and adopted him as a guide. I connect buffalo to both my root and my heart chakra.

In many traditions, the bison is a symbol of gratitude. It represents the sacredness of life, the relation of all things, and the relation of all those things with the Earth beneath us. It is about honoring all living things, being humble enough to ask for help, and grateful for whatever help is given and offered. I’m going to repeat that: grateful for whatever help is given. That’s the point, right? If you ask for help and then are picky about what is offered, that is not gratitude. In that respect, buffalo medicine is also about prayer.

Bison turn their faces into approaching storms, standing firmly against them. Buffalo stands proud against the winds of adversity. Those called to this medicine should remember to temper themselves in dealings with others and allow tranquility and peace to enter their lives. Strive to see the positive side of all things.

Buffalo is about abundance. It’s about seeing that you have everything you need at your disposal. You do. But sometimes you have to dig into uncomfortable places to get to it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Just because it’s not what you want, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Being grateful for what you have is true prosperity. Stop focusing on what you don’t have and focus on what you do. Keep a daily gratitude list. This practice will change the way your brain thinks, and you will start to see all the good in the world. It will change you from the inside, and you will find that you no longer need to worry about storing your frustrations inside, because buffalo teaches us to release them into the earth.

The Legend of the White Buffalo

The relationship between the Native People and the buffalo was beautiful. They killed what they needed, offering prayers of gratitude to the Great Spirit before the hunt, and having ceremonies honoring the life of the buffalo afterwards. The meat would feed the tribe. The skins and hides were used to make clothing and shelter. Even the hooves were ground down to make glue. Buffalo gifted the People life by sacrificing his own. Many hunters wore protective amulets made of buffalo bone.

Many Native tribes have legends of White Buffalo Woman, who came to the People and taught them how all things were connected. She brought them the sacred pipe and taught them medicine rituals. She promised to return to them in an era of Peace, and since then the birth of a rare white buffalo has been an omen of promise and hope, marking an end to suffering.

Pida miya, Tatanka.

[Contains passages originally posted in Animal Allies: Buffalo Brother on September 25, 2013.] 

My Ancestral Dead, My Beloved Dead

My ancestors are pillars of ice-blue fire, breathing in seasons like stars, stones and trees. The Ancestral Dead are firelight that blazes but doesn’t burn. This is the energy source I connect into when I work with my Ancestors. That is not so for the Beloved Dead. The energy of those who you have known in this physical plane, those you have touched, held, hugged and lost is not cool and calm.

Hot salty tears burn my cheeks with a fever as the grief washes over me. The recent dead are changeable water, tumultuous with grief in one minute, still with acceptance in another, and then raging against the feel of loss… they are uneasy waters. Unless you feel called to step further on the path of this work, I recommend stating with clear intention that you are honoring the Beloved Dead and asking nothing of them in return. I routinely call on the energy of my forebears to watch over my nieces and nephew, but I do not ask that of the Beloved Dead.

It may seem strange that I do not ask the spirits who knew me to help watch over us. That’s the good thing about generations though- we keep coming. There are plenty of lives to call on that allow me to leave the recently deceased be. It’s my belief that the Beloved Dead are transitioning what was left of themselves through the process of dying and moving on. I have experienced the moment of death with a loved one, and it opened something in me. When he died and his spirit left his body, when the life of him left the room, the air about me wavered and changed, as if a warm flame had been blown out. His body was not him anymore.

I do not claim to know what comes next or what happens to that bit of life. I don’t know what happens. But I have faith that something does.

My Ancestral Dead

You can’t discuss spirit without being metaphysical. As far as I’m concerned, spirit is energy and science has proven that energy exists. The way I talk about it is more romantic but that doesn’t remove the science; after all, I’m a writer, not a scientist. I believe what I believe because it makes sense to me based on what I’ve experienced. I am always open to adapting my beliefs. As I change and grow and evolve, so too will my concepts of faith and spirit.

