Twin Souls

When the psychic gripped her hand and told her about the theory of twin souls it felt like when all the pieces of a puzzle fit together after struggling over it for days. The way she explained it, a twin soul or twin flame as some called it, was when some souls were created they split and became two separate souls but continued to be connected in many ways as they incarnated into the corporeal world much like physical twins. Reincarnation was involved since these souls were on a long journey to get back to each other while at the same time striving for their own unique brand of perfection. Some lifetimes they were together, some apart, but always aware of each other in some part of their psyche.

Then the woman looked across the table still gripping her hand and said, “You have been aware of him most of your life, in dreams mostly. I also sense that you have always felt his absence in your life, a loneliness that sometimes overcomes you.” She let go of her hand and put a finger on her chest, “But he is in here, you feel it, always have, like one of your organs, like one of your bones. His essence flows through your body like blood in your veins.” She closed her eyes then. ” I can see him. He is lonely too.”

Memories skipped through her mind fast like a runaway train. All the times she had begged her mother to tell her the truth; that she had a twin that either died or was given away. She’d made her mother cry a few times over these accusations finally relenting with the questions not wanting to cause her mother any more pain and realizing she must be telling the truth – there was no twin. Then she read about people who had had surgery to remove a tumor and it was found to be a twin their body had absorbed in the womb. For years she thought maybe that was the answer but no tumor ever appeared and in time she gave up on this theory as well. And then there was that constant nagging feeling that she wasn’t complete that something, someone was missing. All the men she had tried to fit into the empty place in her soul, none of them supplying the completeness she was searching for.

Then there were the dreams.

They began when she was ten years old. A little boy would be with her, playing, running, always smiling at her. As she got older so did the boy. They would be together walking, holding hands, talking quietly about things she could never remember when she awoke. Then one night when she was around fourteen he kissed her. She awoke with a start still feeling his warm lips on hers in the dark of her room, his presence in the bed beside her. But when she turned on the light no one was there. She cried for an hour, the aching loneliness eating at her brain. When she fell back to sleep he was there in the dream again just holding her for the rest of the night.

For a while in her twenties she had tried to be rid of this phantom and dated a parade of men to try to fill the place of her dream partner, even married one of them, for a time. But soon it became clear to the man that his wife was looking elsewhere for companionship and he quietly divorced her. She was on her own again and the dreams returned with a vengeance as if they were trying to make up for the years she had pushed them away. They made her feel even more alone so another parade of men entered her life only to reinforce the feeling that something was missing.

Then in her late twenties she began having sex with her dream man. It was the best sex she’d ever had and goodness knows she’d certainly had enough sex to compare it to. He was gentle and creative and she always awoke feeling loved, satisfied, exhausted but still alone in a messy bed. This went on until her early thirties when she told the dream man she’d had enough. It was too lonely living with a phantom. She wanted real and went out to find a new man. This time it lasted a year longer than the last one. But this time he was the one that went looking elsewhere telling her in the end that she was “just not there” with him. She had to admit he was right. No one could compare with her phantom man. No one could make her feel the way he did. The dreams returned.

At thirty-three she went into therapy.

Her therapist told her that she was the man in her dreams. He made her keep a diary of all her dreams and to be as detailed as she could about their content. It was during this process that she began drawing pictures of her phantom. It was then that she realized how beautiful he was. She could describe his clothing – eccentric, the jewelry he wore – a lot, the tattoos he had – many, especially the one of a honey bee on his wrist. Then one night he had a guitar with him and played and sang for her. She hummed the song all the next day. After that she was serenaded often. Her therapist told her she should get a tape recorder and sing the songs into it. She wasn’t especially musical but she could sing well and so the recordings became an acappella rendering of the dream songs. Some of them were ballads, some were love songs and some were wild rock n roll that really didn’t translate well in acappella form. She sang them all exactly as she heard them in her sleep.

Her therapist was amazed at her artistry and her singing voice and suggested that maybe the dreams were telling her that she should pursue some kind of artistic endeavors; maybe her dreams were her way of accessing her hidden talents. So she began writing poetry and trying to turn them into songs. The words came easy but she could never put them to music. But every time she would finish a poem he always came to her in a dream and sang it to her. Her therapist said she was simply collaborating with herself. Many artists relied on their dreams for inspiration.

