The Ghost Photographer

by Julie Rieger

  Back pain? No.

  Have you been anyplace exotic? Yes, New Orleans.

  “Well, I guess it could be that.” Dr. Szeftel laughs with his deep New Zealand twang. “Could you go to work today and perform your duties?”

  “No,” I reply.

  “Julie, could you have driven here today?”

  “No.”

  Finally the doc gives us a diagnosis. “I think you have encephalitis. Suzanne, you need to take her home, keep an eye on her, don’t let her do anything except watch television. No driving. No working for at least ten days.” Then the good doctor prescribes antibiotics and sends us on our merry little way.

  I have no idea what encephalitis is at the time, and perhaps you don’t, either, so here it is in a nutshell: Encephalitis is inflammation of the brain. Yes, it’s like a swollen brain. According to mayoclinic.org, the symptoms range from confusion, agitation or hallucinations, seizures, and loss of sensation in certain areas of the body, to muscle weakness, double vision, problems with speech or hearing, and loss of consciousness. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

  We have just entered into a New Year: 2015. I had decided to write this book on Christmas 2014 when my brain decided, ten days later, to go on hiatus in la-la land. La-la land is a scary place for a control freak like me, by the way.

  I thought that menopause was bad, but I am wrong. I am really, really, really wrong.

  I am slow. Everything is slow around me. I can’t talk much, if at all. I look into the mirror and kinda recognize that person. I don’t move much for five days after Dr. Szeftel’s diagnosis. I burn a little sage and take a few shots with my iPhone in our backyard, but five minutes later I don’t really remember doing it. There is certainly more activity happening outside of my brain then there is inside of it.

  Monday rolls around and I delude myself into thinking that I’m ready to go back to work. (My mom instilled an intense work ethic in me from birth.) Still, I know that my body is nowhere ready to be back in the real world, much less my mind. I have to present our media campaign to our chairpeople at an 11 a.m. meeting and am petrified. I’m never petrified over these things. Give me the mic any day. But today? Who is this person who’s afraid to speak?

  I muddle through the presentation, barely alive. Later in the meeting I watch a bunch of new television commercials but can’t keep up with them. For the rest of the day I barely exist. I try to recognize certain people and things. I also try to avoid certain people and things, particularly the stairs, as in: Remind me, please, how do I put one foot in front of the other without tumbling over myself in an involuntary cartwheel?

  The next day doesn’t feel terribly different. I don’t want to eat or drink, either—another sure sign that I’m practically comatose. The only thing that briefly comes to mind is a Pop-Tart. I haven’t had one in ten years (Pop-Tarts and weight loss don’t make good bedfellows), but there it is: the vision of a sugary toaster pastry that’s still a junk food favorite for millions of Americans.

  I call Brenda and leave her a message. I had not talked with her since the previous week when she said she’d gotten hit hard with a bug that knocked her down for five days. Finally I’m sitting in my office when I get a call from her.

  “Hello, my elf,” she says.

  “Oh thank God, witchy-poo. How are you?” I proceed to tell her everything about my doctor’s visit and my weird-ass delirium.

  “Uh-huh,” Brenda says matter-of-factly, as if she knew exactly what I was going to say.

  “Why did you respond with such familiarity?”

  “That’s what Dr. Dave tested me for: viral meningitis.”

  “No way. I didn’t know you were having brain issues.”

  “I was out of it. Hardly raised my head for five days,” Brenda says.

  “Me, too.” I give her more details about how shitty I’ve been feeling. “I wasn’t in my body,” I add. “A few times I actually thought that I might die. I thought this is what death was like. But I promised Suz that I’d be okay, so I fought to find something human, something relatable.”

  Brenda takes a deep breath, then says: “I think we had the same experience, except I just gave in to it. I was okay if I was dying. I thought I was dying, too.”

