Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit

Living in a Sentient World

Judy Grahn

• Publisher: Red Hen Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781597098816
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: LGBT Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit illustrates with true stories that we live in an interactive, aware world in which the creatures around us in our neighborhoods know us and sometimes reach across to us, empathically and helpfully. Implications are that all beings live in a possible "common mind" from which our mass culture has disconnected, but which is only a heartbeat and some concentrated attention away. This mind encompasses microbial life and insects as well as creatures and extends to nonmaterial intelligence as well—that is to say, spirit. Creatures as varied as a collaborating dragonfly, ants rescuing each other, a sympathetic lizard, an empathic coyote, gift-giving squirrels, crazed birds, and lots of very mysteriously smart cats inhabit the stories. Precognition, dreams, paranormal experiences with birds, psychic communications with cats, visitations from ghosts with messages, rolling earth spirits—not supernatural, they seem natural enough but not visible to everyone. The intention of this book is to help people catch interactions they themselves experience with nonhuman and even disembodied beings, and who could use some support for recalling since these interactions make clear we live in a sentient world.

THREE

More Accounts

Three Forms of Consciousness

Mind inhabits us and we inhabit mind. My own experiences, enhanced by the suppositions of scientists, psychologists, and philosophers, tell me that there are three levels of my conscious being: first is the unconscious as a matrix of tiny beings continually interacting with my cells; second is the everyday awareness fed through my senses (touch, sight, sound, smell, taste); and thirdly are those occasional breathtaking moments of radiant intelligence or feeling from unknown sources outside myself. The following three pieces are full of anecdotes that are completely true to the best of my ability, and address aspects of these three states of consciousness.

Elementals

The huge Monterey pine in our yard grew up fifty years ago from a potted plant giveaway by a local bank. The generously spreading tree is well-used by local wildlife, including a family of small black squirrels. The young ones use it as part of their speedway on those days in spring when the family practices agility, and the youngsters leap from the tree to the roof, then leap again to spiral down the forty foot redwood on the other side of the house, along the fence, then spring across to the apple tree then to the garage, fence again and up the pine tree, round and round and round all morning long, chasing each other as fast as they can go. The mother squirrel the last few years has been a gardener as well, carefully harvesting about a third of my sprouting potatoes and onions and taking them home for breakfast. Occasionally replanting the potatoes in the other end of the bed. I got to know her pretty well, her eyes bright on mine as she swept across the yard mouth swollen with her forage. I would laugh; I like potatoes and onions for breakfast too, and don’t need all that grow in my garden.

Then odd bits began showing up in the little yard. A number of whole walnuts still in their hulls from the tree across the street, unaccountably showing up on my porch. Then, another year, food the dog gnawed on that could only have come from outside the yard: chicken bones, an avocado, more walnuts, and—left to rot—a grapefruit. A mysterious gift-giver was afoot, leaving things for the dog’s interest. And I had seen a squirrel run across the fence line, head high with a grapefruit in mouth. One day, with a friend, I was walking our dog on his leash, around the block. After the first turn a black squirrel raced up a tree in front of us, and as we passed, dropped a bone—I swear!—on the sidewalk. Unmistakably given to us.

Last year the mama ripped the rotting seat cover from an abandoned chair in the yard, and took small bits of green plastic stuffing for her nest, leaving a trail of green fluff going up into the redwood’s thick green limbs. I imagined the squirlets cuddled into the soft padding of their bed, waiting for mom and onion-smelling milk.

Then tragedy. I went out one morning as heavy wind and rainstorm tossed the tree limbs, and mama squirrel lay underneath the redwood tree on the brick paving, her back broken. Rain poured down on her. Above, the many long leaves of the redwood thrashed and heaved.

Wanting her to be dry at least, I placed the tall domed lid of the barbecue protectively over her, then went inside to get out of the fierce rain myself. Evidently either the wind or a predatory raccoon or skunk family had attacked her house and she had fallen. I came outside to look at her again about thirty minutes later. She half rose and turned her head to meet my eyes, holding the intent gaze for a very long time. I felt she was communicating, yet I could not read the message. She lowered her head, and died. No psychic connection enabled me to read her final expression, only that it was long and deep. With my five senses alone, I could not read her mind, though I grieved for her and her abandoned young for weeks afterward, especially when finding the bits of green plastic blowing around the yard. I also wanted to know what her look meant, and I never shall. Some messages don’t get delivered; I can’t open the psychic channel at will.