Anyone who came before me that I did not personally know is an ancestor. Most of my known ancestors are a list of names with little known substance, but I bridge that by speaking their names aloud. It is a song that sings the story of my bloodline, calling in the four lines of my parents, known through the first seven generations:

Margaret Loretta Burke and Robert Joseph Art, Eliza Conners and Frank Burke, Katherine S. Pils and George Art, Mary Dowd and David Conners, Thomas and Ellen Burke, Mary Burzee and John F. Pils, Ana Catherine Blume and Adam Art, Barney Dowd, Wilhemenia Wernersbach and George Art…

Harold Lafayette Riddle, Emma Louise Burnah and George Francis Durant, Frances Ann Gillett and Lafayette Riddle, Rosella Lavalley and Albert Durant, Jane Berry and Levi Gillette, Sarah Clickner and Marquis DeLafayette Riddle, Rosella LaRoche and Francois Xavier Lavalle, Elizabeth A. Hill and Frances Berry, Mary Ann Boots and Ezra Wheeler Gillette, Mary Ann Hayner and William Clickner, Abigail Chaffee and Freeborn Moulton Riddle, Marie Amable Langevin and Alexis Lavallee, Gertrude Dixon and Thomas Berry, Harriet Gower and Josiah Boots, Abigail Hannah and Eliphal Gillette, Elizabeth Weager and Petrus Haner, Engle Angelica Coonradt and Johannes Georg Gloeckner, Deborah and Charles Chaffee, Mary Thomas and Joseph Riddle…

Ruth Emma Ruston, Minnie Estelle Wicker and Frank William Ruston, Emma Angeline Whitcher and Hiram King Wicker, Ruth Ireland and Charles Evan Ruston, Ordelia DeLozier and Bailey Harrison Whitcher, Cynthia Lusk and Thaddeus Rice Wicker, Phoebe Lenton and William Ireland, Anna Richardson and Richard Ruston, Lucy Raymond and Peter DeLozier, Dorcas Kittredge and Simeon Whittier, Rebecca and Elizur Lusk, Chloe Morgan and Pliny Wicker, Mary Wilson and John Lenton, John Ireland, Thomas Richardson, Jane Brooks and Edward Ruston, Lucy Richmond and Daniel Raymond, Eleanor Erkells and Oliver Peterson Lozier, Molly Bailey and James Kittredge, Elizabeth Dow and Abner Whittier, Mary and Elisha Lusk, Susannah Parker and William Wicker, Elizabeth Wright and Thomas Lenton…

Hattie Eva Smith and Royal Levant Eaton, Hattie Eva Dutcher and Silas Parker Smith, Theresa Cordelia Tenney and Bennett Eaton, Eliza Marsh Bird and Reuben Feagles Dutcher, Sophia Sears and Ammi Smith, Malvina H. Targee and Philetus Tenney, Hannah Ann Treadwell and Solomon Gould Eaton, Irene and Manly Bird, Cynthia A. Feagles and Martin Dutcher, Clarissa DeBois and Heman Sears, Betsy and David Smith, Ellen S. and Thomas Targee, Esther and Hiram Tenney, Fermicy Peters and Solomon P. Tredwell, Lucy Gould and Joshua Eaton, Molly Coleman and Edmund Bird, Jane Palmer and David Dutcher, Abigail Andrews and Isaac Sears, Abigail Darby and Reuben Tenny, Delilah and John Peters, Anne Arnold and William Gould, Jr., Hepsibah Skiff and Benjamin Eaton…

So many names, so many lives. And I now know so many more. These names are the direct line of people whose children bore children who eventually bore me. Were it not for them, I would not be me. The magnitude of that realization could feel like pressure bearing down, waiting for me to be something special or do something special. But standing in honor of these people doesn’t feel like pressure. Those lives are stones beneath me, giving me firm footing. I am because they were, whether they were people of good character or not.

One step towards strengthening your ancestral ties is to begin writing down the names of your family tree you know. Ask your parents who their grandparents were if you didn’t know them. Ask your Grandparents who their parents were. Get as much information as you can. Where were they born? Where did they live? What did they do? Where did they grow up? When did they marry? How many times? How many children?