  “How funny that the essence of who we are came out during our temporary brain infection: I won’t give in, it’s just my nature. And you—you surrender. It’s who you are. Neither is right or wrong. It’s just who we are. Kinda cool, actually.” After a beat I add: “Suz knew that something was wrong when I asked for Pop-Tarts.”

  There’s a long pause on the other end of the line. Then: “What did you just say?”

  “I said Suz should have clued in when—”

  “The only time I spoke in five days is when David, my beloved, asked me if I was hungry, and I said that the only thing that sounded good was Pop-Tarts,” Brenda replies.

  There’s another long pause, only now it’s the sound of us both pondering in stunned silence the odds of this weird connection. I might be a sucker for Pop-Tarts, but Brenda? Processed foods are entirely off her radar. She eats kale, mung beans, ghee, and ayurvedic spices. A Pop-Tart is the last fucking thing that enters her culinary consciousness, let alone her pantry. Get the picture here?

  Nothing psychic or spiritual ever shocks Brenda, but I think this Pop-Tart connection from the universe has pretty much done it.

  I suddenly imagine Brenda and me hanging out in the astral plane while our physical bodies are wrestling with encephalitis.

  “Hey,” my astral self says. “Let’s play a trick on our lower selves by repeating a code word that’s totally out of the ordinary. What do you say, Brenda, you in?”

  “Heck yeah,” she replies. “How about Pop-Tarts? I’ve never eaten one in my life. And you’re dieting right now, so odds are they’re not in your food pantry. So that would be a sure sign for both of us.”

  Then we high-five in the astral plane and watch our sick physical bodies in different parts of the country lie around in bed, thinking about Pop-Tarts.

  Either way you view this experience, it certainly wasn’t a coincidence. There’s really no such thing. I call it divine timing. If everything is a coincidence, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have experienced the wild side of the Other Side that shook me to my very core.

  I now understand that everything is connected beyond our everyday comprehension. “I became aware that we’re all connected,” Anita Moorjani wrote in her bestseller Dying to Be Me. “This was not only every person and living creature, but the interwoven unification felt as though it were expanding outward to include everything in the universe—every human, animal, plant, insect, mountain, sea, inanimate object, and the cosmos. I realized that the entire universe is alive and infused with all of life and nature. Everything belongs to an infinite Whole. I was intricately, inseparably enmeshed with all of life. We’re all facets of that unity—we’re all One, and each of us has an effect on the collective Whole.”

  We all have to pay attention to who we are during the unpredicted and unscripted moments in our lives in order to experience our interconnectedness. We have to open ourselves up to the possibility that everything we assumed was impossible might in fact be possible. Only in those moments do we truly discover who we are.

  Are all those moments like a romp through the land of lollipops? No, they are not. Sometimes they take you to a place where you feel desperate and alone. The loss of my mom—and the mistaken belief that our connection was lost forever—catapulted me onto this path of self-discovery. One of my favorite Brenda-isms is this: “The universe gives you what you’re supposed to have.” And you know what? It’s not always sugar on a stick.

  Sometimes we need to get knocked around a bit.

  Or we need to experience pain and grief.

  Sometimes our lives need to fall apart so we can rebuild them from the foundation.

  Or we need to experience rejection or the challenge of making a hard decision.

  But when w
e’re able to shed our self-pity, insecurities, or even blame, we come to realize that even the devastating moments are part of a greater path that will eventually lead us to an understanding of that interconnected whole that Moorjani refers to.

  I now know that a soul connection can’t be broken by the death of a physical body. This, dear readers, falls into the indisputable camp. I also know that unconditional love is just that: unconditional. Still, I would love to say that I no longer fear death. I do—just not my own. The pain of losing someone you love is treacherous. But it can spark a flame that lights the path to an incredible learning experience not just about the universe, but about yourself. Every single day, through the ritual of prayer, grounding, and listening to my higher self, my light burns brighter, my path becomes more illuminated.

