Intentional Insights

Kelley, I am a 46 year old working mom who is frustrated with the direction my life has taken. I am truly thankful for many things but financial struggles and ‘just bringing home a paycheck’ have left me depressed and with substantial weight gain. I need inspiration to relieve the drudgery I am drowning in on a daily basis. I want to have my colorful, creative, life back. How I can find my kalidescope again? Carrie

Thanks for your note, Carrie. Your guides are showing me something very specific that is contributing to the malaise you feel. I’m going to use a word in conjunction with spiritual healing that may be surprising: chemicals. We often forget that independent of the mind, soul or emotions, the body has its own relationship to Spirit, that every cell has a unique relationship to and craving for the Divine. In order for us to feel that connection with All That Is in the highest way possible the body needs to function well enough that we are aware and actively participating in that connection through all that we do. The body is, after all, the temple.

It’s also an antenna, of sorts, the sensual vehicle through which we perceive Spirit, our own soul, and that of those around us. It is the most overlooked tool of divination, as the body is the soul’s most direct form of communication with us and the clarity of its message relies wholly on our ability to perceive it. The smallest component of perception is our chemical basis for health. If that chemical basis is off kilter it permeates every thought, every feeling, every expression of who we are. The way we speak to ourselves internally, the way we address those around us, the choices we make, the money we spend, the food we eat… It all sounds very mundane and material, and it is. However our mundane state of being directly impacts how we achieve our spiritual goals. Our base level of awareness in the physical realm begins with neurotransmitters—the wee hormones that cue the brain to choreograph everything we do. Out of balance they can create depression, autoimmune conditions, metabolic ruts, all of which are the building blocks to more pervasive imbalance. In short, if you don’t have the chemical juice to support and transmit spiritual memos, no matter what esoteric art you study, what energy healer you work with, what catharsis you have, you won’t be able to carry the information through to create a sustaining soulful foundation.

On the holistic path we often forget that holism means exploring all options, investigating all parts that sum the whole. Being true to this model of spiritual healthcare means looking at the base levels of what may be out of balance. In understanding that neurotransmitters are soulful beings leap to the consideration that also are the chemicals that treat them. The avenues for doing so are possibly endless in this pharmaceutical age. Take your pick. I would suggest initially that you do some reading on neurotransmitters. Such research can range from intensely scientific to amazingly mystical once you verge into studies of the pineal gland and how it relates to the third eye–the seat of the soul… If learning that information feels helpful, contact a naturopath and discuss neurotransmitter support through supplementation, diet and lifestyle crafting.

I say all of this to assert that Carrie, you create a very harmonious and worshipful space in which you honor Divinity and explore your personal path. There is no lack in how you approach Spirit or the development of your soul. What’s missing is the body’s ability to participate in this process due to not being properly chemically supported, which I feel is the direct result of mental and emotional burn out. What I’m seeing is that on one end is all the soulwork you’ve done that is flourishing and brilliant, and at the other end is the body crying out for attention. Give focus to the body with the same soulful affection that you give the unseen aspects of your life and the bridge between these facets of yourself and the soulwork will be expressed through the body. Being able to move that life force fully through the body will improve your health and directly impact your ability to bring the things you want into being in the formed realm. It’s a very subtle act that will make all the difference in your creativity, inspiration and motivation to keep those primal cellular fires burning.

Apart from the literal chemical support through tactile intervention, you can make that rehabilitative process spiritual. You can, in your meditative space, ask the life force of the neurotransmitters to speak with you. Ask them what they need to maintain balance in your body. What are their goals and how do they mesh with your own? Remember that all things under Creation are Divine, and you have the ability to interact with them. You can have the same heart-to-heart discussion with the supplements or means you choose to balance neurotransmitters. Ask to see see their connection to Divinity. What gifts do they bring you? Opening this dialogue presents the possibility to do so with every cell in your body. All you need do is realize that possibility exists. From there your possibilities are endless.

Be well, Carrie!

Podcast 2 ~ Intentional Insights: Q&A From Within, “Divinity in the Medicine Cabinet”

As I have been hearing the same question repeatedly of late, it seemed appropriate to address it in this month’s Q&A. I’ve observed that when situations or dynamics seem to affect large groups of people at once there is typically a collective impact from the event. Certainly we all have our personal stories supplanting the details, but trends across groups and geographies stand out. Patterns of this nature beg their own inquiry, and the question I’m frequently being asked is, “Why can’t I breathe?”