My Beloved Dead

As for my Beloved Dead, I remember those who have passed on from this world. For my work, I keep a list to remember those I was very close to, classmates I grew up with, people who helped shape and mold me, and people who affected a change my life in an important way:

Mark Eaton, Melinda Tanner, Elizabeth Fricke, Jeff Patterson, Willie Lingenfelter, Elsie Durant Riddle, Gabe Reynolds, Joel Pelletier, Victoria Eaton, Trent Illig, Edward Jerge, Donna Riddle, Jurgen Banse-Fey, Charles “Sienna Fox” Duvall, Jack Singer, Tommy Amyotte, Paul Seeloff, Richard James Riddle, Brett Elsess, Andrew Begley, Coswald Mauri, Norm Herbert, Jad Alexander, Princess Leather Falcor (beloved pet), Dr. August Staub, Martha Dayton, Melvin Chausse, John Simeon Croom, Karl Weber, Lunabelle the Jackalope (beloved pet), Charles Littman, Ellen Fitzgerald.

            Since I initially wrote this post in 2010, my list of Beloved Dead has grown: Thomas E. Malinowski, Michael Pullano, Albert Gritzmacher III, Joshua Verity, Freya Moon, John M. Rosenburg Jr., Gary French, Patches (beloved pet), Barbara Jean Schiffert, Bella the Bear-Cat (beloved pet), Russell S. Whitmire, Ken Koch, Soja Arumpanayil, Jane Palmer-Poole, Paul Slomba, Tracy Lee Flint Jr., Christina Adkins, Harry Brashear, David Ruston Eaton, Constance Salisbury, Ralph Hall, Arawn (beloved pet), and Carol Quagliano.

Remembering the Dead

Each Samhain night, I call out the names of my Ancestral dead to come and bear witness as I honor those that I loved, that I have known and held. I speak the names of the Beloved dead to remember them and hear memories stir within me at the sounds of familiar words on tongue. And then I add the names of those Recent dead, that have died since last Samhain, and welcome them into my Beloved dead, wishing their spirits peace.

            I know, as I age, that my list of Beloved dead will only get longer. It is the price of living and loving and I hold it close to my heart as proof that love is stronger than any magic. May you always remember that those who walked this earth before you walk with you still in the echoes of places their feet once touched the earth. [Revamped from a post originally published October 6, 2010.]

When Spirit Walks Thickly

The Autumnal Equinox marks the first day of fall and opens a door into my favorite time of year. The leaves are dessicating and dropping, skittering across the sidewalk as the cooler winds blow in. In the northeast, we throw open our windows and let the new winds curl through our homes, licking at the corners and cleansing the edges of our rooms, and our minds.

We prepare ourselves to lower the storm windows and turn on our furnaces. We stock the woodpiles and harvest our fall gardens. We ready ourselves to turn inward and ride out the dark and cold days ahead. But they’re not here yet, and we relish in leaf piles and apple orchards, in pumpkins and autumn squashes.

The Equinoxes are balancing points. In the spring we tip both towards warmer days and the reality of shorter days after the solstice. After months of being closed up, we spring clean at the Vernal Equinox, sweeping out the cobwebs and dustbunnies and letting the warm air swirl through. In the fall we tip towards colder days and longer days after the promise of the solstice. At the Autumnal Equinox we also clean, consecrating and creating sacred space in the walls of the home we will depend on through the coming colder, dark days.

Cinnamon sticks simmer in a pot of water on the stove, the scent vibrating through the air, whispering to the ether in the house. Wake and walk, wake and walk. May all beings that wish us harm walk right out the front door. You are not wanted here.

Bundles of sage and rosemary are clipped from the garden and strung up in all the windows. May the ancestors protect all who dwell in this home. May the guardians watch over us. May they keep us healthy and safe.

Our cats run through the house, stimulated by the smells of the transforming world outside and the transforming home inside. And in their laps, the numbers grow. Two cats still of flesh and bone and two cats still beloved and every day missed. For the first time, all our babies are running together. It is a bittersweet sensation, both a gift and a heartache.

Have you ever been in a room with your cats, both sleeping, only to clearly hear another cat digging in the litter box? Have you ever reached out your hand to pet your animal, feeling them jump up beside you, before you remember that your pet is already behind you?

When spirit walks, we listen.

Equinox is a step closer to Samhain, towards All Hallows, towards the time of year when the veil between our world and spirit is thin. They walk all year, but this is the time of year that those who do not see may spy their shadows slipping past them. And this year, the spirits are walking more thickly earlier than I usually experience them, as my cats can attest.