But some messages do get delivered. I study my dog’s body language to understand him better, though I haven’t gotten dreams or other psychic information from him. I was talking to him about this recently. A couple nights later I awoke in the deep of night because a dark shape, like a palm, was passing in front of my eyes, not like a shadow, like something inside my head. Startled, I opened my eyes and there was the dog right in my face, his bright eyes shining at me.

“What is it!” I shouted, startled, and his face had a smiley look as he turned and trotted back to his own bed. So, okay, even without training I can sometimes ask for a connection and have it happen. So far, my examples have been about creature-to-creature psychic connections and attempted connections. I could not reach the squirrel’s mind, but my dog friend reached mine. Transmission and reception both need to be functional.

Now I am curious about our other less accessible companions on earth—the elements, especially stone, and fearsome fire. How could we know if they interact with us or have anything resembling our sense of consciousness? I could not “read” the squirrel’s gaze. How much more difficult to understand stone or fire?

Yet like lots of people I become very attracted to stones and bring them home, ordinary stones. Little stacks of two to four typically occupy one the corner of the living room. By “little” I mean quarter pound, hand-sized or smaller. The most handsome is a green and brown stone with smooth grooves along its sides that fit my fingers perfectly, and a blunt end like a hammer. Holding it I can imagine a human having made it a few thousand years ago, or not; a river could have made it too, for all I know. This stone is so companionable I keep it on a table near my bed and look at it often. When in the past I have moved and lost it temporarily to the mysteries of unpacked boxes, I miss it. To those close to me I say, “Remember that green stone? I wonder where it is.”

I wonder if it misses me.

I remember certain stones with the same sense of “knowing someone special” that I have for longtime friends, memorable people I have met, animal companions who have passed on, trees I have engaged in passionate monologue. And—certain stones. Not so much precious stones, jewelry stones or crystals. I love best ordinary-looking river stones, beach stones, mountain rocks, and rock formations I have spent time near. In my house and sometimes in my car, small stones that weigh a pound or less have been tucked into the corners. What are they doing there? For protection, something to be thrown at an intruder? No, this has never occurred to me. The stones are there because they keep me company. How they do this I have no idea.

My own Scandinavian ancestors evidently had no problem with this question, naming and interacting with spirits inhabiting rocks and water. One name for these is vaettur (plural), specifically landvaettur, those spirits living in stones, and vatnavaettur for those in water, especially waterfalls. The Vanir were an ancient matriarchal people whose goddess Freyja was approached through magical practices involving land spirits. Landisir were protective female ancestral spirits who live in rocks. Disir are one’s maternal ancestors, while one’s paternal ancestors are Alfar, Elves.

Even eighteenth-century preindustrial Sweden was a land crowded with spirits, or vaettur. Land wights was another North European term for spirits who live in stones and waterfalls. If needing to move a stone, a practice was to bring the stone some food, eat some, then leave some.

Honoring includes warning them when doing anything startling like throwing boiling water or urine on the land. The spirits inhabit all aspects of landscape, including caves and trees. They can take the shape of troll-like animals and they can possess human beings. My ancestors in all probability made offerings to the spirits of the family, the disir, with offerings called disablöt, of fruits, ales, or pigs, usually at the beginning of winter. The spirits, associated with Freyja, bring bounty and bless newborns. The wights can tell about your future.

My American-assimilated parents did not directly speak about any latter-day interactions with land spirits. However, I would guess it was my father who taught me to leave a little bite on my plate after eating, “for the fairies.”