One of, if not the primary physical agreement we make to become spirit in flesh is that we master breathing. Breathing is perhaps our most tactile, intimate and necessary experience of the Earth’s atmosphere, that also just happens to be imperative to survival. Examining the function of breathing in a more esoteric light reveals its profound effects on how we live. Yogis, Zen masters and mystics from myriad traditions have honored for centuries that the way we breathe affects how our life force moves. With skilled application we can even control our life force with breath. The technique of breathwork—sometimes referred to as holotropic or integrative breathwork—is the act of allowing the body to release emotions and physical conditions that are no longer needed. In essence, breathwork allows the opportunity of processing unconscious clutter, that which may not have words or tangible mental processes that could be addressed by more conventional therapies. From that capability it is possible to alter the breath in such a way that we not only move our life force and create a desired effect from doing so, but we can also unconsciously evoke pervasive healing.

I began the therapeutic pursuit of integrative breathwork a year ago this month. I had finally accepted that I was and had been in a state of spiritual emergency after a series of escalating health issues—a cluster of minor strokes and acute appendicitis, all while managing other critical autoimmune and metabolic conditions—all within one year. I took into breathwork the understanding that while I may be mentally, spiritually and emotionally highly functioning, my body was struggling to reach a complementary state of Being. While the mind, soul and emotions can “rise above,” can span multiple planes of consciousness to experience reality, the cells operate in a much different field. The body is part of all of these levels—their earthly host, one might say. It has its own spiritual nature, every cell having its own relationship to Spirit. Yet the body more than any other level of our Being has to play by a 3D set of “agreements” in order to function in accordance with the environment. However, as all is within Creation, all things are possible if we can conceive of them.

Many of us are being “forced” by atmospheric conditions to breathe differently, be that the result of unusual weather patterns, deforestation, pollution, or individual cellular renewal. By altering the way in which we breathe, energetically these environmental stimuli are putting us in a place of doing mass breathwork, mass release of personal and collective things we no longer need to carry as individuals, as a people, or perhaps as a plane. To what outcome we can only imagine: a shift into higher mass consciousness, improved wellbeing, robust collective caregiving.

I challenge us all to consider that what we perceive as chronic (or perhaps all) illness is transition of the physical form into a higher expression of itself. At a personal level when breaking out of the rut of “illness”, consider what this condition gifts, consider what its spiritual implications and nature are. Likewise, when many people share symptoms and physical experiences in tandem, question what we as a people are changing in our cells, in our souls and in the earth plane. This possibility doesn’t mean avoid seeking medical attention, allopathic or alternative. Being comfortable in the physical form is important, even if a primary indicator of a need for change is triggered by physical discomfort. Undertake the treatments necessary to soothe the form with the wisdom accompanying them that the body is going through a spiritual process, one in which we can allow its completion.

I wish us all comfort and an exuberant expression of the soul in form. I also wish us the joy of the process in all its myriad manifestations.

Breathe well!

Podcast 1 ~ Intentional Insights: Q&A From Within, “Collective Question, Mass Transition”

Tags: Soul Intent Arts

Kelley– I’ve been told by a couple of mediums that I have a father different than the one I was brought up with. I have never believed he was my father, even as a toddler. DNA tests are inconclusive and my mother gives mixed responses. I’m worried that I’m carrying some past karmic debt of a family member I’m not even aware of being related to. Do I need to identify this relationship in order to move happily forward? Susan

Based on what you’ve said here, Susan, I don’t get a sense of the malaise you’re feeling being specifically related to not knowing the exact identity of your father. Generally speaking we all carry ancestral ties that are passive or active factors in our lives until we can release them. Such ties are not only inherited through the life force given to us by our parents at conception but also by the life force we are born into, which may not contain any trace of our biological ties. In that light investigating and releasing ancestral karmic threads is a wise move for anyone.

Given that, I am not aware of a karmic imbalance as a result of not knowing your biological father’s identity. I am, however, aware of some power allies and talents that come through his line–spiritual abilities of which you are latently aware but have not developed. I see connecting with your ancestors through a spiritual means, such as shamanic journey, ghost dancing, trance postures, etc. as a means to give you some grounding regarding the concerns about your father’s identity, and to potentially help you find your etheric family and its blessings. I do feel that there are some powerful cultural “stories” in your cells that you need to know, even if you never know who your father is. Meditative work around learning that heritage will empower you.