My dreams are full of lost loved ones visiting and bringing me messages. Some of them are for me. Some of them are for people I love. And some of them are spirits who find me because I am an ancestral lighthouse keeper and I shine a bright light. Some messages I can’t deliver, some I won’t deliver, but I listen to what all the spirits have to say. Most of their messages are meaningful, but a handful of them are purely selfish. Still, I hear them out so they can move on.

This is my work and what I do. I listen to the living tell stories about their dead and I listen to the dead tell stories about their living, their loved ones, their descendants. And the spirits that follow the course of their family lines, a mirror of how I trace mine backwards, have just as much love for those they could never know as I have for those who came before me.

And this year, spirit is moving earlier than usual, reaches out to us and milling about, thickening the air around us. The only thing we have to fear from them is what they reveal to us that we have been trying not to look at, the things we have been trying not to see. The only fear is within us. Because they come with love. They come because they love us.

Call out to your loved ones as you close your eyes for slumber. Open yourself up to the spirit energy in the world around you. Open yourself to see what was previously unseen. And bring yourself to meet them in dream world with love in your heart.

(A note: I separate true hauntings and poltergeist activity from normal spirit world antics. Often what we think of as hauntings are spirits simply trying to get our attention. If they’re turning your iron or your stove burners on, that’s different than knocking over boxes, playing with your pets, and turning on lights around the house.)

Cultivating Loving-kindness

Eleven years ago, I attended a series of workshops that altered the course of my life. At my emotional core, I was full of pain and sadness. I did not know how to let go or forgive. New to my spiritual path, I didn’t yet understand the nature of faith. I know it now as a thing that religion has no ownership of. Faith exists without the need for temples, books, and miracles.

The woman leading the workshops, named Whispering Deer, walked us through the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness, also known as Metta. I was looking for that inner Zen, that place of peace inside me that hippies and yogis seemed to discover by sitting cross-legged with their hands on their knees and repeatedly humming to themselves- that was the only cultural visual I had to represent what I was looking for.

It’s amazing the stereotypes we create about things we simply don’t understand. These images act as resistance-barriers standing between us and the things we desire most. I wanted peace and compassion and yet I did not believe I deserved it. So I made fun of that idea of tranquility, as if to say, why would I want something so silly? Thus insuring I wouldn’t try for it… and fail. Again.

That weekend, listening to Whispering Deer’s story of transformation and seeing the person she had become standing before me, I finally believed that goal was possible for myself. And I wanted it more than I had wanted anything else in my life. I determined that if I could not find it inside myself, I would create it.

A new path bloomed before me.

The loving-kindness work I embarked on was a series of meditations to teach myself to have compassion. The side effect of the repetitive practice was the alteration in how I perceived events that happened around me. I had been stuck inside my own experience, and saw everything that happened as happening to me. It’s a nuanced line, and a change in inflection changes the meaning, but when you experience everything as happening to you, you cease to be in control of your world. You give that power up to the universe and put yourself at the mercy of its whims, like a ship adrift at sea. You become a victim of the world around you.

What I wanted was to be a part of the world with my hands firmly on the wheel. I wanted to be part of what was happening, of creating my own experiences. I dove into the lessons on compassion, spending 20 minutes in meditation every night, at the end of my day, just before bed. One of the things Whispering Deer told us was that the simplest Buddhist level of having compassion for oneself, was the hardest one for Westerners to master. She wasn’t wrong.

Embracing loving-kindness as a philosophy, requires you to build an awareness of how you respond to the events that occur in your life, and then to push into that awareness to understand those reactions. It’s a way of unlearning the way you have been taught to respond and discover your own intuitive way of walking through the world- which also requires that you be open to how different a path that might be.

If I step back and observe the world around me as a larger web, removing any personal attachments I have to how things work, I can see the pattern of emotional dialogue that plays out. We feel an emotion in our bodies and we react to it, at other people, without understanding where it came from or why we felt it in the first place. As a culture we lack awareness of our emotional bodies. How many times have you heard someone say, I don’t know why I feel the way I feel, I just do?

When we lash out against others because we feel a strong emotion, and we do it without seeking clarification, we commit acts of violence. Being angry/ frustrated/ irritated/ mad at anyone else is like sending out a tidal wave whiplash of your bad attitude. Others will feel it. Others will be hurt by it. I’m guilty of it. Whether you intended that hurt or not, you still have to own the responsibility for the effects of it. It’s why this path became so important to me. It’s why being a better version of myself became necessary.

