A Witch’s Carol: A Tale of Three Hauntings

Into the Light

Throughout our first year in business, The Sojo was right properly haunted by many a wandering spirit. I knew very little about clearing and warding at the time. We became the sacred ground and meeting place for both living and non-corporeal friends. Since so many of our community are mediums, they regularly reported to me their antics. At least two other times, perfect strangers would describe my mother to me just as Anna had, with the impression that she was very loving and attentive of me specifically. She was often seen joining me in the treatment and class room, and outside it in the hallway.

A psychic medium came to offer her services at the shop, and asked to do a clearing of the building before she began. As we walked around the shop, me with sage, blessing oils, and crystals for the grid, her holding copper dowsing rods, and speaking aloud what she was perceiving, she found two resident spirits, just as others had described them. She helped each one understand and eased them into the light. The dowsing rods would stop reacting, and we’d move on.

We got to that place in the hallway just outside the treatment room and the rods went berserk…slamming to the right as if they were pointing directly at me. Alrena described an older woman, attached to me, very excited in a flood of information coming to her quickly. I asked if it was my mother, Sondra. In an overwhelmed, stream of consciousness way, “YES, YES, I am here, cannot go yet, have to help you, protect you, your sister, the children, I cannot go, forgive me, forgive me, I’m so sorry, I was wrong before, I know now, and I’m sorry, please forgive me, I’m so sorry, I was wrong before, but I know now, please forgive me….”

This goes on a few more rounds while I stand there dumbfounded, and eventually Alrena stops interpreting and implores me to talk to my mother directly.

What do I say? “Mama, what are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything so wrong. You loved us. I love you. I forgive you. We are all fine now. You need to cross over into the light, that is where you belong in the heavens. It is ok. I love you. I forgive you. I’ll see you again, soon.”

Alrena interprets, “Not yet. If I go, I can’t come back.”

Alrena explains to her that the afterlife isn’t exactly as she was told in the Christian church; that her spirit guides are waiting to receive her in the light and they’ll help her to understand everything once she gets there. That it is NOT a one way ticket to heaven, never to return. After she crossedes over, leaving her dense energy behind, she’ll have the freedom to visit, but she has work to do for herself. I invited Mama to be my guide in the future.

It took some persuading, but eventually, Alrena described things as Mama slipped through and was gone. The copper rods stopped slamming around, and the tension and high energy of the moment dissipated, leaving us breathless. Now you might ask, what was to keep Alrena from making all that stuff up? Well, she didn’t know about any of our back story, nor what any others had seen in the shop. Plus, I’m reasonably intuitive myself, and something profound happened for me that day.

Since that clearing, not once have those with the gifts of sight chosen to relay to me any Spirit remotely like my mother being there, nor truly much spirit activity at all, outside of normal circle business, and some Samhain shiftings, because…witchcraft.

I choose to believe that my mother was released from the petty smallness of incarnation, suddenly knowing a higher truth to things. She knew how badly I needed to make changes in my life, and stuck around long enough to help me see my way clear, then make amends. That kind of closure is a precious gift that I will not deny. Besides, once you set your feet to the path of the witch, opening your mind and your heart to the greatness of the Universe, this is the sort of wonder you are asking for. Receive their gifts with grace for the benefits they offer.

I hope that our story affirmed for you that Spirit is universal, love is eternal, and family bonds trump religious divisiveness. While the world seems to be burning down around us due to religious intolerance, may my Witch’s Carol bring a bit of peace to your families this yuletide season.

Blessings,
~Heron

For more postings about the relationship with my mother:

A Wish upon Dying, the tale of our difficult relationship, her sudden passing, and how she worked with me to plan her funeral back in 2007.

Salvation of a Southern Witch,  furthering the tale of how I was raised a Southern Baptist, and the existential crisis that comes from being a teenager who rejects her mother’s religion, and her mother along with it.