Jump Girl

by Salicrow

  This was not always an easy thing for my kids. They had to grow up being the witch’s kids, which meant they got picked on for doing Reiki in the playground when a friend got hurt and celebrating different holidays from most of their peers. It meant they didn’t go to church on Sunday but instead celebrated the changing of the seasons and learned that God/Goddess was in everything. They were more likely than their friends to get caught doing something naughty, because their mom would know or the spirits would rat them out. After a while they got it. As my daughter told my son, “Don’t even try to fool her or hide anything from her.” Other than that, we had a pretty normal life.

  When my kids were young, I devoted most of my time to them and my clothing business. The psychic stuff was on the side—something I loved, a hobby I made money at. As time went by, though, it became more and more obvious that the universe was pushing my life’s work into the realm of psychic working.

  By the time I was twenty-eight, my husband and I owned two businesses with friends, the aforementioned bar and store. The store sold metaphysical products, clothing, and jewelry downstairs, tobacco and tobacco products upstairs. This is where I first began to teach and where my gift of psychic sight and tarot reading got its first public workout. The bar, Phat Kat’s, was more my husband’s thing. I only worked there one day a week to book bands, host theme parties, and take care of anything related to publicity.

  The combination of the bar and the store really pushed my abilities to their limit. I was doing readings more and more steadily, and my reputation grew. Having my own shop created a place for people to find me. The bar, however, felt toxic to me because I found that people dumped their shit there without thinking. It was as if I were walking around with a sign above my head that said, Please dump your shit here.

  I look back at my late twenties as years caught in the dramatic swing of Saturn’s return: a bizarre sitcom about school boards, Brownie troops, and fundraisers on the one hand, and on the other a fringe society of guys in bars, head shops, and witchcraft. I’m not much of an astrologer, having never been drawn to the math and charts of it, but I do know that Saturn returns to the place where it was at our birth every twenty-ninth year, with its influence extending from the twenty-seventh to the thirtieth cycle. The completion of this loop carries a cosmic kick. If we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing, we get an additional whack in the direction of our goals. If we aren’t, Saturn’s return feels like an ass-kicking.

  I was somewhere in between. I had the right idea, I was flirting with the true purpose of my life, but I was not taking it seriously. I had a store that sold metaphysical items and I read cards out of it, but it was first and foremost a clothing store. I was doing psychic work, and it was opening me, but I also felt overwhelmed by the weight of other people’s emotions and hardships. I was starting to feel sick physically because I carried too much of other people’s stuff in my own energetic body.

  The combination of metaphysical study and doing daily psychic readings opened my perception. Spirits were showing themselves to me more often, not just the spirits of the human dead but spirits of nature as well. My perception was shifting. My study of Wicca helped me with establishing boundaries, and I began to visualize white light as a way of calling upon the energy of the universe to surround me with protection from other people’s and entities’ energy.

  In my healing work with Jimmy, I got a glimpse of the human energy field and began to do journey work—guided visioning or visualization. At first I used this process to examine my own illness and the story woven into it. I began to heal my wounded child, the “me” who loved her father very much but hated the man he had become. I rewrote the outcome, changing the story from its end in sickness and pain to a version in which the same experience became a teaching that made me stronger.

  My coven sisters and I began weaving together the things we had learned, doing journey work together in sacred space. We would stretch out together on the floor or couches of one of our living rooms, and we’d allow our minds to travel. My mind travels easily. This is in part because I have always been a lucid dreamer, used to being on the border in a state of wakeful sleep. I spend a lot of my day in this intermediate zone. Any time I communicate with a spirit or do a psychic reading, I’m in this state. It has become a comfortable place for me.

  The journey work we were doing in the coven was usually tailored to a particular element or earth cycle because we were working on developing our relationship to the flow of the seasons and the powers of nature. But no matter where we were being guided, I always seemed to come in contact with the spirits of the dead. This didn’t surprise me. The first time I did hypnosis with Jimmy, I met both John and Grammy Brown. I had gotten used to this happening, but I did find it slightly odd that I was often the only one who talked about seeing someone dead in their journey.

  Samhain, also known as Halloween, is one of the eight Celtic holidays in the Wheel of the Year. It’s the time of year when the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest, making it easier for people to see, feel, and hear their beloved dead. Samhain is considered to be the beginning point, the first of the annual holidays, and a day for honoring our dead: the spirits of our friends, family, ancestors, and guides.

  When Samhain came around that year, the Sisters of the Moon held our ceremony at 11 p.m. on October 31. We timed it so we’d be communicating with spirits when the clock struck midnight. We also chose a late hour because we all had kids, which meant costumes, trick-or-treating, and candy happened earlier in the evening.

  We held the ceremony outside next to a good-sized fire, heavily bundled in layers and cloaks. Eleven p.m. on October 31 in Vermont is cold! We were using a Ouija board together as a group for the first time, so we were careful with our protection and took extra precautions. We surrounded the circle with candles and herbs, visually creating boundaries and sacred space. The altar was filled with pictures, mementos, and other personal reminders of our ancestors.

