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It is possible to retaliate against an enemy, But impossible to retaliate against storms. HAISLA PROVERB
turned back and saw him. Just for a moment, just a glimpse of a tall man, covered in brown fur. He gave me a wide, friendly smile, but he had too many teeth and they were all pointed. He backed into the shadows, then stepped behind a cedar tree and vanished.
I used to think that if I could talk to the spirit world, I’d get some answers. Ha bloody ha. I wish the dead would just come out and say what they mean instead of being so passive-aggressive about the whole thing.
Mountains untouched by clear-cuts, roads or houses rose fiercely high. The bald rocks, scraped by the Ice Ages, were topped by glaciers that melted in the sunshine, the water glittering down the grey cliffs. A sparse treeline started halfway down, thickened into forest, then ended in lush green carpets that fell into the ocean.
I had been transported somewhere magical, full of endless opportunities for adventure.
“You go where you please. You always do.” “That’s right, use a little more guilt, why don’t you?” “I’m a mom. That’s what we do best.”
According to every True Story I’d ever read, sex led to misfortune.
The little man woke me near dawn, his eyes glittering and black. The Winnie the Pooh stories end with Christopher Robin saying he’s too old to play with Pooh Bear. Little Jackie Piper leaves Puff the Magic Dragon. Childhood ends and you grow up and all your imaginary friends disappear.
I hadn’t slept since the little man left me. I kept thinking, Nothing’s wrong. Nothing’s wrong.
On the night Jimmy disappeared, I dreamed he was at Monkey Beach.
Contacting the dead, lesson one. Sleep is an altered state of consciousness. To fall asleep is to fall into a deep, healing trance. In the spectrum of realities, being awake is on one side and being asleep is way, way on the other.
To contact the spirit world, you must control the way you enter this state of being that is somewhere between waking and sleeping.
Make your hand into a fist. This is roughly the size of your heart. If you could open up your own chest, you would find your heart behind your breastbone, nestled between your lungs. Each lung has a notch, the cardiac impression, that the heart fits into. Your heart sits on a slant, leaning into your left lung so that it is slightly smaller than your right lung. Reach into your chest cavity and pull your lungs away from your heart to fully appreciate the complexity of this organ.
Behold, your heart. Touch it. Run your fingers across this strong, pulsating organ. Your brain does not completely control your heart. In the embryo, the heart starts beating even before it is supplied by nerves. The electrical currents that ripple across your heart causing it to contract are created by a small bundle of specialized muscle tissue on the upper right-hand corner of your heart.
Names have power. This is the fundamental principle of magic everywhere. Call out the name of a supernatural being, and you will have its instant and undivided attention in the same way that your lost toddler will have yours the second it calls your name.
Contacting the dead, lesson three. Seeing ghosts is a trick of concentration. You must be able to concentrate on nothing and everything at the same time. You must be both asleep and awake. It should be the only thing on your mind, but you can’t want it or expect it to happen. It’s very Zen.
The hallways were filled with ghosts. They stood watch over their families. Some of them watched me with strange, sad eyes. When I came back to my body, the nurse had called the doctor and they were watching me curiously. They said I had been walking around and around the bed.
As I drove away, I felt deeply comforted knowing that magical things were still living in the world.
Aux’gwalas, the others are singing. Take care of her yourself, wherever you’re going.
