In the last blog I spoke of the aspect of one’s ghost, or “Akh,” according to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and how we all have one as part of our whole being. Today, I would like to talk about a couple of encounters that I have had with ghosts, not to scare the crap out of you, the reader, but to perhaps ease some of the tension one may feel in relation to the topic of ghosts.
The first thing to know is that not every apparition is necessarily a ghost. Energy flows through and around absolutely everything in our world, and indeed in our Universe. That energy shifts and changes and grows and often manifests things into the physical form. But that energy can also have “imprints” that are recorded upon it. So if, for example, one has an intense conversation, then years later someone who is sensitive enough may hear or see that conversation take place in the location in which it happened. That person may think that they have seen ghosts. But in reality, what they have seen is the imprint of energy on that place. The two are much different, although when one is seeing it or hearing it, the difference can be difficult to discern.
An example of this would be what I used to experience on the farm where I grew up. Now and then I would see the image of a woman in our house, in the yard, in the garden and so on. It was always the same woman, but she was never saying anything to me or even acknowledging my presence. She was going about her daily business but was dressed in such a way that would place her in the late 18th century. My maternal grandmother was able to also see her and explained that this was not a ghost, but an apparition of an imprint on the energy of the space. This was very handy to know at such an early age! It truly brought the fear levels down to a bare minimum. So later on, when I witnessed some violence happening in a shed on the farm…violence between two men whom I have never met, I was able to discern that this was an imprint on the energy system and not the apparition of a ghost.
As time went on, I found that the ghosts that I would witness here and there would be anything from wispy and smoky to looking as solid as you and I. It depended upon the clarity of the reception, much like a radio will have static until you hit upon the exact spot where the station is being transmitted. Some of them would communicate in a telepathic manner, where some of them would communicate in a verbal manner. That really depended upon them and upon my own ability to perceive.
There have been a few times when a ghost has contacted me with a request for me to deliver a message to someone who is still living in this world. Depending upon the message and who it is for, I often will agree to do so. Thus, I have found myself at times to be walking up to a total stranger and saying something like, “Excuse me, but are you Mr. Brown?” When they give a confirmation of their identity, I then will proceed with something like, “Did you used to have a son by the name of David?” “Why, yes, I did, why do you ask?” “I don’t mean to upset you, but David asked me to tell you…” As soon as the message is delivered, I will just turn and walk away. I don’t do this to strike up any further conversation, but just to deliver a message. Some have tried to chase me down to ask me further questions, but I have to tell them that all David said was what I told them and that is all I can do for them. I am not trying to hook them into any financial arrangement, I am just a messenger.
One time, after delivering a message the year or so before, I was at a mall and picking up a coffee at a coffee shop. As I was adding the desired fixings to my coffee, a man walked up with his coffee and began to add his own fixings. But then he said, “So, what do you do for a living?” That was a very strange opening line for a total stranger to use, which caused me to look at him and then recognize him as a person I had delivered a message to the year or so before. “I am a shaman,” I replied. His eyes lit up, “You are a shaman?! I have been looking for a shaman for my son!” We got to talking about his adult son who apparently was not doing well since the death of his sister (the same sister that gave me the message to deliver to their father). He asked me for my card, which I gave him, and I said, “Please understand that I did not deliver that message to you to drum up business. I have a lot of work as it is. I just was asked rather nicely by your daughter to reach out.” “Oh, I understand that completely,” he replied, “but I also find it interesting that I have been searching for a shaman for my son and here you were all along, right under my nose!” I explained that, should his son wish to work with me, I would be willing to do so, but that it was his decision, not his father’s decision, and that he may choose to work with someone else entirely or to not work with anyone, both of which would be completely alright because it is his decision to make, not anyone else’s. He understood and went on his way. No, I never did hear from his son. It is possible that I never will.