Something else significant to note is that I feel you have been an orphan or estranged from your parents in other manifestations of yourself, or in other times, dimensions. The mythological story, or archetype, of the orphaned child who rises to great power echoes throughout every cultural epic saga and that’s not for no reason. Those who begin with the least stand to gain the most, even spiritually speaking. We seek to fill with what we hunger, and the emptiness only a child can feel for lack of a parent has been with you for many manifestations of yourself. Making peace with this “inner orphan,” that is, going to the source or “first time” you felt this emptiness will create healing that ripples through every such experience down the line, through to the present. I highly recommend doing some soul work energy work along that line, the results of which will be nothing short of claiming your birthright. Be well, Susan!

Tags: Soul Intent Arts

Kelley, I am in a serious fog and don’t know which way is up. My husband is physically and emotionally abusive, and I left him some months ago. We have a two year old son. I came back 3 months later on the promise of change. There’s been no physical abuse but the emotional manipulation persists. I also think he’s still seeing the other woman. I will not leave everything I’ve worked so hard for again, but I’m going through the motions of this marriage. What do you get from this situation? A. H.

You’re a wise woman. My sense is that this man isn’t capable of meeting you with integrity right now, a dynamic of which you have become expertly aware. He has indeed fed off of your power for a long time and that act has created imbalance in your relationship to him, in the family unit and within yourself. I do not see you maintaining space healthily with this man. The proof of that lies in your own feelings and in the transition your son has endured. Your son is very aware of the power imbalance between you and your husband and he has attempted to restore it. This attempt is evidenced by the onset of anxiety and acting out, both of which are not his nature. Your son feels very hurt that he can’t change his father or heal him, and he also carries a lot of guilt about not being able to successfully intervene for his mother. In other words, your son is attempting to mediate your marriage, to parent his parents. He is manifesting through anxiety and frustration the dynamic that neither you nor your husband have been willing to change. Whatever choices you make around your marriage your son needs a break and the support to relax and be the child.

I understand the insecurity you feel around making a life change. You have the spiritual support from your guides and soul aspects of yourself to manifest the most authentic acts you can take in restoring your power. I see you quite surrounded with love and feminine support, which feels to be two elder women from your childhood. They are readily available for you to call upon in helping you do this. You can reclaim your power (and already are), but it is important that you believe this truth. The buttons of fear and shame that this situation pushes for you can’t be ignored. I encourage you to incorporate a spiritual practice that allows you to celebrate yourself, to daily observe a strength in your resolve, and to enlist the support of a counselor and/or energy worker who can help you maintain your health and wellbeing through this time. Specifically, seek out a soul worker who can help you remove your husband’s energetic hooks from you and to help you sing your power home. May you fly, A!

Tags: Soul Intent Arts

Kelley, I’m 35, childless and have never been in a relationship. I’ve never felt loved. I am confused as to why the Creator would bring me here and deny the very thing that makes everything worthwhile. What do my guides say about this? Can you help me? Tanisha

One thing I feel right off is that you are surrounded by a cocoon of nurturing love. This nest seems to be a loving space created for you by your guides to help you feel grounded and safe, but also to give you a protected space to release some anger and fear. I do have the sense that in some past or other dimensional life you suffered an intense trauma that took away your faith in the Universe and your dignity. The reaction to this event was keen detachment from everything. So profound and powerful was your ability to detach that it created an energetic barrier through which other life forces knew not to attempt to penetrate–even ones you wanted to be close. This void of love is an ancient defense mechanism that you have the power to change now. It is possible for you to ask your guides, your angels, whomever you feel is appropriate to attend you, to take this wound and its barrier from you and fill you with light and strength to regain your power. Understand that having them remove this barrier will bring you love, and it will also bring you all the personal challenges that come with it. Given that, I feel it would be very helpful for you to enlist the help of an energy worker, life coach, or other emotional caregiver to help you process any feelings that this transition may bring up. I wish you love and light, Tanisha.

