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.]

Communicating Through Music

I have spoken before about how my connection to spirit world is more auditory than visual. I experience temperature fluctuations and the hairs lifting off my neck like others. But I don’t hear voices or messages as much as I hear song lyrics or music.

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Blame it on my 80s upbringing, but usually spirit communicates with me through…tv show jingles. That’s right. I swear. The first one I noticed over and over was the Three’s Company theme song. Just the same two lines repeated, over and over:

            Come and knock on my door,

            We’ll be waiting for you…

This usually means a spirit is trying to get my attention.

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A newer one that started manifesting for me a few years ago happens less often and, in my experiences, is a spirit trying to warn me about something. It’s usually about, or for another person. If I get a flash or glimpse of who it might be associated with, I have been known to reach out to them. It’s two lines from the song “Outside” by Staind:

            I’m on the outside, I’m looking in…

            I can see through you, see to the real you…

I normally don’t lead with, “Spirit sent me to check on you,” but I will check in and see if they’re all right. I have never regretted reaching out when I do. So, if I hear that song, I listen to it.

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This year, a newer jingle has been playing this month. It’s the Sanford and Sons theme song. It’s pretty insistent. My wife says I have been humming it for days now. I don’t know what this music means yet.

I don’t know it’s message for me, but I’m listening.

*

Always at this time of year, when the garden starts to bed and the winds whip up and the faded garbage blows about the neighborhood… Always, when the air chills and the green things decay and frost… The spirits walk more thickly. Trick is, they are always there, somewhere beyond here, but overlaying us still.

This is the time of year the in-betweens thin.

 

Spirit Talking

While I am sensitive to spirit world year-round, at this time of year, every year, it’s like the phone keeps ringing. Often, it’s so persistent I stop noticing. I have to, in order to get any work done. I am not a psychic. I cannot call in specific spirits. I’m a sensitive. I am useful in a seance. I can open doors. I just don’t know what, if anything, will come through.

I can’t call your Uncle. But he might visit in my dreams. That’s how I usually see them, when I am most open and my brain isn’t trying to do real-world things.

But at the thinning time? I don’t always get that option.

There are always people I am hoping to see or speak to, people I am hoping will show up. But recently, a friend visited me for the first time. We were friends for years. Not terribly close but good friends and confidants.

And I know why he came to me.

I have been feeling low, battling my trauma depression and PTSD as I near another burniversary. And then I was distracted by a song from the 90s I haven’t heard in a long time. It reminded me immediately of my time in college. I hadn’t heard it since Fredonia but it was playing clear as a bell.

            “…when I come around…”

It stuck with me in the way an earworm doesn’t. And then I felt the cool whoosh of a door opening and I heard:

            “Knock knock.”

And as I frowned:

            “I have a joke for you.”

He was king of jokes. In five years, I never heard the same joke twice. And I never did remember a joke long enough to share it with him.

I felt him in my kitchen as clearly as if I were sitting in his office pretending I had no clue who kept filling the candy bowl that was usually empty on his desk. (It was my friend Ann and I.) He seemed to want to cheer me up.

And then he was gone. So, I played Chapin’s song “Taxi” for him, like we used to listen to together. And when I see him again, I know exactly what I’ll say:

            After all this time, I finally have a joke for you.

I Open to my Ancestors (A Photo Gallery)

Tonight is Samhain. It is All Hallows Eve. It is a night where the walls between this world and the next are thin. This is the night where the dead bleed through and if you wish to connect with them, you can listen to them, you can sense when they're present, and you can entice them to come. You can also make simple offerings to honor their place and presence in your life.

Because They Were...You Are.

I honor my beloved dead, those I knew in this world, and my ancestral dead, those who paved the way for me.

I pour water in the glass cup on my Ancestor Altar. I light a candle in my fossil candle holder. It is the lighthouse guiding their way to me. I light more candles for specific prayers. I take in a breath and as I exhale I open my heart. I open myself to spirit world. I am not the lighthouse.

I am the light.  

~~*~~

I open to my Grandparents:  

Richard James Riddle & Donna MacDonald, both my beloved dead

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With her much-loved cat Bella.