Then it happened; she saw him in a YouTube video singing and playing in a band. She almost fell off her chair. When she finally closed her gaping mouth and let her eyebrows relax she watched it a second time then added the channel to her library. Then she read the short description about the video.

         “Los Angeles band brings grunge back with a vengeance and Vengeance is their name.”

There was only one video and it had been uploaded the day before but she continued to check it every day and within a week another video appeared. This time there was a close up of her dream man and she could see that her drawings had captured him exactly. But he was so far away from New York, so out of her reach.

Her next therapy session was very interesting.

After showing the videos to the therapist the room went quiet for about a minute then he recovered. “You must have seen the video at some time while looking around and the image attached itself to your memory. You needed a face to fill the place of the man in your dreams so…”

She interrupted him while pushing the phone into his view and pointing at the date of the upload.

Once again the room went silent. They stared at the walls behind each other for about five minutes when he looked at his watch and announced the session over for the day.

The next day she went to see the psychic.

When the woman finally let go of her hand signaling the end of the reading she pulled out her phone and showed the video to the psychic. The woman leaned forward, looked at the phone then up into the face of her client, eyes wide, “This is him; this is the man!” 

“I know.” Then she opened her sketch book and showed the drawings. “I’ve been drawing him for months now.”

She told of the dreams of music and all the crazy assumptions the therapist had come up with which made the psychic laugh. “They think they have it all wrapped up in a nice neat package but what they don’t know is that we are not just bodies with brains. We are spirits, souls living in bodies for a time in order to experience the wonders of physical life.” She sat back in her chair, closed her eyes and continued, “You will meet him soon. He will come to you without you having to do anything but keep dreaming and drawing and singing his songs.” She opened her eyes. “He is dreaming of you too. When you are together in the dreams you are actually together in the spirit.”

The woman took her hand once more, “Go home and wait. It will not be long.”

She never returned to the therapist.

A few weeks went by as she continued doing what the psychic had advised her. The drawings now turned into paintings. They littered her small apartment, leaned up against the walls, tucked into her closet, shoved under the bed. She went through her days at work thinking about her next poem, writing little snippets on napkins or the palms of her hands until she could get to a piece of paper and do them proper justice. Then one night in a dream she found herself reading one of them to him. He smiled and started singing it to her as he picked out cords that complemented the words.

The Vengeance videos increased in number. It was comforting to be able to watch him on a screen, so much clearer than in a dream. But in order to feel him sleep was required and dreams were essential so she found she was sleeping much more. The dreams of him became so frequent that she hardly ever dreamed of anything else any more. The weekends were spent napping, painting and writing poetry. Sometimes she wondered if she were going crazy. Then she would visit the psychic and was reassured that the time was getting closer. He would come to her within the year. It was September; there wasn’t much time left. Hope became her constant companion.

There were now fifty Vengeance videos on YouTube and a Face Book page as well. His band had reached a following of over ten thousand and they announced that they had been invited to play at a New York City club for New Year’s Eve. She read the words over at least ten times before she could muster up the courage to believe them. The club was in her state. He was coming to her state! Then reality hit. New York was a big state and she was so far north from the big city that it might as well be in Europe especially on a waitress’s salary. There was no way she could go to his concert. Depression hit like a wrecking ball on her heart.

The next week she dragged herself to the psychic who was fast becoming her best friend.

“Oh honey, don’t worry. He will come to you, remember?”

“But how?” She was sobbing into her tea and her friend wrapped her arms around her, “I don’t know the how. I just know that you are not going to go to him. He is going to find you. Somehow, he is going to find you.”

She was invited to a New Year’s Eve party by one of the other waitresses and tried to decline but the girl was so sweet and so insistent that she finally relented. The party lasted all night and she got drunker than she had since she was a teenager. She slept nearly all of New Year’s Day dreaming that she was riding in a bus with her lover. She watched the road ahead as they traveled through towns and woods and past barren winter fields dusted with snow. When she finally woke up and realized it was a new year and her lover had not found her she sat down on her bed and cried for a half hour.