Tags: Soul Intent Arts

Kelley, How would I know if someone cast a spell on me and my family? Some years ago a woman whom I considered a friend came into our home. She had an interest in Native American medicine so we made dreamcatchers with my kids and she supposedly quieted a ghost in our house. When I next saw her she bragged to me about being able to curse people. I don’t know what she did in our house, but after her visit things spun out of control. With no warning my husband left, saying he didn’t want me or the kids, then I became ill with Sarcoidosis and Lupus. After that I had two nervous breakdowns, one daughter started cutting, the other was raped twice in our home, and my son threatened suicide. I had the house cleared and blessed, but it doesn’t feel right. We are a Christian family. How could a spell have control over Christians? ~L

Hi L. Thanks for your note. Initially I ask your guides about the overall dynamic involving the woman—as there is a lot to this chain of events. They show me that this sequence was already underway before the woman entered the picture. She did do something in your home, but from what I see her actions appear to have been so innocuous that they either had no effect or acted as a minor catalyst to tip things over an already tenuous threshold. What your guides show me is that the dominoes were already stacked to fall the way they have even if she had never come to your home.

That begs the question, “What is the overall family dynamic and how can it be healed?” When I approach this way your guides tell me that you and your husband joined for the spiritual purpose of bringing your children’s souls into physical form. Your children are highly elevated Beings, very gifted individuals who function at an elevated vibrational level. I feel that they are so charged that it is no wonder that birthing them took a huge toll on you physically. Not to say that your body’s condition is their fault; rather, your body had to shift energetically to accommodate bringing them through and your body has not found stasis yet. It seems that carrying such highly elevated creatures challenged your own frequency to be raised and your body has not adjusted to that frequency. To that end looking into holistic health options would be very beneficial to you—acupuncture, Reiki, holotropic breathwork. These and other such approaches can help you find balance physically, as well as allow your life force to flow peacefully.

Specifically regarding your husband, I don’t see him as being or ever having been your romantic complement. That person is still out there for you to find—and he is out there. In fact, what your guides show me as I look down over your household is that you and your husband had a rather detached involvement, which only really sparked to life after you had your kids. Your children chose the two of you to be their parents, and I also feel strongly that your kids are coming from the same soul pool and needed to come in together as siblings. The circumstances of marriage, the DNA and life force the two of you brought into the mix are what allowed these souls to come to manifest as they needed. Overall I have a strong sense of foreboding about your husband. Your guides will not elaborate on that hunch in any specific way, but I feel that you are best without him or his energy influencing you or your children. I know that the way he left you was horribly mean and hurtful, and I am not suggesting that you overlook how he went about that. I am saying good riddance. I don’t think that you would have separated from him unless or until he hurt you badly, and the underlying message from your guides is that the marriage had served its purpose and you needed to move on. Not that he needed to move on—you did. To me that says there are some vitally empowering experiences waiting to find you that could not have come while you were with your husband.

Now, about your children. They need you to separate energetically from your husband. To me it feels like the two of you are still very much entwined spiritually. There is a lot of anger and resentment between you, and it must be released. You can’t change him or force him into compassion, but you can assess what is most important to you and allow the insights from that introspection to guide you. I feel that a good bit of release from him will occur as your body heals, as you regain strength. I also see, though, that the spiritual crisis this left you in needs to be addressed or it will continue to spiral. However you feel you can best do that, within your own religious parameters or moving into wider Universal views, seek out some soulful counsel. You have a lot of wounds around this separation that need to be healed, as well as old wounds that were reopened in the bitter exchanges that ensued. How this relates to your children is that they are highly intuitive creatures. They are feeling the family wounds every minute of every day. The cycle of hurt that was begun under your roof has become its own life force that must be expressed, either consciously or unconsciously. Your children are very sensitive to this energy, but they don’t have the skills or emotional foundation to articulate it and release it for themselves. For this reason it comes out in acts of self-harm and repeated victimization. To me these expressions are all indicating a need for release between the parents. Whatever it takes for you to find peace in yourself is what is most needed right now. Your children will follow you on your healing path. Not only do they want to have a happy healthy home, but they want you to be happy and healthy. Between you is the ability to heal and each find your own power again.

Although this situation doesn’t appear to have been the result of a spell or curse, the power of believing that it could have been speaks loudly enough that it may as well have been. Even religion doesn’t override psychology, meaning the fear of something—whether that thing is real or imagined—affects one’s ability to function within the chosen belief system. Intellectually it’s easy to know when something seems implausible, but to convince yourself of that unlikelihood emotionally is another thing, entirely. When you stumble upon a fear from which you can’t release, that fear becomes the belief system, thus the fear is manifest.

I hope that you can find some relief in your guides’ words, and in knowing that you have many loving and supportive angels at your side.
Be well, L!

