A Sense of Something More
For as long as I can remember, my family has told ghost stories. As a child, my father swore some ghost named Oscar inhabited the attic. We knew from Oscar’s outrageous life (the fact that his girlfriend’s name was Petunia and her favorite flower was a cactus) that Oscar was a brilliant, ongoing story my father crafted when he wanted our undivided attention.
We also had little gathering of the cousins when my Aunt Lynne was in town. Aunt Lynne told fortunes, read palms and gave me my first sense of Something More….something mystic….something beyond the veil. To see Aunt Lynne from outside the family, I imagine you might think she was a bit eccentric, but not any more than most Southern women. In fact, most of the women in my family fall into that category, an inheritance I proudly own.
Having watched the movie Ya Ya Sisterhood, we all recognized ourselves. In fact, we now regularly have Ya Ya parties with close friends and extended family.
I have been thinking a lot about having gotten my palm read as a child and listening to my father’s constructed stories. Somewhere along the way those two things wove together. We grew up and the little kid stories moved closer to the veil.
By the time I was 21, I experienced my first death, and it was a doozie! My mom passed away. She was just 45 (I turn 44 in less than a month….and I still feel like….I still feel too alive to even consider that it could end so early). Losing her made me search for an opening to the veil, made me want to believe that the thread Aunt Lynne traced in our hands could lead across to a connection with my loved one.
It was about that time that I noticed weird things happening. Sometimes subtle sometimes apparent A distinct sound or smell timed in a sychronistic or meaningful way……why, just last month after leading a group visualization something shifted in the next room where no one was only seconds after the intense meditation ended. I could tell story after story. I bet you could too. I often wonder if they are clues that we aren’t alone or perhaps coincidences.
I leave myself open to both possibilities but always follow the thread to the veil just in case.
This curiosity with Something More has strongly influenced my art, and the art has influenced me to consider even more seriously the Something More.
I was working with a counselor while in college. We were doing breathwork, increasing the oxygen level of the body, and I began envisioning my mother over me. She had changed. She seemed to be made of light and took on a kind of crystallized form. I felt comforted and healed.
I took it for an interesting meditation. At home, later in the day, I drew what I saw to share with the counselor the next week. Upon seeing it, she told me she had seen drawings like mine in an old book. She explained the book and the beings, calling them Devas. I was interested, curious, but didn’t take it for Truth per say.
Some months later on a trip to Austin, I found myself in an old bookstore. On a bottom shelf on the second floor, a book documented, with story and drawings, creatures the author called Devas. They looked like the drawing from the meditation. Not angel, not fairy, something elemental and outside my previous experience.
After that, I did drawing after drawing of Devas, saw what looked like people when I passed trees, mostly women with crowns of branches. I learned to draw by trying to capture what my inner eye was experiencing.
To this day, when other people imagine their loved ones as angels, I tend to broaden it to account for my own visualizations. The thought that Something More is out there and perhaps even close by brings me comfort. I may be completely off, but that doesn’t matter so much to me. If those Something More’s are figments of my imagination, so be it. They are still mine, still as real as a drawing or sculpture, poem or choreographed dance. They are an expression of some part of me….and maybe even Something More.
I am delighted to share my Something More’s with you. I have been invited to join the instructors circle for Sheri Ann Ponzi’s Angels In My Studio this July. It is the second time the course is being offered. Check out the current class and stay tuned for more info about the one I will be part of. (You can subscribe below if you would like to keep in touch about it.)
Wouldn’t it be great to take the class together?
Some of the other instructors for this Summer’s Angels in My Studio….
Tamera Laporte from Willowing
Kae Pea with Rubbermoon
Cheryl Irwin
Liz Kettle of Textile Evolution
Chris Zydel of Creative Juices Arts
Michael Golzmane of Clear and Connect
Nikki Shannon of Energy Painter
Havi Mandel with Soul Blissings
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Hmmm…I see faces in every tree, rock, and mountain I come upon. Devas of some sort? Just thought it was some strange obsession and my imagination going wild.
There is more than meets the eye out there. My view of death and afterlife changed drastically upon the illness and passing of my brother.
Who’s to say what it is Suzicate…..I vote nature spirits. It is part of Creative Sacred Play for me. That is how I do life.
Good morning to all, thank you for sharing your something more. Timing of course is perfect as of yesterday I finally got the courage to speak of my papa with my brother and he didn’t try to shut me down at the first mention of it. Thats real progress for my bro…Proud of him.
I figured you would be able to relate, Rosemary! 🙂
This is great, Rachel. I love that your mother’s death was the opening of the veil for you. What a beautiful story. As for stories, I can relate to the one your dad told. My dad made up stories for us when we were little and my daughter’s favorite thing about our family camping trips is sitting around the fire making up stories together. They are usually crazy and ridiculous, but they are fun!