The darkness outside was interrupted by giant flakes of snow drifting past her window as she stood leaning her forehead on the icy glass watching them pile up on the sleeping lawn. She could feel her hope being buried under the feet of snow that was accumulating before her eyes. By the second day of the year three feet of snow had fallen and her world came to a standstill as the blizzard raged outside. Her boss called and said not to come in to work that the restaurant was closed until the plows got around to digging it out.

The day dragged on like a dull nightmare filled with fog and tombstones and crying wind. She spent most of the day in bed trying and failing to sleep. The next day her boss called and said if she could get out he would appreciate it if she would come to work since everyone else had called in. The poor man sounded desperate so since the landlord had plowed the driveway that morning, like a zombie she dressed and drove to work.

There were a few regulars scattered around the dining room when she arrived but it looked like it was going to be a slow and boring day. She took orders, made coffee and waited. The lunch rush consisted of two people who ordered sandwiches to go. The day dragged on snail-like until at five-thirty her boss told her she could go home. She was putting her coat on when the door opened and a group of guys blew in on the cold wind and seated themselves at the farthest table in the dining room. She took her coat back off, grabbed some menus and headed over to the table. As she distributed the menus one of the guys looked up at her and uttered something guttural like he was about to choke. She looked down at him and froze.

It was him!

They stared at each other for what seemed like hours but in reality was only a few seconds when one of the other guys blurted out, “Holy shit, man, that’s the girl you’ve been painting for the past two years!”

Her dream man stood up then and looked down into her eyes. She audibly gasped as he took her hand in his and answered his buddy, “Yes, it is.” She could feel him trembling as he pulled her to him in an embrace that took her breath away.

Just then she heard the door bang open and a familiar voice call out, “He’s here! He’s here right now – I had a vision!” The psychic ran to the only occupied table and slammed to a halt. “Oh!” she panted trying to catch her breath as she took in the scene before her. All eyes were on her now and she looked around at them. “Yup,” she wheezed, “That’s what I saw.”

He kissed her then and the laughter and cheers ringing through the restaurant began to fade into the ether like the dreams she never had to fall asleep again to experience.

The Fire Poppet

Lately I’ve become aware of my lifelong relationship with fire. There is a possibility that I inherited it from my father; he was always setting our houses on fire – accidently, of course, and no, he wasn’t a smoker. The fires were always caused by carelessness and, I now believe, his inability to actually connect to the spirit of fire, which was strange because his occupation included the installation and maintenance of home heating systems, more fire-work.  So you might say his life revolved around fire but it  took him most of his life to find that balance with it that kept it from getting out of control on him (he had his last house fire when he was in his eighty’s). Throughout my life I watched and tried to learn from his mistakes. Over the years there have been some close calls; a pot holder catching fire, a kerosene lamp blackening my apartment wall, the occasional grease fire and the chimney fire that taught me the importance of keeping the chimney clean. But along the way fire and I have come to the realization that we are deserving of each other’s respect as living, breathing beings on a planet wrought from fire in a universe rife with it.

     In the house I lived in for over thirty-five years the focal point of the living room was the big iron woodstove which was in the front part of the house. Later we added another smaller one in the back part of the house. For most of those years they were the only source of heat in our home and I was their major caretaker. They and I had a very passionate love-hate relationship. They were a lot of work but they gave back so much in warmth and ambiance that most of the time it was a labor of love.

     When I finally moved out of that drafty old Victorian in town into a newer house in the country the only thing I really missed were those woodstoves and their amiable blazes. At first I thought I could live without them and I did – for about a year. The house was defiantly warmer with its in floor heating and good insulation, warmer than the old one even with its two iron fire breathing beasts.

     But as time went on I realized there was an empty space inside my spirit that that couldn’t be filled with anything other than fire. So with the help of a grandson an outdoor fire pit was crudely built out of all the local rocks we could find. It was just a circle of stones inside of which I could safely build a fire. The woods around my house provided plenty of dead limbs to feed my addiction and I was happy for a time. Then I realized that in the dead of winter it was nearly impossible to dig out the pit and fire wood from under a few feet of snow. So the next year I acquired a metal chiminea to set on the small patio outside my back door. Through the fall I filled two totes with kindling and fallen branches to keep it all dry and when winter came I bundled up, shoveled the couple of feet to the fire source and enjoyed many cold evenings visiting with my fire friends. Life was good. But in the back of my head there was a little voice getting louder by the month complaining that it needed fire in the house. It needed a woodstove.