Tags: Soul Intent Arts

In celebration of my favorite time of the year, I’ve decided to take a departure from my regular column format for this month, instead electing each day to write out as many of my creepy ’spirit visitor’ stories as time allows between now and Samhain. I started writing some of them down a few years ago with the idea of publishing them in a collection at some point. For now I just want to feed the veil.

Moving house is a huge energetic transition. Some land functions like static electricity for emotions, thus holds imprints of events, creates vacuums for spirits. Some structures hold so many great memories they can’t help but be places that discarnates want to linger. And much as we wouldn’t leave behind our entertainment center, so should we be aware of not leaving behind aspects of ourselves. Strange as it may seem, sometimes it’s not spirits of the dead peering from the windows of deserted houses, but spirits of the living. Go into spaces with the attitude that what needs to be released can be, that what facilitates compassionate living stays, roots. Whether coming or going, do the healthy thing for all involved and declutter.

Tags: Soul Intent Arts

In celebration of my favorite time of the year, I’ve decided to take a departure from my regular column format for this month, instead electing each day to write out as many of my creepy ’spirit visitor’ stories as time allows between now and Samhain. I started writing some of them down a few years ago with the idea of publishing them in a collection at some point. For now I just want to feed the veil.

For several years I’ve worked as a technical documentation specialist for a state agency housed in the renovated old Rex Hospital in Raleigh. The hospital itself was functional in the mid 1930s through the late 1970s, becoming the agency I’ve worked with in the early 1980s. When I first came to work at the complex 11 years ago I did not know that it had been a hospital, though the greeting of trauma energy as soon as I entered the building was a profound clue. My tension was confirmed within my first hour there when I was told that it had been the largest hospital in the area at its inception, and shortly after I received my orientation hazing with the ‘ghost stories’ of the spirit nurse in elevator 1 who likes to play with the buttons and skip floors, the murmuring crowd that can be heard when alone in the building, doors opening and closing on their own—the usual paranormal fare. Of course accompanying those stories were ones of the collectively marked infant graves in the courtyard, various rumors about blood in the morgue (though I never saw that), and just general mumblings of uneasiness in certain areas of the complex from a grounds keeper.

Intent on my writing gig, I left the woowoo at home. I showed up everyday, did my work and called it a day. I never had any intention of mixing business with… well, business. Of course it wasn’t long before I started having odd experiences. It started out innocuously enough, hearing my name yelled out in an empty room (I had a huge office to myself for about a year), hearing the door to my office open and shut followed by the footsteps of someone walking up behind me, though no one would be there when I turned around, and an ever persistent feeling that someone was standing behind me while I was working. Events reached a crescendo when I felt an unseen hand linger on my shoulder one afternoon. I’ve set the intention fairly clearly that I will allow spontaneous spirit communication because that is part of my job as a deathwalker. However, I’m not receptive to being randomly touched by any stranger, living or spirit. I completed what I needed to do for the day then went to my car. I sat in the parking lot for 30 minutes holding space for the dead to move through. They came in droves. I’d never experienced a mass psychopomp event before. They never stopped coming. The only reason that I ended the session was because I was tired and it was dark outside. I felt bad for the truncated session, but I had to respect my own boundaries. Nobody loves a tired deathwalker.

I sat with the memory of that session for a long time, and as a result became more tolerant of the spirit interactions of my day job. I no longer separated my jobs. Part of my arrival routine became to greet the dead much as I do the living when we pass in the hall—which, by the way—on several occasions I’ve passed random people in the hall, brushed right up against them, only to glance immediately back to find no one in the corridor but myself. It has truly become the norm. When I softened to the regularity of spirit visitors they began to interact with me more, particularly after my office was relocated to the 4th floor.

I don’t know what the 4th floor was used for in the hospital, but as soon as I moved up there I began to see a few spirit regulars. One in particular was a young African American woman in her early 20s standing to the far left of the sinks. She was dressed in a very simple peach colored shift with a tiny hat the same color. She wore white gloves and clutched a white pocketbook tightly in both hands in front of her. Her gaze was toward the floor, and she didn’t seem happy. She was not interested in talking with me but she did let me know that she was not a patient at the hospital. She had been a guest visiting someone who had died there. The understanding that her loved one was no longer in the building did not occur to her, but she was afraid to be released. I did not coerce her and went on my way. I saw her several times, always in that same spot, and we would greet each other amicably.