  I’m so grateful to be able to communicate on a regular basis with my mom—the incredible woman who once refused a sangria—and my other guides like Jacob. These connections make my world quite peaceful and have changed me in so many ways, even small, unexpected ones. The other day I saved a damn bee from drowning in our pool; I watched the little fella buzz over the top of the water and land smack-dab in the middle of the pool. I balanced him on the back of my hand, then placed him on dry land where he shook the water off his wings, then flew away. Overall, I have to confess: I think I’m far more fucking delightful than I was before.

  I also listen not just to spirits, but to humans, too. If you think you’re having a one-on-one conversation with me, odds are it’s a three-way conversation with Jacob chiming in when he feels it’s helpful. In the past I was often so concerned about what I was going to say next that I’d forget to listen—or didn’t particularly care to. Now, listening is instinctual and actually brings me more peace, because we all say dumb shit to fill a silent moment. If you’re grounded and paying attention, dumb shit happens less frequently. And by the way, when I’m listening you might find me asking permission to share Jacob’s insights with you. Taming my blurting ways was not easy, but it was incredibly pleasant for all involved.

  If I had children, I’d tell them about my strange awakening. I’d tell them to remember that the ultimate superpower is indeed love. I’d tell them that by opening yourself to the possibility of impossibilities, you discover the magic within and the magic all around us, from the little black rock that you can hold in the palm of your hand for protection from unseen malevolent forces, to that voice you might hear from the Other Side that remarkably saves your life, to the swing of a pendulum that delivers a message from a higher energy (and let’s not forget the alien that might show up in your backyard).

  In the end, I’d tell my children to believe in our magical universe, even if at first glance it looks like make-believe.

  APPENDIX ONE

  Protect Your Space: Brenda’s Smudging and House-Clearing Instructions

  WHAT YOU WILL NEED

  You’ll need to acquire two sage smudge sticks and a candle or a good source of flame in case the stick goes out while you’re working. Roll the stick between the palms of your hands a couple of times in order to loosen it a bit. If it’s tied too tightly, it won’t stay lit. Don’t crush it, though, or it will burn too quickly.

  You will also need something that you can use to fan the smoke of the smudge stick. I like to use a sacred feather tool but a hand fan or strong, thick paper or the back of a paper tablet will do, too. If you’re using a paper product, it’s always nice to decorate it or infuse with your energy or a picture of something that resonates with your spirit.

  I also suggest you have a container that you can use to carry under the smudge stick while you’re using it, as it will drop little bits of charred stick as you go. I like to use a large alabaster shell that is sacred to me, but any item you are comfortable with and that is noncombustible will do.

  It’s also nice to use a shell to have the element of the water to round out the elemental aspect—fire from the burning smudge stick, the air from the fanning, and the earth from the herbs.

  PREPARING FOR YOUR SMUDGING

  I like to start at the “bottom” of the house and work my way up to the top level. So starting at the lowest level of the place you are about to clear, sit down on the floor, light your candle, and take three deep breaths, allowing your thoughts to clear and your inner/energetic body to expand more with each breath.

  Say a prayer for protection—whatever you feel comfortable with that allows you to align with the divine, allowing nothing to come between that alignment. If you are familiar with your spirit guide, now would be a good time to call it in. If none of this sounds familiar or comfortable, then simply call in Archangel Michael, which is always a good move. Or you can use my favorite prayer for protection, which Brenda taught me:

  I bring down a ray of divine light filled with love and protection and I draw a circle around my energetic body. Into the circle I place the white light of peace, the blue light of healing, the clear red light of energy, and the golden light of God. I direct that nothing and no one shall come between my circle and me. And so it is. Amen.

  GETTING STARTED

  Light your smudge stick from your candle. Let it burn about thirty seconds and then gently blow out the flame, like you could blow out a stick of incense, leaving a trail of smoke continuing to float up from the smudge stick.

  Begin to “trace” the seams of each room with that trail of smoke. That means the floor-to-wall seam and the wall-to-wall seam (i.e., the ceiling to wall). You use the fanning tool throughout the whole process to send the smoke up each seam.