  As soon as we placed our hands on the board, the planchette began to move, making small circles as it flitted from letter to letter. The spirits were anxious to communicate. One of them was my friend John. It was the first time I had spoken to him through the use of a board; most of the time he visited me in my dreams. I could feel his energy present in our sacred space. The way he wrote out his words was exactly the way he would have spoken if he had been alive.

  This really stood out to me as an important lesson. I saw that the way a person says something, the manner in which they put their words together, is a key ingredient of soul-level recognition. As a medium, that recognition is one of the things I strive for in my work. I’m always trying to connect with the spirit on a deep enough level that I can convey their personality in the words I say to their family. I often think back to how powerful it was to recognize John’s mannerisms in the way he put his words together on the board.

  A month or so later, I was at Sandy’s house, sitting at her table and having coffee with her as she gave me a tarot reading while our kids played together in the snow outside. Sandy was reading my future path, which was not at all what I expected to hear about. I was really focused on my clothing business at the time, thinking that the recent improvement in my health meant I’d have more energy to devote to it. In my belly I knew the time for a big decision was approaching within the year, but I could not see clearly what it was about. I knew it had something to do with my business, but that was as far as I could see. I know now that my emotions clouded my view and blinded me to what was coming.

  As Sandy laid out the cards, she got a quizzical look on her face, tilting her head slightly to one side and lifting her eyebrow. When the last cards were laid out, she raised her head, looked me in the eyes, and said with a smile, “You’re going to be having tea parties with dead people.”

  I was taken aback and left speechless for a moment, but when I held the thought in my mind, even though I couldn’t see the how or the why of it, I knew it was a t
rue statement.

  32

  Touched by Spirit

  My spiritual life, personal life, and work life were being finely woven into an intricate braid. I was seeing spirits more often and more clearly, and it was becoming obvious that they wanted my attention.

  It had also become clear that there was a spirit residing in our bar. I first saw him while bartending on a slow night. A mirror behind the cash register allowed us to keep an eye on the bar while our backs were turned. I was ringing up someone’s tab when I noticed a young man in his twenties waving at me in the mirror. He was wearing a light-colored polo shirt and had wavy hair cut in a short mullet. He looked like he came from the mid-1980s, but this was the end of the nineties, and the mullet had long since gone the way of the Dorothy Hamill and other faddish hairstyles.

  I quickly turned around but didn’t see anyone who looked like him at the bar. It was a slow night, so there was no way I could have missed him, and he couldn’t have left the bar in the time it took me to turn around. Later that night, I caught sight of him again, standing near one of the pool tables, and this time I could clearly see that he was a spirit, not a customer. Over the next few months I saw more and more of him, catching him again and again in the mirror, next to the pool tables, and near the bathrooms. When I finally told someone I’d seen him, I discovered that a few others had also glimpsed him in various places in the bar, most frequently near the pool tables and the bathrooms.

  There wasn’t anything particularly scary about him, so I decided not to do anything about his presence. After all, who was I to say he needed to leave the bar and move on? He seemed well adjusted and aware of the fact that he was dead. He hadn’t died there; he was just a young man whose soul didn’t know where else to go upon death, so he went to the bar. To me, this meant he was a spirit, not a ghost. The difference is that a spirit knows he or she is dead; a ghost does not completely understand this fact.

  Having a spirit in the bar seemed fitting, as our other shared business involved the occult and altered states of consciousness. In fact, most of us were comfortable with the idea and joked about it openly. However, the young man did something one afternoon that made me reconsider my boundaries with his world.

  I had been working at the store all day but agreed to open the bar, as Noel was running late. Our two businesses were literally across the street from one another, so it wasn’t a big deal. Phat Kat’s was a basement bar, long and narrow, with poor ventilation and a smoke eater that didn’t work. It tended toward the dingy and smelled a bit like a spilled drink. The walls were covered with photographs of parties at the bar and people who frequented the establishment. It had been a college bar for decades, with many names and incarnations along the way, yet the energy of the place pretty much stayed the same. It was grungy, but I could handle it. It was kind of like an uncle who is harmless but always smells like beer.

  Being in a basement, it was pitch black without the lights on, and you had to go behind the bar to get to the main switch. That meant you had to walk around the bar with only the light that shined in from the stairwell. Being in there in the dark, you could feel the energy of the place. Its genius locus dwelled there like an old friend who knew how to keep a secret.

  When I turned the lights on I saw the cases of beer stacked in the middle of the room and remembered it was a beer-delivery day. I put on the music and began moving the cases from the main room into the beer closet. When I was almost finished, I bent over to grab one of the last boxes, and someone pinched my ass.

