“How Far Is Heaven?”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Last night I had a vivid dream in which I was a neophyte “ghost whisperer” tasked with assisting a community of stranded spirits.
I entered a small garden with a rather glum male guide who promptly disappeared and left me on my own. The garden was furnished with low stone tables and benches and held a few sketchy-looking residents. My first thought was “vampire enclave” when a bedraggled-looking elderly woman with curious teeth and a fixed, glassy stare (randomly holding a small ginger-colored dog) edged up to me with a leer. I panicked (“Nosferatu!”) and rudely bashed her head into one of the stone tables, after which she wandered away undamaged and unfazed; it was then that I realized that these were ghosts. Soon after a vague-looking couple walked up and mumbled a greeting as if they knew me; I clearly didn’t know them even though he said his name was “Norman.” (I’ve known very few “Normans” in my life.) It could have been a veiled reference to my study and practice of Lenormand, even though that is decidedly non-spiritual.
Next I came upon a young woman reclining on a stone bench whom I seemed to recognize but it turned out that I didn’t know her at all. She had been pregnant at the time of her passing and retained the illusion in death, obsessing over the never-to-be-born child while her tongue-tied husband stood by helplessly and she glared at him with hatred. They had been killed by a wrong-way driver while on an outing and, even though it hadn’t been his fault, she despised him since she didn’t want to go out that day in the first place but he convinced her. I couldn’t do anything for them so I moved on.
At that time my invisible guide nudged me with a subliminal suggestion that I look farther afield for spirits who might benefit from my aid. The rolling landscape was almost featureless and there were individuals and small groups scattered about who looked remarkably like Barbara’s brother in “Night of the Living Dead.” None of them wanted the help of a newly-minted medium so I kept going. I looked up a low hill and saw an enormous portal with giant marble pillars and lintel. (Shades of Cecil B. DeMille!) I figured this for the exit from the “holding pen” even though there were no glorious beams of golden light coming from it nor any angelic greeters on the other side.
I started toward it but was immediately bowled over by a pair of boisterous young people (who arrived from one of my unrelated dreams a few nights ago); they weren’t belligerent and just seemed intent on distracting me from my goal, which may have been a good thing since it could have been a “one-way trip.” After shaking them off I headed back toward the garden and, although I didn’t see him, I got the impression that the “shepherd of this flock” wasn’t pleased with my lack of progress. I began hearing Los Lonely Boys singing “How far is heaven?” faintly in the background.
But then I encountered the capstone of my dream. I discovered two very young boys, one who was mute and the other who gazed at me imploringly. I received the insight that they had been playing at a ruined stone foundation above a steep cliff with a pond at the bottom. The older boy got the idea of rolling stones over the brink to make a splash, but when trying to help him the younger boy fell off and suffered an open skull-fracture, dying before he hit the bottom (and he still looked like it). His mortified brother picked his way down and tried to save him but drowned in the process. I couldn’t do anything for their shades other than hold a silent vigil, which seemed to comfort them. (I felt strong intimations of the movie The Other in this episode.)
Then I woke up around 2:00 AM and didn’t get any more sleep as I mulled this over. It wasn’t clear whether I was alive or dead (like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense) during this evolution, but I got the notion that I might be seeing a glimpse of my future (which I can hardly recommend since it was utterly frustrating). At least in this life, I think I will stick with divination and leave the ghosts to the psychics and mediums.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on October 16, 2023.