  In addition to the seams of every room, you will also smudge the seams of windows, doorways (of rooms and closets), bookshelves, and mirrors. With your smudge stick or fan, make the infinity sign on each stair of the staircase and over mirrors and over drains (sinks, toilets, showers, bathtubs, washing machine, dishwasher) the same way. This symbol is particularly helpful in corners under furniture, or anyplace else energy feels “stuck.”

  After you complete each room, open a window or door to the outside and say the following phrase with authority and ownership, “Anything unaligned to my highest good, leave now!” Wait a minute or so, or until you feel the energy has cleared, and then close the window or door and move on to the next room or hallway.

  After you complete every room, closet, hallway, and staircase you are done. Enjoy the freshness and lightness of your newly cleansed space. It’s always nice to seal the process with a prayer of gratitude for the spirits who assisted you and then release them from this assignment.

  If you’re feeling as though you need to amplify your protection, you can always place a small trail of salt around the house or around the property. I also like to leave my smudging tools outside the front door as a symbol to any spirits even thinking about getting back in! Happy Smudging!

  APPENDIX TWO

  Julie’s Ghost Photography: Gallery of Ghosts

  As I’ve mentioned earlier in these pages, discovering ghost photography was a seismic event, my personal inflection point. It marked my shift from psychic voyeur to psychic practitioner. That said, I’ve come to understand that not everyone sees what I do. Some people find the ghost photographs illusive; others are doubters and die-hard skeptics like I used to be.

  Let’s not dismiss the doubters.

  Here’s what I’ve heard from them:

  “Ohhhh that’s weird, but I don’t see it.”

  “How do you know the smoke didn’t make that pattern?”

  “That looks like a Rorschach test.”

  “Maybe it’s a shadow.”

  “That’s not what I thought a ghost should look like.”

  Let me share my favorite conversation with one such skeptic. I was having lunch on a studio lot with a former boss. He’s a giant among men, both physically and intellectually. We both share the graying of the mane and may be two of the only people I know who don’t color their hair. He’s too practical to color his hair. And me, well, I’m too damn lazy. The “natural l
ook” is a bullshit excuse for being lazy. I use it regularly.

  The only time I didn’t wear T-shirts and jeans to work was many years ago when I had my first job interview with him. For that, I added a shirt that I bought at Old Navy for $3.50. During the interview he didn’t ask much about my work experience; instead, he looked at the bottom of my résumé where it noted the full athletic scholarship for golf that got me into the University of Oklahoma. Our conversation went something like this:

  “You play golf?”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “So you’re a competitor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We need more of you.”

  I didn’t turn him on with my slick connections to Hollywood royalty; I turned him on because I’m a competitor. He wanted fire, and that’s what he got. He didn’t bargain for ghosts, however.

  Anyhow, one day years later I decided to test it out with him (my ghost photos, not my golf) when I saw him sitting in a booth in a commissary dining room. After giving him an uncomfortably (only to him) long hug, I sat down to enjoy an hour with the man who once said to me: “We can sleep when we’re dead.” This guy works harder than anyone in Hollywood. He is never satisfied and is intellectually curious. When he’s not perfecting, he’s studying—the ideal antagonist to my newly found metaphysical interests.

  Our conversation went something like this:

  Him: Jules. You look great. How’s everything? I sure do miss you.

  Me: I’m good, thanks. Been swimming every morning with my dog Homer, so I feel great. And I miss you, too.

  After industry talk and gossip, we get to the good stuff.

  Him: What else have you been up to?

  Me: Well (pause), I mentioned in my e-mail that I wrote a book.

  Him: Yeah, what’s it about?

  Me: (another pause) It’s called The Ghost Photographer.

  He nods as if he knows what it’s about.

  Me: It’s nonfiction.

  Him: (big laugh) Well, you know, Jules, I don’t believe in that stuff.