I mentioned in previous blogs that I have trained with my grandmother. What I did not mention is that she did not live long enough for me to fully absorb all that she had to offer. But I have had the honor of being able to still learn from her on the other side of the Veil. She visits me even now on occasion and teaches me more and more as I learn and grow. And a few years ago, my paternal grandmother also began to teach me from the other side of the Veil. I only recognized her because she still looked like an old photograph I have of her. Both grandmothers worked in shamanic practices of various forms, and both have blessed me with teachings. The paternal grandmother surprised me when she wanted to teach me, mostly because I had never met her in my life as she was long since deceased by the time I came into this world. But she did include me in a multi-generational spell that I found tucked inside a family bible that she had, which was stored up on a bookshelf in the attic of the farm where I grew up. She numbered her grandchildren, my father’s children, from one to five (I was number five) and predicted things that actually came to pass. At first, because of the relationship that she had with my father, my mother and maternal grandmother thought that perhaps what this spell was would fall into the category of a curse. But upon deeper reflection, it was definitely a prediction more than a curse. The thing that impressed me was her ability to see so far into the future that it was a vision that included things, such as myself, that were not even in existence until long after she had died. Is it any wonder that there was a bond between us? Is it any wonder that once I was able to embrace her ghost into my life, she was able to teach me magical things…and quite rapidly?
When my late wife and I were house hunting, there was a house that we looked at that was, shall we say, dated in its interior design? My wife was all about design and contemporary things, so she had made several comments regarding how dated the house was. We went into the basement, which was orange and brown and gold and looked like something from the late 60’s. Again, my wife commented on how much it would cost just to update. At this point, an elderly woman suddenly showed up where we were and began screaming at my wife, who was oblivious to the ghost in every way. She and the real estate agent were going to go back upstairs, and I asked to just have a minute in the basement and then I would join them. At this point, I turned to the ghost and said, “So you feel pretty offended by what was said about your home?” “Yes!” she replied, “She has NO BUSINESS saying these things about my home!” I then said, “You do realize that this house is for sale, right?” to which she replied, “Over my dead body!” I then said, “Um, about that…you do realize that you are dead, right?” She looked me straight in the eye, pointed her finger at me and said, “THAT is IRRELEVANT!” So, we left. We told the agent what was experienced, and he said he was going to pass the information on to the listing agent. I gave him my card and said, “If they take it seriously, I can help clear her out.” They obviously did not take it seriously, as I have never heard from them. The good part of it was that, after we viewed that house, we immediately viewed the lovely house that we ended up purchasing!
And this brings me to the ghost of my late wife. She died quite suddenly in her sleep, after suffering a slip and fall at work the day before. We took her to the hospital and got her checked out, and they released her with pain meds, thus we thought everything would be fine. So, waking up to her dead in bed was quite the jolt to my being. But what compounded that trauma was the arrival at our house of her parents. They were, very understandably, upset. By the time they had arrived she had already been pronounced dead and the police were in the house. Her mother walked into my house and immediately began hitting me and accusing me of killing her daughter. One of the police officers stepped in immediately and informed her that if she lay a finger on me, she would be instantly arrested and charged with assault. The strange thing about this is that, while she was attacking me, my wife’s ghost was trying to pull her off me and was yelling, “Mom! What the hell are you doing?! STOP THAT!” She was quite frustrated by the fact that as she was trying to grab her mother, her hands kept moving through her mother instead of connecting on a physical level. As her mother was pulled away, I looked into my wife’s eyes. She had tears rolling down her cheeks and she said, “I am so sorry! This is not at all the way I wanted this to go.” Truly, the events after one passes rarely are the way the deceased would want things to go. It is always just how it ends up unfolding. For months after that my wife would visit me now and then. The bond between us was so strong that it took quite a while…long after her body was in the ground…for us to release each other. But we managed to do so and I somehow, with the support of friends and my current partner, managed to move on in life. Sometimes it just takes a while to let the entire process of grief to play itself out.
So those are personal experiences of ghosts and working with them. I have also, through my work, had experiences with ghosts that have shown up here and there during space clearings. But I won’t go into that as this is something that is more confidential between myself and my clients.