Patricia Art, my beloved dead
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Mark Dutcher Eaton, my beloved dead, & Ruth Emma Ruston
~*~

I open to my Great-Grandparents:

Harold Riddle & Elsie Elizabeth Durant, my beloved dead
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With daughters Dolores & Biddy.

Robert Joseph Art & Margaret Loretta Burke
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Frank William Ruston & Minnie Estelle Wicker
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Royal Levant Eaton & Hattie Eva Smith
~*~

I open to my Great-Great-Grandparents:

Frances & Lafayette are in the center, front.

Lafayette Riddle & Frances Ann Gillette [NY]
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George Frances Durant & Emma Louise Burnah [NY]
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George Art & Katherine Pils [NY]
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Frank Burke & Eliza Conners [NY]
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Ruth & Charles are in the center back.

Charles Evan Ruston & Ruth Ireland [both from England]
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Hiram & Emma are the center couple.

Hiram King Wicker & Emma Angeline Whitcher [NY]
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Bennett Eaton & Theresa Cordelia Tenney [MI/NY]
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Silas Parker Smith & Hattie Eva Dutcher [NY]
~*~

I open to my Great-Great-Great-Grandparents:

Marquise DeLafayette Riddle & Sarah Clickner [NY]
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Levi & Jane are seated in the second row.

Levi Gillette & Jane Berry [NY]
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Albert Durant & Rosella LaValley [both from Quebec]
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Samuel Burnah [from Quebec] & Mary (unknown) [NY]
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Adam Art & Katherine Maria Schmeelk [both from Germany]
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John Pils & Mary Burzee [both from Germany]

Thomas Burke & Ellen (unknown) [NY]

David Conners & Mary Dowd [both from Ireland]

Richard Ruston & Anna Richardson [both of England]

William Ireland & Phoebe Lenton [both of England]

Thaddeus Rice Wicker & Cynthia Lusk [VT/NY]
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Bailey Harrison Whitcher & Ordelia de Lozier [VT/NY]
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Solomon Gould Eaton & Hannah Ann Treadwell [NY]

Philetus Tenny & Malvina H. Targee [NY]
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Ammi Smith & Sophia Sears [NY]
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Reuben Feagles Dutcher & Eliza Marsh Bird [NY/MA]
~*~

I open to my Great-Great-Great-Great Grandparents:

Freeborn Moulton Riddle & Abigail Chaffee [MA/NY]

William Clickner & Mary Ann Hayner [NY]

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Ezra Wheeler Gillette & Mary Ann Boots [VT/NY]

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Francis Berry & Elizabeth Ann Hill [NY]

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George Durant & Safrona (unknown) [both of Quebec]

Francois Xavier Lavalle & Rosella LaRoche [both of Quebec]

George Arth & Wilhemina Wernersbach [both from Germany]

John Burke & Ann (unknown) [both of Ireland]

(unknown) & Betsy Conners [both of Ireland]

Barney Dowd & Betsey (unknown) [both from Ireland]

Edward Ruston & Jane Brooks [both of England]

Thomas Richardson & Mary (unknown) [both of England]

John Ireland & wife (unknown) [both of England]

John Lenton & Mary Wilson [both of England]

Pliney Wicker & Chloe Morgan [MA]

Elizer Lusk & Rebecca (unknown) [NY]

Simon Whittier & Dorcas Kittredge [MA/VT]

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Peter DeLozier & Lucy Raymond [CT/NY]

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Joshua Eaton & Lucy Gould [CT/NY]

Solomon P. Treadwell & Fannie (unknown) [NY]

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Hiram Tenney & Esther or Sally (unknown) [NY]

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Thomas Targee & Ellen (unknown) [RI/NY]

David Smith & Betsy (unknown) [NY]

Heman Sears & Clarissa Debois [CT/NY]

Martin Dutcher & Cynthia Ann Feagles [NY]

Amanly Bird & Irene Pond Marsh [MA/NH]

~~*~~

I open to my ancestors, known and unknown. 

I open the front door. 

The air is cold and tinged with winter. 

I invite all who wish us no ill to enter and celebrate this night.

I ask my Ancestors to welcome in the spirits of the Recent Dead, of my beloved and missed Liz Seib. I ask them to watch over our friends Michael Maxwell Carter Davidson, Peter Blakeslee, and grumpy old Oliver. 

Who do you honor and wish peaceful passages to?

