In a way, a ghost is a continuance.

A carrying forth of an entity that once dwelled.

What a ghost haunts is not necessarily a negative.

To haunt simply means to regularly manifest. 

Each of us, through the magic and mystery of memory, will remain as ghosts.

The secret not often spoken, is our ability, on this side of the veil, to acknowledge where that haunting might occur.

To invite those we love to look there.

But to also warn them of spaces to avoid.

We will explore three spaces of haunt for our once and future iterations:

The hope being that, in acknowledging where these pieces of you carry on,

You can recognize how you best wish to live.

What to seek and what to avoid.

And to see how the category of you

Seeps into the eternality of the earth and its varied place and emotion.

The Instructions:

Each of the three ghosts we will explore has a conjuring, a song, and some questions for reflection.

Our transition to the next ghost will be signified by a ringing of the bell.

Try not to scroll ahead, be with each ghost.

The order is as follows:

The Ghost of Your Joy

The Ghost of Your Sorrow

The Ghost of Your Love

The Ghost of Your Joy

Conjuring:

Early springs step

Arriving

Fully and completely 

Into the presence of being alive

Daughters smile

Sons laugh

The birds sing

As the wind brushes by

Or perhaps Fall

The tricker treaters 

The dog with gleeful grin

The world 

Having opened and unfolded

Now letting you watch it turn and change

Inviting you fully into its ecstatic exit 

Where has joy

In all it’s robust unabashededness 

Taken your hand

And welcomed you into its fullness?

Song: Change, by Big Thief

Questions for reflection:

Imagine a memory filled with delight:

What were the scents?

Flavors?

People?

Colors?

Setting?

Animals?

Plants?

Where have you felt fully unlocked and boundless?

The Ghost of Your Sorrow

Conjuring:

There is dark

There is always dark

Imparted

Walked into

Stumbled upon

Spaces of swirl

Where your fullness

Does not seem enough

Where you feel lost

Without poise

Fear

Its biting and fickle force 

Sorrow

Its oozing lack

Here is the land of shadow

Where you have been taught

In ways foul and unfair

That you fully

Is not enough

or

Is too much.

This ghost may be hiding

Stuffed beneath the floorboards

Feeling only safe to arise in the cover of dark

It longs for you now

To reach toward it

Hold it

And acknowledge that there exists land beyond the decrypted.

Song: I Don’t Want to Live, I Don’t Want to Die, by Angelo de Augustine

Questions for reflection:

Where have you felt unease, not safe to be you?

What has summoned sorrow?

What are the spaces that may have told you a fake you was better than a real you?

What are the settings, the contexts, that have held you back?

The places and contexts where you were punished for attempting to be fully alive?

Warn, warn, warn; let your future ghost compel the current you to tell others to run the other direction.

The Ghost of Your Love

Conjuring:

Oh friend

Now we enter 

that soft, fertile land

Where you are safe

and full

The hands of a lover

Cupped around your face

Bed sheets wrapping up limbs

The delicate caking of soil on your hands

The home you have felt arrive to you

This land of robust, vibrant living. 

Early morning sunrise

Coffee in hand

Its scent and steam

rising like the mist above the grass

The doe off in the distance

The woods beyond

The full scope of the Mystery

Dancing and smiling in its dance

As it gazes at you

With the same love

On the gaze you give it

This is love

Nothing missing,

Nothing broken

Fully accepted, fully seen

Cotton hug

Whisper of the one

Who has seen

And who has run toward

Your abundance

Where you are alive

Abiding by no prescription

But an unfurled self

Fabulous and flamboyant

Subtle and soft

Exactly and intrinsically

As you are.

Song: Trusty and True, Damien Rice

Questions for reflection:

Where have you felt held?

Accepted?

Seen?

Enjoyed? 

What are places, memories, objects, animals, people, flavors, meals; where all of it just made sense?

Hikes. comping trips, interactions with animals, trees. Seep into memory. Get specific.

Your ghost of love lives here.