  I stood up quickly and spun around, expecting to find my husband with a shit-eating grin on his face. Instead I saw an empty room. I was the only person in the bar—or the only living person, I should say. I couldn’t see anyone, but I knew immediately who had pinched my butt.

  I pointed my finger and spoke in a loud, stern voice: “It is NOT OKAY for you to touch me. In no way, and at no time, are you given permission to touch my body.” My energy and my words made it completely clear that I did not approve of his actions. As I scolded him, he came out of hiding. It was obvious he had meant no harm. His personality was that of the class clown, and I imagine he had thought it would be fun to get my goat. But I’m not the kind of person who would let a living person touch me without my permission, and I wasn’t about to let a dead one start doing it either. His action made clear to me that I needed to establish some boundaries with regards to how he interacted with me.

  The dead need to be treated with the same rules of engagement as the living. I wouldn’t make appointments at 3 a.m. for my living clients, and I don’t do it for the dead ones either. I treat them with respect and expect the same in return. The rules I follow and the boundaries I’ve created over the years have all been for my own good and for that of the people I work with, on both sides of the veil.

  To this day I still stand by the rule that it’s not okay for spirits to touch me. I give and withdraw permission for contact. The only spirits allowed to make contact with my body are ones that I have specifically given permission to, which means they are spirits I have a personal connection with.

  I never learned the name of the dead guy from the bar, but I never asked, either. I still find names to be one of the hardest things for me to get. It’s a personal block that I’ll most likely work through at some point. Already spirits have come up with clever ways to try to get me to know their names, like the time a spirit showed me a hairy chest over and over. When I told the spirit’s family what I’d seen, they broke out laughing and told me the spirit’s name was Harry.

  33

  The White-Haired Man

  My clothing business I mentioned earlier was focused on festival clothing, medieval and belly-dancing costumes, and ritual garb. For fun we held costume parties and played Dungeons and Dragons once a week with the same group. Quite often I was the Dungeon Master because I loved to create stories and worlds. Otherwise I typically played the role of a priestess or healer. This character class allowed me to explore the possibilities I believed existed in reality.

  I was becoming more and more interested in the concept of spiritual healing, particularly through the laying on of hands. Priests in D&D could heal with their hands by channeling divine energy. The possibility of translating this game activity into an actual ability became a regular topic of thought for me. The more I thought about it, the more I believed it was possible. After all, my Wonder Woman aspect did this kind of thing from time to time.

  One night in the late spring I was overcome with the idea that I needed to go out into the woods and ask the gods to give me the power to heal with my hands. Like so many other experiences I’d had with spirit, I knew I was ready, and I felt the gods expected me to do this. It was important, and it was real. So I gathered my ritual goods in a basket—candles, incense, a few crystals, and a smudge stick—and headed for the woods wearing nothing but a cloak.

  I walked down a path on my neighbor’s property. No one lived there at the time; it was just an old cabin sitting empty. We were friendly with the elderly couple who owned it and were allowed to walk on their groomed trails. I had a favorite spot on their land, a place where the energy was potent. When I reached my spot, I put down my basket and began to set up sacred space. I put my altar in the north and placed small crystals in all of the directions. I lit the candles and incense, setting them by the altar. I then walked around the small circle three times with the smudge stick, cleaning and clearing my energy. I dropped my cloak and stood naked in the middle of the path.

  I felt vulnerable standing before the gods naked with nothing to offer but myself, but I also felt the importance of humility, because what I was asking for required me to see past myself into the greater good. I was not standing before the powers that be asking for power for myself; I was standing before creation asking for the ability to heal with my hands.

  I got down on my knees, and I cried out. I proclaimed my desire to be a healing vessel, to allow the energy of the universe to move through me and ai
d others on their path to healing. I wanted to channel light and love; I wanted to be a healer.

  A few weeks later a white-haired man came into my store. He was an average-looking person, a lot like someone’s grandfather. At first sight the scene felt peculiar; a guy like him looked out of place browsing the bookshelves of a metaphysical store. On closer examination, by looking with my intuition I could tell there was more to him than met the eye.

  I asked him if he was looking for anything in particular, and he said he was just in checking to see if anyone had taken his business cards. This was the opening to many conversations. He told me he did energy work and talked a bit about Reiki. At the time I was deeply involved in my study of witchcraft, and Reiki was peripheral to me. I decided to play it out and see where it went.

  The following week, another white-haired man came into my store. This one was more flamboyant and a lot more sexualized. He told me all about himself, how he had studied astrology in great depth and how he practiced ceremonial magic. He stood way too close as he told me that he would love to teach me what he knew. When he mentioned that he also took photographs of nudes, I was pretty sure I knew what price he would ask for teaching me what he knew.

  The two white-haired men had caught my attention and brought my thoughts back around to the prediction my dad’s girlfriend had made. While reading my cards when I was fifteen, she had told me I would meet a white-haired man who would give me an inheritance, but it would not be money.