Let’s create a reverse census. Why count the living? Let’s count the dead and generate a silent roll call.
When talking to a friend of mine who walks in Muir Woods every morning, she told me that as part of her morning ritual, she pauses at the entrance to the park and invites her family and friends who have died to walk with her. She said, “Being in those woods is like being in a sanctuary with all my special people. I ask them to guide and inspire me throughout the day.”
I decided to adopt my friend’s idea and extend an invitation to my dead folks. This took time and careful reflection. First, I needed to identify all those who had died in my intimate circle and then I had to discern whether or not I wanted them with me. Not everyone made the cut.
My personal census count looks like this:
- Four grandparents
- Two parents
- Four uncles
- One son
- One daughter
- One ex-husband
- One lover
- 14 close friends
- Seven mentors
And for good measure, I decided to add some others: Jane Adams, Pearl Buck, Emily Dickinson, Hildegard of Bingen, Madeleine L’Engle, Golda Meir, St. Francis, St. Anthony and Stephen Hawking. Total: 44.
In order to lean on this group for help, I assume that death cancels hate, criticism and disagreement while it promotes inspiration, wisdom and kindness.
A shadow crowd in the cloud
I envision a shadow crowd walking with me as I navigate my day. No longer depending on my own limited knowledge and puny imagination, I lean on the crowd in my personal circle. Is this prayer? Have I located my own spiritual wisdom circle, a communion of saints, tapped into the “collective unconscious? Am I having conversations with the dead? Or am I roaming around with characters I developed in my imagination, reminding my friends of the movie A Beautiful Mind and causing them to wonder if I’m alright?
I’m fine, of course, I’ve been guided by these invisible beings long before I created the roll call of specific individuals and gathered my crowd in the cloud.
When I mention the source of my ideas, I’m careful to avoid alerting the fearful and the unknowing about cloud people. But having notified my own crowd in the cloud, I’m not surprised at all when I find this book on display at the library: How They Croaked by Georgia Bragg.
I’m also not surprised that when I tell the librarian about the article I plan to write and she tells me her story of talking with a cat whisperer in order to contact her very smart dead cat. I’ve heard these things happen.
I store my personal information in the cloud, update my smartphone regularly and use Dropbox to share my files. Why not walk under a cloud of my own informed beings and talk to a smart dead cat?
Experiencing death
My first experience of death occurred when I was six and a big red truck hit the little boy across the street. He was riding his tricycle. June, Jean, Freda and I were playing “A My Name Is Alice” with our new pink Spaldings on. We heard the truck brakes screech and someone scream. We stopped playing, held hands and watched a crowd gather. Police cars and an ambulance arrived. Medics put Nicki on a stretcher and took him away. He never came back. At six, we didn’t understand death.
A few months later, my grandmother died. Her body was placed in a coffin in the living room of her home. People came through the house to pay their respects for days. I still didn’t understand death, but I knew people disappeared and never came back.
My Mom died after a complicated colon cancer surgery when I was 21, and her two brothers, my uncles, died shortly after. Then my prematurely born infant son died. His lungs were underdeveloped and he lived for a day. Friends died along the way. Two years ago, my 42-year–old daughter unexpectedly died from an embolism lodged in her lung, which was caused by a bruised ankle. This year my children’s father, my ex-husband, died at 86.
We bury our dead, we grieve and honour them, but what if they’re still available and want to help us? I like to think that’s true and it’s possible for us to ask for and receive their wisdom.
Indigenous people, who are close to their ancient cultures, believe in contacting their dead. In Bosnia, when I visited a cemetery near Srebrenica on the anniversary of the 1995 massacre, we joined hundreds of families who had come together to honour the dead and celebrate with them. They brought picnic lunches and ate at the graves of their loved ones.
Listening for instructions
I believe the energy of those who have died goes on and on, influencing our lives in many ways. Since I rely on my crowd in the cloud and stay in touch with them, I imagine that I regularly receive nudges and intuitive ideas that help me live my life.
For example, one day I tried to contact a friend of mine. I called, emailed and texted her without any response. I needed her help to complete a project I was working on. I couldn’t reach her and decided to run errands. When I finished and was about to get on a major roadway towards home, this thought entered my mind: Don’t get on the highway, go back downtown.
How silly, I said to myself, and yet I followed the nudge and went back downtown. As I drove, another thought entered my mind with the same urgency: Park here and go into that store. I followed the instructions, parked and went into the store, and walking towards me was the friend I’d tried to reach earlier. Her look of sheer delight and surprise mirrored my own feelings.
I was thrilled I hadn’t ignored those urgent yet fleeting thoughts and will remind myself to pay attention and listen for instructions from my crowd.
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image: geralt