Where we left off last time: “Adam, whose name I didn’t know at the time, was behind an old building near the train tracks. He was from a very long time ago and was dressed like a traveler or trader, probably in his 30’s, and was being hunted. He was terrified and hiding, and then had to experience an awful moment of being found. It was maybe a three or four minute loop, which I watched again and again. Could he actually have been stuck like this for decades? Centuries? I felt in my body the urge to go set him free, like I had done it a million times before, but I didn’t even know were to begin. Plus, I’m making all of this up, right?”
This guy didn’t leave my brain for the next three months. Almost every day I thought about going over to Wake Forest to do…something. But what kind of weirdo sets off on a mission to free a spirit that is likely a figment of the weirdo’s imagination?
Some days it’s very easy to begin to think that this imagination is heavily influenced by some kind of measurable chemical imbalance, because when I look in the mirror I see someone who, by all accounts, is categorically normal. And yet, my daily experiences are the kinds of things that tend to quickly result in a bevy of psychiatric appointments and prescriptions. How would I even know if I’ve lost my thread to reality? I’ve quietly determined that if the time comes, I won’t fight a stay in my local psychiatric facility. I’ll put on the grippy socks and take the meds and eat the applesauce. But for now, it feels right to soldier on in this weirdly beautiful journey.
Probably because of my wavering sense of sureness in myself, I let the holidays and the doldrums of winter delay any real action on the part of the spirit in crisis. But then, one bright and crisp Saturday morning, Jason suggested we make the journey over there so that I could do the deed, knowing it was weighing heavily on my spiritual to-do list. Feeling a bit buoyed by his confidence in me, I rode a tiny manic wave of adrenaline and agreed- sure, let’s go. We set off for Wake Forest.
Should I just…stand over here or something? Jason asked when we got there. We were behind one of the buildings on main street, which all butted up to the active train tracks that ran straight through town. There were piles of dilapidated pallets, trash cans, and small landings leading to back doors lining one side of the tracks, while the other was buffered by a strip of unkempt trees and undergrowth. The day was clear and beautiful, and I perched on the back steps of a business I hoped no one was in while Jason wandered along the tracks. Close, but not too close.
While the sun warmed my face, wrapped in my ridiculous oversized wool coat, I opened my “ghost eye” and lowered any energetic walls I was using to separate my consciousness from the spirit world. I don’t know how, I just do it. And there he was, about twenty feet away to my left, standing near the train tracks that disappeared when I looked into his world. It was darker in the scene around him, trees thick and dense, the ground heavily covered in underbrush and fallen pine needles. He was wearing some kind of hat, thick leather pants, stained and worn, and a heavily constructed coat. He was carrying a long gun and seemed to have a bag slung over his shoulder. As soon as I appeared, he stopped.
Who is it? he asked. Who are you?
He looked at me as if he was trying to see the wind. I somehow allowed some part of me (my spirit body?) to stand up and walk over to him, even though the rest of me stayed seated on the steps. I could tell that he could see me more clearly. Hi, I’m Andrea, I’m here to help you. What’s your name?
Adam. Adam Grainger, ma’am.
He was weirdly deferent all of a sudden. Proper. As it seems to happen, he “told” me his story without saying words. He was a fur trader and adventurer, using his job to make it as far across the country as he could. He was from very long ago, late 1600’s? He had stopped nearby at some kind of outpost, and had fallen in love with a girl- the daughter of the man he was doing business with. He stayed there for a while, resting and gearing up for the next leg of his journey, and (here’s where it gets fuzzy because he didn’t want me to see the details, I guess)- he did something worthy of being chased by this man, the girls’ father, and his associates. Obviously, they killed him for whatever it was. His death was so terrifying and abrupt that something in his spirit didn’t fully register that his body had died, and so he kept fighting. For hundreds of years.
Why are you still here? Do you know that you’re dead?
He showed me a brother, near to his age and handsome, who had just had a child with his pretty young wife. Adam loved the child and had wanted to build a house next to his brother, so their children could grow up together. It seems that leaving the woman he loved, and the hope for a family and a life with the people he cared about, was keeping him tied to this earth. In fighting his own death for so long, he began to feel like he was fighting for them.
You don’t have to stay. Your brother isn’t here anymore. He seemed to understand what I was saying, but it’s a hard decision to leave the thing that you’re afraid is keeping you whole and giving you purpose. Especially if you don’t know where you’re going.
I could tell he needed some encouragement. So, Adam, do you want to go…up there? I still have no clue what to call it. I could say Heaven, but I don’t want to make people think they’re about to spend eternity singing hymns to a shiny bearded white man. My ambiguity didn’t help, and he seemed unsure. I was wondering why he would rather stay here in a terror of his own making than go on, but then he showed me his fear: hell. I could see his image of what he imagined it to be- drowning in lava, burning to near death but never dying. He was sure he was destined for an eternity of suffering, probably thanks to some deeply misconstrued interpretations of scripture, his lack of connection to the spirit world when he died, and his shame for whatever wrongdoings he had committed.
My favorite part of this is assuring everyone that there is no hell, and just like everyone else, he quickly believed me with no argument. It doesn’t feel right to us, does it? The concept of eternal suffering. Why would that be a thing when forgiveness is a thing? Adam was happy to toss that idea out the window and agreed to go, and once again the dumb golden steps came out of the sky like some stupid game show. This time I walked him to the bottom of the steps and halfway up, as I was led to do, handing him off to a few excited spirits who would take him the rest of the way. He turned to thank me sincerely, tipping his hat. I got weird about it and was like YEAH NO PROBLEM! BYE!
The steps disappeared and I stood in Adam’s world for a moment, like a bubble around me: the dark forest giving way to the bright clear day about ten feet away from me in all directions. I could see myself sitting on the steps behind the building, wrapped in my silly coat and deep in meditation, and I wondered how far I could wander from my body? I had never done this before…whatever this is called. Leaving your body, but in your mind. But I’m just imagining it right? And then I started overthinking it and decided it was time to end this adventure before I did some kind of permanent damage, and walked over and sat down into…myself.
I cannot explain to you how weird that was. BUT IM GONNA TRY- okay, do you remember gak? That awful-smelling goo made by Nickelodeon, like thick jello but more destructive? It came in garish colors packed into starfish shaped plastic containers, and left your hands smelling like toxic chemicals all day. (My brother once combined three colors into a massive ball of grey horror and left it on the seats of our old suburban. It spread out, settling into the crevices of the fabric seats and traveling deep into the seatbelt mechanism, drying to a thick grey crust. My mother outlawed gak shortly thereafter.) It was extremely satisfying to plop your neon mound of gak into its plastic home, spreading to fill each leg, making glorious fart sounds if you pushed it at the right moment. And THAT, my friends, is a very long way to describe what it felt like for my spirit to come back into my body- a squishy mound of goo being pushed into its container. Without the fart sounds, though.
After settling back into myself, Jason and I walked along the railroad tracks for a while. We spent the rest of the day perusing a book shop, walking around an old cemetery, going for a country drive, and out for a quiet dinner. The spirit world is all around us, a symphony surrounding us at all times. While I’m very thankful for my ability to see and interact with it, I’m far more thankful for the simple blessings of this life: holding hands with my love, a beautiful sunset, or a delicious meal. However “spiritual” you or I become, we must never lose our connection to this life, and the gift that it is. Pursuing a connection with God, or Angels, or Whoever should never come at the cost of pursuing a connection with our neighbors. Because THAT, friends, is the point.
Andrea
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