As Spring now begins its slow transformation toward summer here at the Cottage of the Night Queen, the earth and air have begun to warm. The nights are not as clear as they were while the days were cold, because now, a humid breeze has begun to come up from out of the distant sea, carrying with it a mist made of warming sea water dissolved into droplets of evaporated moisture. Some hours before dawn, this white veil woven by sea and air draws itself over the gleaming stars until the sky is the color of milk. Dawn comes gray, but then with the rising sun, the mist is burnt away and a blue morning tinged with gold asserts itself over the mountains.
As I grab my broom and prepare to sweep the walk leading back past the holly grove to the Grotto, I find myself thinking thoughts that more appropriately belong to the end of October. I find myself thinking of the spirits of the dead. In my defense, I will say this: the spiders in these woods tend to build their most elaborate webs twice a year. I see them in the Autumn when the air turns cool, before it begins to blow in wintry gusts, and again in the Spring, when the breeze calms to a standstill in the early hours, carrying with it its careful freight of mist and dew. Perhaps, just as spiders see something akin in the weather conditions of Spring and Autumn, something which permits the construction of their most interesting work, perhaps that kinship of calm vernal cool and pensive autumnal chill which permits spiders to build also allows the dead, twice yearly, to remind us of their presence in a special way.
Some years ago, I had a few encounters with people who were supposed to be “no longer with us.” Now, I’m no psychic, but these experiences seemed real enough to me, and they are part of the fabric of my magical practice today. The first of these adventures started with my wife feeling the disquieting presence of Someone Else in our house in the flatlands. Eventually, an image of this person came to her in a dream. She seemed to be dressed in late 19th century clothing. I was reading about other people’s encounters with the dead at the time of her dream, and I decided to see if interaction was possible. Though I could not see her or hear her, I asked the empty air if she could somehow let me know who she was. On a walk later that day, I found myself near an old local cemetery a short distance from the house. I felt the need to enter and do some looking. I was attracted to a grave which turned out to be marked with a death-date in 1895. It was that of a young woman. I told the empty air that my wife was distressed by the young woman’s visits and asked if I could pray with her about finding her way to a place where there might be some peace, safety, and fellowship for her disembodied soul. I prayed and fancied that she prayed with me. There were no more visits to our house after that.
Later, I had dreams of my own from time to time in which I thought I was awake. These involved intensely vivid encounters with grandparents on my mother’s side, as well as with a deceased lady in my parents’ church who had always sat in the loft to record the service for shut-ins, and who now, in death, seemed to feel that it was the only safe place where her spirit could languish. She was absolutely petrified of leaving that sanctuary! At this point, I consulted various authorities including the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer and the Tibetan Book of the Dead for ideas about how to handle these visits in a way that would be mutually beneficial both to the spirit in question, and to my own understanding. I formulated a ritual and liturgy to give me a framework for responding helpfully (I hoped) to these visitations.
The hispanic community in which I often live, move and have my being has taught me many additional techniques for interacting with the dead. There are any number of people around here who maintain altars containing photos and remembrances of the dead in their families, along with little offerings for them. Additionally, along the sides of our highways and local county roads, one often finds descansos, little shrines usually marked with a cross, some flowers, and perhaps an object or two once treasured by the dead person being commemorated. The descanso is generally erected in the spot where the person died in a car accident, or where they were murdered. Fortunately, there has been no need to erect a descanso in our family, but we do maintain an altar with pictures and remembrances of our beloved dead. I pray decades of Rosary for them from time to time, and occasionally I seem to experience their attempts to communicate with me. They seem to be present and living with us as a result, and there have been situations where they seem actually to have intervened on our behalf and provided help in time of need. Finally, I have written a few blog entries about La Santa Muerte, a very dramatic phenomenon centered on the concept of death which has been emerging in many Latino communities since the 1960's. You might take a look at those, if you're curious. "Santa Muerte" is always in the title.
To close, I want to express how much I love the series True Detective on HBO, especially the most recent story arc with Jody Foster as a cop working in Alaska above the Arctic Circle. Throughout the episodes, there are incidents involving the dead appearing to, and interacting with, the living in the town of Ennis, Alaska. In the last episode, when someone asks Foster’s character what she thinks about people seeing the dead from time to time among them, she says, “Well. This is Ennis. No one around here ever really goes anywhere.” I think she may be on to something.
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