Welcome to Dream Interpretation for Dummies, where Dear Abby meets Native Americana. Come to the campfire, peer into the yawning grave, and take a dive into the collective subconscious… or maybe just explore some weird clown imagery. We’ll wait for you here.
Howdy Note: Thank you for all the sweet check-ins about my health and the reminders to rest! I am feeling much, much better and ready to get back into The Work. Most of my voice is back AND I am sleeping. Hooray!
Do you get afraid out here all alone? everyone asked.
Sometimes, I admitted. I’d look around with them. But I sleep well – mostly.
You’re braver than I am, they’d say.
That always made me laugh.
I didn’t feel brave.
In fact, most of the time I felt like I was treading water. Taking in huge gulps of air when I should have been focused on my limbs, on surviving the waves.
Still. I do credit myself with making the house livable, at least to someone like me. All that cleansing, all that salt — sweat and tears. All that – well. It’s over now, isn’t it? I had never planned to stay as long as I did, but these things happen. And then, I had a conversation with Amanda Yates Garcia, and then I read her book, and then I sent her a follow-up email and said: “… I've been living in my late (estranged) dad's (very) haunted house since I decided not to go to my PhD program and it's been tough. I've been thinking about getting out for awhile, but when I read, "But some bathrooms are too dumpy to keep clean, and sometimes a place is just too corrupted to be restored. In that case, the best thing a witch can do for herself is leave." !!! Transformative.”
Like I said, these things happen.
Sitting here, in my new apartment, writing this, I am thinking of a friend. This friend, this week, experienced a haunting of their own, and I am proud to say I helped them through it. I am not at liberty to share all the details but suffice it to say it was a disorienting experience for them. A very disorienting experience. I told them the first steps, what to do if those first steps failed, ways to regularly cleanse the space, tools they could use, materials. I told them I was thinking of them, to set their intentions. That most of all they weren’t crazy, that I understood them, that they could tell me the truth, that I wouldn’t judge them.
And I didn’t.
Anyway, what I’m getting at is this week (and every week), I’m thinking about hauntings. Metaphorical, spiritual, literal, literary, etc. and what we do with them. So, for our collective reading, I channeled this question — what should we do with what haunts us?
Here’s how it went:
Nine of Cups — Okay, I’m not going to lie, this one surprised me a bit. Still, it’s good advice. Disregard the burdens, the heaviness! Give yourself over to the light, some might say superficial (they’re wrong) pleasures of life! Get your nails done, go to the thrift store, watch a dumb movie. Let what haunts you slide off into the abyss and turn your face to the sun.
The Hanged Man (Reversed) — Now we’re back in my wheelhouse. This is one of my favorite cards, actually, and here I am choosing to read the reversal. With this card, we see that denying what haunts us, not accepting it, will never end well. We must embrace it, even if it terrifies us.
King of Wands (Reversed) — Here, we are reminded to temper ourselves, our irritation especially, towards ourselves and others. Everyone walks a different path when it comes to grief, to feeling, to haunting. What seems easy to us might be the most difficult part of another person’s life, and vice versa. By showing what haunts us kindness, we show kindness to all things.
So let’s give ourselves over to a little pleasure, to a little embracing, to a little kindness. This is not to say that nothing bites, that nothing has to teeth, that nothing needs to be banished. I know this and you know it, too. We acknowledge our ghosts for what they are, Dreamers.
Yours (always) in phantomly delights,
Howdy
P.S. Did this message bring anything up for you? Let me know, please!!!
feels like classic shadow work stuff --- in a great way. and i guess maybe "classic" is not a useful word ... for the past few years i have been trying to think of 'shadow work' as 'shadow dancing' so this --- the embrace, the acceptance of others, the not denying ... feels ~classic~ to my pursuit of healing haunts of all kinds. i also like thinking of shadow stuff as hauntings. thank you for this as always.