One afternoon I was sitting at my desk when I felt her come into the office. Her mood had brightened considerably and she wanted to be released. She passed easily on to Spirit when another soul came. I held the space for that one to move through, when more continued to come. I sat for maybe 15 minutes as spirits moved through. However, even with all the movement I observed something unusual. There were hundreds of them observing the parade of souls, some even venturing to come up very close to my face, as if I was an oddity to them. In that session I felt that these were not all souls of those who had affiliation with the hospital. In fact, some of the souls I was sensing had never been human at all. Some had never even been in form, but were discarnate wafting entities. When I closed my eyes and visualized the complex from above it appeared as a vast vortex extending deep into the ground with thousands of souls meandering in it. It felt like a stagnant thinner area in the veil, when it should have been a free-flowing Grand Central Station of souls, easily sliding Here and There. Despite the number of souls I sensed in the space, those seeking to pass through had dwindled. Many were lingering just to watch.

Having spirits converge at a focal point then not facilitating some kind of release for them isn’t the smartest idea, but it’s also futile to try to force one to move on when it doesn’t want to, let alone to try to force hundreds. Yet I felt that this stagnancy was happening for a reason and I needed to honor it even if I did not understand it. I had my guides call on the guardians of the land there, to create the safest most supportive atmosphere possible for all souls inhabiting the space—living or discarnate. I figured if I couldn’t move them through the default was to make the veil there comfortable for us all. I checked on the situation fairly regularly, though, holding brief sessions to release those who were ready.

That was more than two years ago, now, and I continue to work with the space. No matter how many sessions I hold, souls never stop coming to pass through my openings for them. I have come to regard the complex as a haven for souls who indeed have endured some sort of trauma, even if that trauma merely was not passing peacefully into What Comes After. I’ve also concluded that there is something about the land itself that attracts all of these souls. What was built on it in modern times as place to care for others was merely focusing the land’s innate power to do just that. Perhaps with time and attention the land will give up more of its mysteries.

Tags: Soul Intent Arts

In celebration of my favorite time of the year, I’ve decided to take a departure from my regular column format for this month, instead electing each day to write out as many of my creepy ’spirit visitor’ stories as time allows between now and Samhain. I started writing some of them down a few years ago with the idea of publishing them in a collection at some point. For now I just want to feed the veil.

Apparently the American trend of vast strip malls is a bad idea, energetically speaking, as it seems I have quite a few stories of odd experiences in them. I’m fairly sure I’m not the only one. This event in particular happened in the Winter of 2006.

On my way home from work one day I went to the newest, shiniest Wal-mart in Raleigh. The whole MegaloCenter area on which it is situated is very discordant for me and I don’t go there often at all. As it was, a specific item that I needed was only at that location, so off I went. From the second I passed through the enormous automated doors something was wrong. I literally felt a twinge in my head, like a synapse torqued funny and the tingly effect of it rippled through my whole body and into my etheric field. I truly should have turned around and left immediately but my consumerist hunter-gatherer instincts were having none of it. Once inside the fluorescent patina reflected off my skin and I hesitated to get my navigational bearings. When I did, I noticed something very odd: it sounded like a radio was on, inside my head.

I am quite clairaudient so I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the buzz at first. As I made my way through the store, I began to realize that when I passed directly by certain people, the buzz would clarify into distinct words and phrases. I noticed that the voices changed as I passed by different people. I passed a young couple and had two voices go through my head at once, lovebirds individually cooing over each other. Then I passed a woman and heard a proliferation of expletives about having to find a specific item for someone else. It wasn’t until I passed a little girl of about six or seven years old holding the hand of an old man that I realized what was going on. When I passed her I heard a little voice begging for someone to please get her away from this mean man, I realized I was hearing peoples’ thoughts. I was spontaneously, though unintentionally, cosmically eavesdropping. I recognized the phenomenon for what it because it happens almost every night when I lie down to sleep. In hypnagogic states most people see abstract visuals—blurbs light or random scenes, until they shift into sleep. For those who are aware, this state is the precursor to lucid dreaming. I do sometimes see odd visuals in pre-sleep but most of the time I flip through the bandwidth of the Universe, hearing anonymous conversations, voices, music. It quite literally sounds like a radio dial skimming stations, never quite settling on one for any length of time, though the phrases that manage to come through are distinct. Sometimes I hear several conversations and languages before I fall to sleep. This bedtime ritual I gave in to early in my childhood, and I never really think about it too much.

