We are citizens of the Universe. Feeling like we’ve been
here before.
Energy waves. Vibration. Attracting and repelling other
energy.
It’s difficult to remain connected—centered, but even more challenging
to rediscover connection once it’s been lost because this existence requires a
measured amount of disconnect to function.
The great trick is learning how to disconnect without
becoming desensitized. To take that leap of faith that propels you beyond what
you know.
Maybe it’s a new job.
Taking a different route to work.
Or forcing yourself into an uncomfortable situation.
Whatever it is, you’re never sure in the moment, but recognize
it once it has passed because you feel regret for not letting go and allowing
the Universe to take control.
Why are we so afraid of giving up?
So content with comfort?
Stuck in this perpetual return. Die. Come back. Die. Come
back. We die again and again and again. So tied to the fears of this physical
world that we’re unable to break free and simply be.
And so, we are left with fleeting instances of déjà vu.
My wife and I and the kids were walking down Washington Avenue the other night. It was one of those nights, full up with energy. The air was just right, the moon was putting on a show, and there was no denying we were part of something bigger.
“Is that house haunted?” my wife asked, as she looked up at the giant three-story Victorian.
“Yep,” I said.
“Oh no, really?”
“Not in a bad way,” I said, though I wasn’t really sure.
What I sensed first and foremost was a little girl on the very top floor looking out the window at us. I stared for a moment as we passed. She didn’t seem happy. Pouting, like little girls do.
“What do you sense?”
“The place has plenty of spirits,” I said. “I wouldn’t doubt it if that front room there was a funeral parlor of some sort at one time or another.”
And we walked on, with the kids far ahead out of earshot, and I felt thankful that we lived in such an historic town with big old houses and spirits and energy everywhere. And I was thankful that my wife let me be crazy like this and just as we were about to turn toward Third and head for home, I saw the old man on the porch across the street as I had so many times before. There wasn’t much to get–or as my wife would say–I wasn’t putting forth the effort, but it was comforting seeing him there. Out on the porch, smiling, waving, smoking a cigarette. Enjoying his home still today even though he’d left the physical world long ago.
I sped up to catch up to my son and daughter. They each held a hand.
“Time to go home?” My son asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Let’s go home.”
The big moon lit the hazy sky. I listened to my kids’ little feet on the concrete. I felt my wife’s warmth just two steps behind me. And I tried to do my best not to neglect all those spirits–in windows, on porches, on front lawns and sidewalks–because I knew that one day I would be there too. Waiting for someone on this side to talk to.
She says death follows me, but I’m not so sure. I think death is just another state of being and if you’re lucky enough to be tuned in you learn to reach out to it as it reaches for you. There is a connection, of course. Sometimes clear. Sometimes not. And it is the most difficult experience in the world to convey to others, especially when so many are so rooted in the concrete. The tangible. The daily distractions and disbelief. But what I’ve learned is that the disbelief of others matters very little when you connect the living to the dead. There are very few experiences that are as gratifying.
It wasn’t always like this. It started three years ago and it started out small. With strange, perspective-shifting moments—like walking in the woods with my wife and finding a bag of dogs.
It was morel season and the kids were at the in-laws, so we decided to get a fifth of Jacob’s Ghost and a couple bottles of Coke from Male’s Corner and drive the backroads. We were only about ten minutes into the trip when I got the overwhelming sensation to stop on the side of Graham Road. I parked the 4Runner on the clearest spot I could find, we took a few hits off the bottle, then moved into the woods to hunt morels. It wasn’t long though and I felt like I was being pulled by giant magnets to an area of high ground where the jack pines got big and my ears were ringing and my guts all roiling with warmth.
“You’re walking pretty fast for finding mushrooms,” she said.
But she knew by now, with the way I was moving so quickly through the trees, that this was the plan all along. That somehow, on our first weekend alone in months, I would find a dark place in the peaceful woods that needed me. And that I would stand there, eyes closed, hearing muffled yelps as a slim bearded man pounded their small heads with a hammer then dropped their bodies into a black plastic bag—some of them still moving and making sounds, struggling between here and there—as the man buried them.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Shit,” I said. “I’m sorry. This was supposed to be just fun.”
I looked up through the trees at the big blue sky one last time then dropped to my knees and began to dig with my hands.
The Crooked Steeple 