Leave offerings of food and liquor, of earthly things that smell strong and potent, of coffee, tobacco and candies. Leave them fresh, filtered water. Listen to the whisperings of the shadows. Feel peace fill your heart.

Let the candles burn low. Pay attention to your dreamings. The dead have things they wish to say. If you have any divination tools, ask the dead to speak through them. 

Lay the cards out. Draw a rune. Throw the bones.

Blessed Samhain. 

Happy Halloween.

George Durant and wife Louise Burnah, their daughter Elsie Durant (who I knew until I was 17), her husband Harold Riddle (who died nine months before I was born on their wedding anniversary). In the front are their children, my Aunt Donna, my Grandpa Dick, and my Uncle Sonny. All are deceased now.

Cleansing my Ancestor Altar

Moments.

I had to stop counting the number of the dead. I have spent a year watching the numbers and my soul is weary. My beloveds have lost beloveds to covid-19. We have lost people who could not get adequate services because the medical field is saturated.

When I am overwhelmed I stop and go back to the beginning, I go back to breath. I had been praying for so many people, for so many lives, that it became hard to focus my intention. So I went back to my altar, I stripped it bare, and I rebuilt it again.

Starting Anew.

I scrubbed the surface. I touched everything. Did it still have energy? Did it still feel sacred? 

Some items evolved into better, newer pieces. Some items felt finished and moved on to other homes.

The surface was bare. It was fresh, both new and familiar.

Adding in Ancestors.

I bought a second photo tree and added new photos. I have one tree for my maternal line and one for my paternal. There are items that belonged to my grandparents and stones I treasure. I have my candle holder made of fossil stone. I have my water glass for offerings.

My father's mother: Ruth Ruston, her parents Minnie Wicker and Frank Ruston, Minnie's parents Emma Whitcher and Hiram Wicker, Frank's parents Ruth Ireland and Charles Ruston.
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My mother's father: Richard Riddle, his parents Harold Riddle and Elsie Durant, Harold's parents Lafayette Riddle and Frances Gillette, Elsie's parents Albert Durant and Louse Burnah.

My father's father: Mark Eaton, his parents Royal Eaton and Hattie Smith, Royal's parents Bennett Eaton and Theresa Tenney, Hattie's parents Silas Smith and Hattie Dutcher.
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My mother's mother: Patricia Art, her parents Margaret Burke and Robert Art, Robert's parents Katherine Pils and George Art, Albert Durant's parents Rosella LaValley and Albert Oliver Durant

Preparing to Pray.

When I prepared my altar that first night, on the first of May, the balance point to Samhain, when the spirit energy is also thick, my heart felt a measure of peace. My thoughts were stronger and clearer, and I picked up my prayers, for my loved ones, for my community, for the world.

I called to my ancestors who had known struggle and disease, plague and famine. I ask them for guidance. I ask them for strength. I ask them to watch over those who are passing over and those who are left behind.

I call to my ancestors, names known and unknown, and I light my altar.

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?

Spirit Song

In 2013 I wrote a post called When Spirit Knocks about how a specific television theme song in my head was a note for me that spirit world was trying to get my attention. Just two lines from a television theme song on repeat. Over and over.

While on vacation along Lake Ontario I have been waking every morning at 6:08. It has been exactly 6:08 in the morning and I have woken with the same song playing in my head.

It's a new song to me, as far as it being a communication from spirit. I've been walking the beach and finding myself humming it deep in my chest. It's "Outside" by Staind. Not one I was familiar with. And yet the same two lines kept rolling through my brain.

That's spirit getting my attention.

Now that doesn't mean the cottage is haunted. I am a lighthouse in spirit world. Sometimes ghosts come because I am there. I do note though, that the secretary desk my alarm clock sat on was handmade by a family member who is deceased. It came out of my Grandma Pat's home after she died. So there could be something to that. I wouldn't be surprised if it was an ancestor from that family line. Maybe they just want me to know they are holding her now.

Maybe it's someone new.

Magic is real. You can call it whatever you want to but it happens for me. This feels like a new introduction of sorts. So I'm opening up to dreamworld again. Whoever's trying to connect with me, my door is open. The light is on.

I'm on the outside

I'm looking in...

...I can see through you

See to the real you.

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.