However, standing in the middle of Wal-mart I couldn’t think of anything. My head was full of everyone else. I had never felt anything like it before, and frankly I never had reason to consider it possible. As soon as I processed that the little girl was experiencing deep distress about the man with whom she walked, I began to project back to her, telling her that she was powerful and she could overcome anything that she needed to. I told her that I was with her and loads of angels and lightbeings walked with her, and that we would all do our best to take care of her. I felt sick at that point. I didn’t want to hear anything else. I forewent the object of my trip and started to make my way out of the store.

As soon as I stepped out of the door th
ere was an audible crackling in my head and I had an instant migraine. It hurt so badly that I was in disbelief that I wasn’t bleeding somewhere. I hadn’t had a migraine in a few years, and never had one so suddenly. My head hurt all the way home, and I still heard voices that whole time. I lay down, everything spinning inside me and out. I tracked the pain to a specific spot in my head and in it I felt a rapid exchange of information—the cosmic equivalent of some Universal mainframe. It wasn’t harmful, per se, but it seemed that the physical pain itself was coming from the furious exchange of data. I asked my guides to come in and facilitate as gently as possible whatever was going on in my brain, and in about 45 minutes the headache was gone, and I was the only one in my head.

I maintain that the ground beneath that shopping center houses some kind of hyper-charged grid that is not getting along with the supersuburbia atop it. I don’t know what alignment of elements triggered the event in the store—timing, aliens, dental work, planets… I don’t know.

Personally, I like to think I was upgraded.

Tags: Soul Intent Arts

In celebration of my favorite time of the year, I’ve decided to take a departure from my regular column format for this month, instead electing each day to write out as many of my creepy ’spirit visitor’ stories as time allows between now and Samhain. I started writing some of them down a few years ago with the idea of publishing them in a collection at some point. For now I just want to feed the veil.

At this point I hope it’s obvious that words like “ghost” and “haunted” don’t come up in my vocabulary. I’ve learned that those words conjure charged reactions in people, implying fixed ideas about spirit activity. My unusual education in soulful arts has taught me that spirits deserve to be put in categories as much as people, and every case of otherwise unexplained activity should be examined unto itself. It’s become very hard for me to call a suffering spirit, a mischievous faerie, a hyper-polarized piece of land, or the projections of a deeply troubled consciousness a “ghost.”

Of course I didn’t always make those distinctions. When I look back to my childhood, I recall having interactions with spirits pre- kindergarten. At that age and until my mid-teens, neither my culture, my upbringing, nor my emotional maturity allowed me to view those experiences as anything other than the traditional model we are given for ghosts. I filtered all those interactions through lenses of fear, trauma, alienation, and victimization. In recounting those experiences now it is my goal to present them as they were to me then: scary.

I lived with my mother, my older sister, and two collies for most of my youth, and we all witnessed some pretty creepy events together. The most recurrent of these events usually happened at night, and that was the sound of a man’s heavily booted feet coming down our hardwood hallway, stopping right at the juncture of our three rooms. We never had trepidation about the presence itself, but the shock of hearing those thudding footsteps never abated. Another frequent collective event involved our clock radios. Each of us had a clock radio in our room, and it was a regular pastime for all three of them to go off at the same exact second in the middle of the night. No other electrical appliances or timepieces in the house were affected, but playing with clock radio alarms was popular with our visitor. Again, no real terror involved, but the element of surprise never lost its edge. Another odd occurrence that while not as frequent but was loads more frightening, we would wake to what sounded like all the silverware being shaken inside the kitchen drawers, only to find not a thing out of place upon examination. Along that line, we were awakened on at least one occasion by what sounded like every window in the front of the house being smashed out, though found nothing harmed. Those very exaggerated events were just flat out unnerving. On rarer occasions we heard the piano play by itself while it was closed, just a few tinkling notes. (I have that same piano still and on occasion it plays itself, closed.) What seemed to be a favorite prank to play on me, in particular, was opening the kitchen cabinets. I could walk out of the kitchen and return later, knowing there was no one else in the house, and the cabinets would be wide open. It’s also relevant to add that the two dogs we had were always on guard when these things would happen. One of them reacted defensively to our bumps in the night, while the other cowered and couldn’t be coaxed into areas where something odd had recently happened.