This is a hard world we live in and it’s easy to be overwhelmed with the traumas, hurts, losses and failures we collect on our journeys. It’s no excuse for being careless with the people around us. Our world moves so fast and so quickly that, often, we feel like all we can do is tread water to keep from getting swept away or left behind.

Even our news headlines are sensationalized to best catch our attention and we’ve had to learn to accept exaggerations and misleading implications as truth. No wonder we get depressed by the world around us. This is a hard world, when everyone is only thinking of themselves. But it is a beautiful world, too, where people do work together and help each other out. In order to experience that, you have to be part of it. You have to participate in it.

We all have to be gentle with each other. We can afford to. We need to remember that we are not just individuals having a personal experience in this world. We need to remember that the face we put out into the world is how the world perceives us. We have to treat people the way we want to be treated. When faced with hard times and hard people, patience, compassion and gentleness are a better choice for the health of your own heart.

            [Originally published August 31, 2011.]

Ancestor Reverence and Ancestor Work

Part of the path I walk involves a deeper sense of metaphysical belief and requires more understanding of what we call super-natural, as well as a strong sense of communion with the natural world. It’s important to me that people find their own way towards creating a personal relationship with their ancestral spirits, to help process and find peace with the death that affects their lives. I have taken my reverence a step forward and use my ancestral line as an energy source for my work. I will often differentiate between reverence and work when I speak about my practice.

Ancestor reverence is accessible to everyone. I also call it honoring, worshipping, and remembering. At its simplest, ancestor reverence is the act and mindset of honoring your family lines, known and unknown to you. It’s the act of remembering them as living and breathing people who paved the way for you to be. It’s the way of thinking of them as a greater whole, one entity that is Those Who Came Before.

This is something that everyone can include in their lives, regardless of religious beliefs. In this model of thought, the dead are dead, and what you are remembering is a name and the history of the life beneath it. That has tremendous worth in itself, and is a way of finding connection in uncertain and unsettling times. It’s also a way of teaching your children their history, of teaching them that same connection; that we are each wonderful and unique, but not more so than the ones who bore us.

To take that next step into ancestor work, you must be open to the possibility that there is more to the world than we comprehend. You must be open to believing with certainty that the world is more wonder full than our brains can comprehend, and while science will come close, it will never be able to explain that wonder away. You must be willing to step into the wonder and be a child again, releasing your ego to learn a new world.

My work involves developing a personal relationship with what happens in death and the kinds of transformation that take place during and after. I understand spirit as passing on from its physical body and reincarnating into… something other. I see spirit as a residual echo of the living, in the way that we know the star light we see in the night sky flickered in a past long gone. Both exist simultaneously.

That spirit reincarnates and becomes something new. And it evolves and becomes something better. And it transforms and becomes something inconceivable. And it retains a familiar shape of the body it wore. All things are true. Some residues still ring strongly with persona, so much so that you can call on individual or specific spirits to work with- ones you have connections to. I do that.

What I mostly do involves energy work and energy manipulation. I break up elemental energies into qualities of earth, air, water, fire, and ancestor, striving for some kind of equilibrium between them, depending on what the moment calls for. If I’m feeling pulled in all directions, I seek some earthy grounding. If my emotions overwhelm me, I let them flow like water so they might pass through me. If I’m stuck on a problem and a solution seems impossible, I open the top of my thoughts and let them float free through the air until they arrange themselves in a different order. And if a family member is ill, I tap into the ancestor energy so that they might watch over them, and aid their healing.

Energy is energy. I break them up into elementals as a tool to help my brain understand them and to help me understand the qualities of their differences. The important part is recognizing that they are different aspects of the same thing. Energy is life, is deity, is divinity, is interconnectedness, is one, is everything. Everything that grows and decays is connected, depending on each other for the space to grow and flourish.

There is a unity and sameness to all living things. It’s why bigotry seems stupid. We fight between gender and race, trying to hold one up against another, when we are all humans. We are all humans who are no less entitled to live on this world than the elephants and the whales and the crows and the goldfish and the honeybee.

 [Revamped draft of an article originally published March 30, 2011.]