I died last night

I died last night in my dream. I had a rare form of cancer or some type of disease in my bloodstream. I died quicker than anyone saw coming. I didn't have time to get ready to die. I didn't get to say my goodbyes. Things weren't in order before I departed. I just died and woke up in the middle world, the world where your soul gets stuck in the human plane because you have either not realised that you are dead, you have had a traumatic death, or there's not been enough grief expressed by those still in the human world for your soul to move on. I roamed around watching my family and friends, at one moment coming across my grief-stricken mother lying on a bed. I lay beside and hugged her, but she couldn't feel me. I remembered the last interaction we had, a heated argument. I felt a deep sense of regret.

I continued roaming and met a woman about my age. She was frantically leaving voice notes to her loved ones, but an older lady looked at us both and said, "They won't be able to hear you". I cried at the thought of never speaking to my family and friends again, about all the things I'd left unsaid, about not savouring that last hug. I woke up crying from my dream, parts of me still feeling the rawness of the grief and the other part of me feeling the sadness of all these souls that might be stuck somewhere in the in-between. I have sensed a few of these stuck souls in this last year, dead people I've encountered, spoken to, and felt around me. Teary and bleary-eyed, I looked at my bedside table, my night-time read 'Take back the Magic, conversations with the unseen world' by Perdita Finn.

Life feels, in fact, very different since my world includes my ancestors and those of the unseen world.

As I sat at the kitchen island recounting my dream to my friend Emma in the morning, she talked about the young woman in my dream trying to leave a voice note to her family, "it's telling of our time, how we would think that it would be the only way we could communicate." I wondered what our world would look like if we remembered how to communicate with the unseen world. As Emma would put it, with the trees, mushrooms, and the birds. In the ways our ancestors would have done and in the ways many cultures and religions still do, especially around this time of year. What if it wasn't a yearly practice but a daily practice? What would it be like if we had a small ancestral feeding bowl at every meal, sang their songs, and recited their names?

On Samhain, the ancient Celtic tradition, we had friends over to share a meal and do some ancestry-themed creative writing in the living room by the fireplace. Samhain, being the 31st of October, when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is the thinnest. I was in charge of setting the timer for our writing sprints. We had been writing off the back of a writing prompt, "If I knew my ancestors were listening…" and as I opened my web browser on my phone to check the meaning of a word that had popped into my mind, the search bar read, "I'm okay". I wondered which of our ancestors we were writing about who wanted to let their loved ones know they were okay.

When I started researching my ancestry, having felt called by my ancestors to go on that journey, I had been recommended a book by a friend called 'Ancestral Healing: Rituals for Personal and Family' by Daniel Foor. I thought it would be rather wise caution to enrol in his programme as I ventured into the wild unknown of my family roots. The more I read and studied, the more I realised what a huge impact our unrested deceased loved ones can cause. Midway through my programme, I activated my psychic abilities and instantly took this information to class. I remember sharing this with Daniel, who said, "It's not uncommon that this happens whilst on this course. When we give our attention to the dead and have a sensitivity and openness to the other side, many people want to talk. You're tuning into a frequency, and there are many channels."

As a kid, I used to be afraid of the dark. I was petrified to the toilet in the middle of the night. I'd have to descend from my mezzanine room, through the pitch-dark living room and down the corridor to the bathroom. I was scared of monsters and ghosts. As an adult, I now know I wasn't wrong to be. What I felt was real. The energies I sensed were real. Children often have a sensitivity to the unseen world that, over time, gets eroded because we call it 'an active imagination'. I've learnt that they're not all scary and mean. Lately, I'm noticing people, especially women, talking more and more about "Strange things are happening to me…" or "I feel the presence of my grandmother…" If you find yourself one of those women, yes, that happens. Yes, it's normal. Yes, there are people you can talk to about it.

I wanted to leave you with a short poem I wrote around Samhain that was a collaborative effort with the other side:

I give you my bones so you can sing my sorrow to life. So, my story can be told, and my words are not forgotten. For in my life hold the answers that you seek and the secrets that went unsaid. It is there that I will meet you at the threshold of the veil. Therein, we lay waiting for your prayer to reach the dead. For our hearts are wild with confusion about what happened in our death. And our loved ones are left wondering what happens post-last breath. But fear not, for we are calling, and we wait with much delight. That our day is almost here, and you'll hear our whispers in your ear. So light up your lanterns and place our photos at your bed, for we are ready to be spoken; our story has no end.

For more poetry, you can connect with me here.

With love and magic,

#AuthenticAlex

We have danced long nights at the threshold of intuition, magic, and mystery.

We have been dreaming of you, barefooted with the earth between your toes.

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