     I mentioned this numerous times to my partner but he was not in agreement. Then I went for the logical angle (since he is into that sort of thing) and told him we needed something for heat when the power went out. He said he’d work on getting a generator. We’ve been here for over four years now and there is neither a woodstove nor a generator in our possession.

     So this summer I decided to try a little sympathetic magick. Basically I needed a sort of poppet of a woodstove that I could use as a lure for a real one. After much thought I realized it would be easier to make a faux fireplace than a woodstove. And it would also be nice if it was life size. I had most of the supplies to build it hanging around the property; old wood from an abandoned and fallen tree house my grandsons had built, bricks I’d picked up from a demolished old building, and a big wooden crate that was just the right size for the core of my project. The only thing I purchased for it was an electric fireplace insert that tries to look real – and almost makes it.

     Long story short, the fireplace poppet is now a focal point in my living room where it gives off heat, ambiance and the magickal intent to bring a real live fire breathing iron beast into my home.

     My partner hopes the fake one will pacify me. But all he has is hope. I have a fire poppet and a whole lot of magickal intent.

Winter Fire

Fire Goddess who speaks

in tongues of ancient ancestors,

we jump within

your folds of life

bearing your heat

out onto the ice

and dark and night.

We hold you deep within

the winter of our journey

this journey you put

us upon before we

could speak or walk

or be whatever the spark

you placed within us

became.

Fire Goddess who speaks

a blazing inferno

sustain us as we walk

out onto the ice where

we carry your words

of hope and peace

deep within this Solstice night.

 

Winter Solstice Chant

Solstice fire

burning bright

Give us back

the sun’s pure light

Smoke and ashes

taking flight

Turn the wheel

and make it right

Yuletide blessing

flames of might

Dance with us

this Solstice night.

 

Dead Things

I’m wandering from the house to the garden and back again gathering the last of the summer’s bounty. Tomatoes, some ripe but most in shades of green, emerald, jade, piling up in the woven basket hooked over my arm. I snip the few okra left on the plants and mourn the last of their flowers that will never mature. The corn was finished a month ago, the beans two weeks ago and all the squashes, summer and winter, are safely tucked away in the pantry and freezer. All the herbs are drying to be put into savory dishes through the winter months or steeping in alcohol to be made into medicines. The last struggling watermelon now the size of my fist will never be eaten.
And then there are the flowers.
Masses of marigolds, zinnias and cosmos still bloom in patches all over the garden. My house will be overflowing with vases of their beauty for days as I work at picking as many of them as possible. Morning glories, blue, pink, red, white, still cling to the fence so heavy they threaten to topple it. There are new buds on the rose bushes that will never open. This life still teaming around me defies the inevitability of the death I know is about to descend. Jack Frost is coming with his icy scythe to cut down all the life that I and his brother Jack In The Green have toiled to bring forth.
I use to hate Jack Frost. I would envision him as a mean old man all bent over with anger and malice whacking away at all the beauty and bounty of summer. I thought of him as the enemy brutally killing his younger brother Jack In The Green with every swipe of his deadly instrument taking a piece of my heart along with him. Some years he would plod along bringing an agonizing slow death to everything I cared for. Some years he would strike hard and fast smashing my green world into snow white oblivion over night. But every year the results were the same. The death he brought was absolute and all encompassing. There was nothing I could do to stop him. I would work feverishly bringing in all I could, potting up some flowers, searching frantically for the last vestiges of life to save from his icy fingers. It was almost as much work as building the garden had been through the spring and summer.
Jack Frost and I have since made our peace. I know now that he is not that old ugly being I once thought. He is young and strong and has a job to do and does it well. He works to break down all the green into fertile brown soil that will give life to the new plants of the next spring. His wisdom of death brings life. We, his brother and I, welcome him. We watch in awe now as he takes the life that is left in my garden, gently, lovingly lays his crystalline fingers on it putting it to sleep, readying it for the transformation from life to death then back again.
Dead things are not truly dead, not in the way we humans think of death. According to Jack Frost and Jack In The Green life and death are intricately woven together to create all that we know as existence. Death is just the other side of life just as life is the other side of death. Below the surface of my garden in the dead of the cold white winter life rests in the arms of death – waiting.

