Like a Virgin

I've run the gamut of belief systems in my lifetime, from a fundamental Christian upbringing to my Jesus Freak years to New Age Woo-Woo to Earth-Based Spirituality to my current status: Devout Agnostic. Despite not having any clear cut faith, I really, really, want to believe in something bigger than all of us, but then maybe all of us is the thing I most believe in.

However, there have been at least three unsolved mysteries in my life over the years, unexplainable events. Like the time  in massage class I asked the teacher who the young girl was on the table a couple rows over while we were practicing cranial sacral therapy. Turns out it wasn't a young girl, but a fifty-ish student I knew well. It turned out was having a memory of being abused when she was younger at the exact time I'd asked about her. Weird, huh? Then, during my Seeker years, I visited a psychic who told me  my "totem animal" was a white crane. I've always liked cranes, but I didn't for a minute believe in spirit guides and all that hookey-do. Okay, maybe for a minute I did, but then I got real.

Shortly after my "reading" with the psychic, I was hired by a woman to visit her mother--an Alzheimer's patient--at a local nursing home. Every week I'd massage the old woman's hands, feet, face, and head. She was often really crabby and yelled at me, but over time,  began to trust me.  A couple months after I'd worked with the woman, her daughter told me that lately when she visited, her mother would  ignore her and ask, "Where's that blond girl?"

Usually I'd end up crawling in bed with my patient  in order to get in a good enough position to massage her. More often than not, she fell asleep in my hands. In the middle of the summer, she took a turn for the worse. On the last night I visited, I knew right away she wasn't long for this world. Her breathing was labored and she was very weak. When I approached the bed, she cupped her hands and held them out toward me.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Seed," she whispered.

"Seed?"

She pointed with one finger, being careful not to spill the contents of her frail
hands. "For that big white bird behind you."

My hands trembled as she carefully emptied her "gift" into them. There was nothing there, of course, but I went along with the ruse, pretending to put those imaginary seeds in my pocket. "I'll feed it later, " I assured her.

That night she told me she was going dancing with her lover, so I needed to make her face really soft. She fell asleep shortly after that and I turned over her cassette tape music before quietly leaving the room. I got a call from her daughter the next day, telling me he mom had died during the night.

This brings me to my third mystical experience, as illustrated by the photograph in this post. I took the picture during the winter of 1995-96 with a Canon 35 mm SLR (pre-digital era) camera in Grand Haven, MI. At the time I was divorced and living in a big old 5-bedroom house with my 3 children. There had been a lot of snow the previous day and I was captivated by a little chickadee outside my window and decided to take a picture of him.

I didn't think much more about it until I got the pictures back from the developer. As soon as I looked at this photograph I saw the woman's face in the background. My mother had died a few years prior so my first thought was that maybe she was still watching over me, or that maybe it was an angel. But the more I looked at it the more it looked like the pictures of the decoupage Madonna  plaque on my wall that I got at a yard sale and always loved--lugged it from house to house every time I moved. Whatever she/it was, for some reason I took comfort in her presence, even if it was just  a result of the way the shadows fell behind the bird. Because everything in this life is a fragile illusion, so what harm is there in wanting to hold onto those that make you feel good? 

Beats the hell out of a grilled cheese sandwich if you ask me.

 

Comments

[Ann]

Oh, my. This was such a lovely entry. I've put you in my folder so I'll remember to read more often. Thanks.

[Cecily]

Wow. The "big white bird behind you" gave me goosebumps. Thanks.

[Annie]

That is too weird! I'm sorry. You almost brought tears to my eyes. This past year my father broke his hip and ended up living in a nursing facility. I never could understand the garbled words of those who had a gift for me, but more than one had an invisible gift in their cupped hands to give me when I came--even my own father. I'd accept their invisible gifts and say thank you, wondering what it was. Now I am wondering more than ever!

A.

[Karen Winters]

I love that spirit bird story. When I was in Egypt, once, my husband and I were sitting on a hill gazing at the pyramid of Zoser. I idly turned over some pieces of rubble and one was a hieroglyph of an ibis ... partially broken, but clearly identifiable as such. I treasure that fragment. Some years later, when I was interested in beading, I bought a used bead loom at a garage sale. When I opened it, I found that there was a partially finished beaded piece on it ... the same image of an incomplete bird. I have seen herons and cranes periodically ever since - usually in at times and places when a sense of the numinous was already present. I don't understand what these synchronicities are or why they appear but there is some reality to it that transcends what we know. (Found you through Loretta's 'pomegranates' site, greetings!)

[Wendy]

Thank you for these stories, esp. the one about the white crane. I love when my inner cynic is prodded into remembering that stories like this do happen, to me and other people, and it's worth it to pay attention. Marvelous.

[-E]

I think wanting to believe something is something in itself. But you'll find whatever it is you're out to find belief-wise, we all do. Thanks for sharing those stories.

[Daisy]

The hairs on the back of my neck are raised as I read this (but in a good way), thank you.

[em]

ah, ellie, nice story. as always. :-)

[Mark W.]

"The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God's love; but if the soul cannot yet feel this longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God." -- Meister Eckhart

[suzanne]

great post, elle!

the day before my mother phoned and told me there was a problem with her kidney (and it turned out to be terminal), i was standing at the kitchen window when a young, healthy poplar tree snapped in half, horizontally, and jumped off its stump right in front of me

there was no wind, there was no reason
but i knew nature was telling me something

s.