My sister and I each had some harrowing experiences alone in that house, too. One morning when my sister was 12-13 years old she was waiting on our front porch for the school bus to come. Everyone else had already left. She was sitting on the front step when she heard a rap on the window behind her. She knew that she was the last one to leave the house, having locked the door herself, and she became afraid. Looking back over her shoulder she saw nothing in the window but the curtains fell back into place, as if there had been someone there.

Just after my sister was newly licensed to drive she had come home to an empty house late one evening. She entered through the dark kitchen and was standing near the sink when she heard slow, heavy footsteps coming from the far end of the hall toward her. Pulling a knife from a nearby drawer she stood frozen and the footsteps stopped. There was no one else in the house.

In my younger years it was the custom for my mother to put to put the little sister to bed so that she and my sister could enjoy the close of the day together. Though I was getting drowsy, I still heard their chit chat, teaspoons clinking in mugs of tea. I remember lying on my back on the bottom bunk of my captain’s corner beds staring fixedly at ceiling, tuning out all but what they were saying. After all, what kind of little sister was I if I missed anything? I lay on my back staring at the ceiling, trying for all I was worth to hear what they were talking about. I recall my vision cutting out for a split second, though I could still hear them, then I felt myself lifted three or four feet off the bed. I felt arms scoop me up, constricting my ribs so much they hurt. I was suspended for a few seconds, then the next thing I knew I was flipped completely over and flung rather unceremoniously face down on my bed. I hit the bed so hard it moved on the hardwood floor and I smashed my forehead into the headboard. I started screaming immediately, “That wasn’t funny! You scared the crap out of me!”

Of course they both came running, and my mother frantically switched on the light. I babbled on about what had happened, blaming them, and my mother assured me that neither she nor my sister left the kitchen, let alone come to my room. I listened to my mother talk, but I remember looking around the lit room reasoning that I had been lifted to a height higher than my top bunk. I also recall leveling with myself that neither she nor my sister could have picked me up, let alone thrown my body any distance. The bruise on my forehead the next morning indicated that someone could, and apparently had, as I also had faint red marks on my ribs. This was the only time I recall ever feeling physically threatened by the dynamic in our home, and that fear stayed with me for a long time.

I used to have slumber parties almost every year for my birthday. I recall the year I turned ten having several girls over. We’d had an evening of pizza, cake and silly television, then retired to my bedroom to listen to music. My mother had long since gone to bed, yelling at us every few minutes to turn the radio down. We were all sitting on the floor of my room, jamming, when we heard heavy footsteps pound down the hallway, stopping right outside my bedroom door. All of my friends knew that odd things happened at our house, but the house spirit rarely acted up when we had guests. We sat there listening to a light scuffle just on the other side of the door as my mother yelled at us for running down the hall. I don’t think my mother enjoyed having a bunch of screaming little girls to soothe, but it did make for a memorable party.

When I was about fourteen I went through a particularly difficult time. I recall one evening that I had an altercation with my mother and was very upset. I went to bed and cried for a quite a while when I felt someone sit down on the bed behind me. I was lying in foetal position and felt the mattress dip. I shifted subtly back against the form that pressed into mine. A cool hand swept back the hair that stuck to my damp cheek. I lay there for a minute or two considering that I was still angry at my mother, yet feeling I should address her given the concern her gestures showed. Raising up, I started speaking to her and turned to look back, only there was no one there. For a few seconds the cool touch lingered on my cheek and I could still see the dip in the mattress. Gradually the mattress raised back to an uncompressed state. and I knew my comforting visitor was gone.

Another night when I was about 16, I woke up for no particular reason to find a man and woman standing on my right, a woman at the foot of my bed, and two figures to my left. They were all dressed in black, and they stood slightly above me looking down to where I lay. The man was holding an open book in his hands, and was reading from it. I could see his mouth moving though I heard no sound. Their style of dressed was turn of the 20th century. I had the distinct impression I was crashing a funeral, and I had the vantage point of the corpse. The odd thing is when I jumped at seeing them, they stopped their ritual, gave me a shocked look, then vanished.

I don’t think about the events on Summit Drive terribly much, now, odd as that may seem. I register with detachment that they were frightening, yet they were also somewhat routine for us. I’ve also lived in a lot of different places and know now that every space has its unique spirits, imprints, and phenomena. I do wonder, though, if the current owners of the house where I grew up have the same spirit guests.

Tags: Soul Intent Arts