I think I’ll make green tomato jam with all those leftover tomatoes to give as Yule gifts.

Aunt Krampus

When I was a child my family would travel to the north country in December to visit my mother’s family. We always stayed with my Aunt Raina who lived across the road from a railroad track in an old farmhouse at the edge of her village. Aunt Raina cleaned houses for a living and so was not very wealthy but she was one of the most generous people I have ever known. She bought me my first guitar, took in orphaned children and would go out of her way to help anyone in need if she had the means. I loved her like a second mother.

There were always fresh cookies baking when we arrived, the air filled with the scent of cinnamon and cloves, honey and raisins. Big thick molasses cookies and tiny butter morsels filled her small kitchen where we feasted on tea, laughter, cookies and tears of joy.

One night the year I turned eight Aunt Raina asked if I would like to take a walk and surprise someone. I loved walking in the snow, loved surprises even more so of course I said yes.

“For this surprise we have to wear costumes,” she announced with a grin and a twinkle in her eye. “This one’s for you.”

She handed me a wool suit the color of dark moss with spots of black woven through then a hat with bells on its long pointy end, brown fur tucked into its opening. The costume fit perfectly as if it were made for me which, knowing my aunt’s sewing skills, it may have been.

We walked silently up the road in the cold wintry twilight of an early northern December, inky clouds spilling over dark purple sky, snow softly crunching under our boots.

“Where is your costume, Aunt Raina?” I couldn’t hold in the question any longer.

Here I was decked out in elfin finery, Aunt Raina’s glitter sparkling on my pink nose and cheeks, a foot long leather strap of huge jingle bells hanging from my green woolen mittens and she looked like she always did; nothing out of the ordinary.

She winked, took my hand glancing toward the darkening sky, “There’s magic in the air tonight. That’s all the costume I need.”

Just as the first star was visible we came to a small house where a candle flickered in a side window. We walked toward it.

“When I squeeze your hand ring the bells till I squeeze it again,” Aunt Raina whispered.

I nodded, excitement climbing into my throat making speech impossible.

We arrived at the window as Aunt Raina squeezed my mitten clad hand signaling my other hand to start shaking the strap of bells.

The bottom of the window was at my eye level so I could see inside the house as soon as the candle was removed from the sill. On the other side of the pane the face of a child appeared with the hand of an adult resting on his shoulder. He looked to be around six or seven years old and when he spotted me he smiled but then his face went cold and white as he looked up at my aunt. At that moment she squeezed my hand again stopping the ringing of the bells. Fear was now very evident on the child’s face. I had to look up to see what was scaring the kid in the window. Surely it wasn’t the face of my lovely aunt whom I cherished.

Surely it wasn’t the same Aunt Raina I had walked to the house with!

Standing next to me still holding my hand was what I could only describe in my child’s mind as a devil. My dear aunt had sprouted the horns of a large goat and the furry face to match them. Her eyes were a glowing orange, and I do mean glowing, like a fire raged within them. All this was frightening enough but then I noticed her mouth had grown a set of sharp pointed teeth between which dangled a long red tongue!

I started to pull away from her grip on my hand when her usual gentle voice whispered to me, “Don’t be afraid, my dear, this scary surprise is not meant for you but for the naughty little boy in the window.”

A calm came over me then. Turning back to the boy at the window, his eyes wide and full of fear I felt the magic Aunt Raina had spoken of earlier. Magic that could turn my sweet aunt into a fearful monster. Magic meant to scare the naughty out of a bad little kid. She squeezed my hand and I smiled, bells jingling as the child turned, crying, running from the window, the candle returned to its sill.

By the time we reached the road Aunt Raina was back to herself and we laughed and talked under the starry sky, our breath like smoke rising to their light.

Aunt Raina told me the boy in the window had been stealing from his mother’s change jar.

“He needed a good scare and Krampus specializes in good scares.”

“Who’s Krampus?” I asked

She smiled down at me squeezing my hand.

“Just ring the bells, dear, and hope you never have to find out.”