There When You Need Him
Arnie and I don’t have what you’d call a storybook marriage. We met a little late in life, well past any giddy expectation of finding a soul mate. Still, we feel loving toward each other, share a friendly physical affection, and have built a comfortable routine for a day-to-day life together. But I keep a distance from him. It’s never been my way to reveal my fears and doubts. I was raised to prize self-reliance, so I don’t like to ask for help or reassurance. I hide my childish yearning to be held close and kept safe. But that mute longing to be taken care of, buried for years without light or air, is still there—shapeless and powerful— and somehow shameful for its being hidden. So four days ago, when Death glanced my way with a casual sweep of the eyes and...
Read MoreAn Occurrence on Interstate Five
After Grandpa died, Grandma retired early and adopted three big German Shepherd dogs. Two were purebred, young and impetuous. The third was a mix, older, and the smartest. Grandma was devoted to those dogs. In the evenings, they all attended obedience classes. Mornings, they strolled through the neighborhood and on weekends, romped at the dog park. She brushed their coats and scratched their ears. She squeezed them into the back of her car to run errands. She’d even bought a motor home just so she and her dogs could all travel together in comfort. In return, the dogs guarded the house, listened with heads cocked to her opinions, and nudged her with comforting noses when she cried. She was proud of their willing obedience and delighted in their companionship. They...
Read MoreSpirit Allies
In my novel “A Second Chance Life,” Sam, an Indian healer, has a dream involving his spirit ally (or guardian spirit): “That night, Cougar, Sam’s guardian spirit for the last several years, padded into his dreams, into the cabin. Sam lay on his side in the bunk, arms folded under his head, and watched the cat, belly brushing the floor, slink silently to the cot where Jude lay sprawled, a leg dangling over the side. The beast whuffed a bare toe, then glided to snuffle at Jude’s face, her whiskers twitching forward, the big cat’s way of breathing in the essence of a man. Cougar stepped onto the cot, bracing her muscled body on front legs. She nosed Jude’s shirt and with claws sheathed, pawed off the tangled blankets. She studied the sleeping man-form, then...
Read MoreThe Feel of Real
In the late 1970’s, I was a psychology trainee on a psychiatric unit of a hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. And I was scared. Patients talked nonsense, tried suicide, and shuffled aimlessly through the corridors looking downright miserable. They were medicated into submission and sometimes locked into restraints. I had no clue as to how to help them. But I was lucky to have Myron, one of the Aides, who took me under his wing. Myron was not afraid. He explained the therapies, the staff politics, and the stories of some of the patients. More importantly, he had a depth of empathy and understanding that comforted the patients as well as myself. We became friends. Over the years, Myron turned to shamanic practices as a means to heal people in emotional turmoil...
Read MoreJourneys to the spirit world
In my short story “An Occurrence on Interstate Five,” Grandma ferries her dogs beyond ordinary reality through an ancient, amorphous space. Her journey has inexplicable consequences witnessed by several people. My tale is a variation on the classic ghost story theme, in which spirit beings create physical effects in the real world. But there’s a flip side to ghost stories: A person from the ordinary world enters the spirit realm. Visionaries, prophets, psychics and shamans are examples of people who claim to experience non-ordinary reality. Shamans, in particular, can supposedly then influence reality from the vantage point of the spirit world. My first exposure to shamanism was “The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge” by Carlos Castaneda (Ballantine...
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