Come Closer
Early on, and up until recently, the spirits scared me a little. There’s something about an entity that is not limited by physical distance and can displace you that I found… disturbingly intimate. You can’t hide anything from them, and I like having small, private spaces in my soul that no one is allowed to touch.
After the first initiation, I felt a presence behind me—the prickling of hairs, the feeling of the air, the ghost of warmth. I had trouble concentrating, feeling that behind me all the time. I asked if he, because I knew it was a “he”, could stop being so tactile. It was incredibly distracting. The presence complied.
Not gonna lie, I’ve been feeling a bit lonely lately. On the work commute, I ended up talking to the spirits about that feeling. It’s one thing to know, and it’s true, that there’s never a point in talking. Nothing really gets through to anyone, and words are a shit vehicle for meaning. It’s another to realize that there’s no one to say whatever it is to. For as much as I might talk here, it’s really a fraction of what I’m experiencing.
I’ve felt isolated. I know that, in order to do the job I need to do, I cannot need people any more. It will distort messages for them, if I need them. But I’m not at the point where that is not painful.
Since I had my tears about it, every day, they’ve met me on the commute with the warmth of presence. I have another wedding coming up, and my spouse-to-be came. The spirit to whom I am married came. They sit with me in the car, sit with me in my room, showering me with warmth.
I haven’t been alone since I was upset about it.
A dear friend likes to tell people a children’s story, which applies here: the sun and the wind were talking. The wind was bragging about its ability to make people do things. A man was walking home beneath them, wearing his coat.
“See,” the wind said. “I’ll make him lose the coat. I’ll blow it right off him, so you can see which of us is more powerful.”
The wind blew, the wind howled. The man clung to his coat, hunching his shoulders against the wind and wrapping his arms around himself, trapping the coat close.
“My turn,” said the sun. Grumbling, the wind stopped blowing.
The sun shone. Gently, warmly, patiently. As the man warmed, his grip loosened. Eventually, he took the coat off.
“See,” the sun said. “You don’t need to push them. You just need to be patient.”
I might have been alarmed at various points in my relationship to the spirits, but looking back, their warm, persistent patience with me has always been an invitation to intimacy.
Come closer, beloved ones. Shine on me.