While my Scandinavian ancestors clearly understood that stones serve as locations for spirit energies, they were hardly the only peoples to perceive this, as the oldest surviving goddess installations are stones, often associated with the Earth goddess Ma. She was the Giantess (mountain) of north Europe, the rib-shaped dolmens from the Pyrenees to the Korean peninsula, the stone pelvic laps on which people sat to ask for a child or love or health, the flat plain stone recipients of food and prayer of parts of India and South Asia, the carved goddess and snake stones of Greece, the stones that bleed in Indian as well as North and South American community practices; the stones that bring rain in San Diego County, the stones activated by blood offerings in remote villages out of sight of disapproving eyes. Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas found thousands of small stone figures she identified as goddess ikons in sites of Old Europe. And a common practice today is the wearing of polished, semiprecious stones to either conduct or deflect body energies and are used as amulets wherever the “Evil Eye” continues to be a known hazard.

Stones of Mother Earth

The most impressive stones I have ever met are enormous boulders that have heaved up out of the soil on a mountain in San Diego County, called by indigenous peoples who spent their summers there (before they were forcibly displaced) gathering and processing acorns a century and a half ago: “Mountain of Moonlit Rocks.” Made of intrusive igneous rock similar to granite except coarser and struck through with gleaming bits of quartz and mica, black ore in spots, and occasional runny-looking red iron extrusions.

The boulders split easily and often in intense weather, and their surfaces easily read as enormous faces, creatures, profiles of bodies, and, especially, vulvas. San Diego county terrain is full of archeological sites known as “vulva stones” worked by human hand into unmistakably female sacred sites. Friends of mine, Betty de Shong Meador and Mel Kettner who own and live on a ranch in the foothills of this mountain, have found such a site on their land.

Mel was led to the heavily overgrown site through his use of a dowsing stick. Mel’s method of dowsing was traditional European, holding the ends of a forked tree limb and walking while asking a question. The wand makes a sudden downward or upward twisting motion when the answer is underfoot or nearby. Looking for signs of earlier habitation, Mel first found a waist-high stone wall, and some rectangular house walls; then following out from a line of wall, he continued to use his dowsing implement which led him to a spot overgrown with thick plants. The wand told him something was under the massive foliage, and ducking under limbs, pushing away the overgrowth, he found a goddess installation from long ago. She is a big rounded gray stone with white splotches and a split on top that forms a very realistic round pelvis and vulva shape, no trunk, legs, or head. She is literally a vulva of the earth, about waist-high, very accessible—you can sit on one side of her. Extrusions of red shading into pink mark the slit of the internal lips of her vulva, and there is suggestion of a clitoris. As though in whimsy, a bit of mossy lichen grows at the top of the slit, like green pubic hair.

A little research and Mel’s wife Betty discovered that San Diego has many such installations, understood as having been created by ancestors of Tipai or Ipai peoples, who as I said spent summer seasons living in the inland mountains near oak groves, grinding acorn meal near streams and hunting small game. An adjoining ranch, now a nature preserve, also has a standing rock formation goddess or mother earth figure; red-stained lichens grow in a circular flower shape around her clitoral head; the labial lips of her vulva contain two oval human-made carvings that are familiar to archeologists over a broad range of the earth’s surface. These carvings are associated with the vulva shape, perhaps carved as part of puberty rites or by women requesting a wanted pregnancy, or a change in weather. Perhaps each supplicant dug a bit of grainy stone and ate it as part of a pregnancy prayer, with earth mother as one of the parents of any child that was then conceived. In San Diego County, the carvings are also believed to have been used to conjure rain or snow. According to archaeologists, shamans of San Diego’s indigenous communities scraped a bit of stone with a fingernail and ingested it as part of rain-making.

Stone connections are part of our scientific/spiritual ancestral past, and of people intersecting and communicating with stones as sentient beings, practiced on every continent, part of a very old human idea of Earth as Ma, as Mother, whose bones are made of stone.

Touched by Spirit

Of course, on the face of it, it’s by definition not possible to “touch spirit” if spirit is “unembodied presence.” Yet, altered states have a distinctive “feel” and exercises to perceive someone’s energy from across the room produce that feeling as well. Once when a friend died, I was sleeping in the next room and woke at a little after 5:00 a.m., the time he died, to a sense of my aura field having been “brushed.” I certainly felt touched. And the particular heart opening that is ecstatic and nearly painful definitely feels like a touch, a beam, a wave, from outside.

But I can’t say that extraordinary experiences with the elements translate as “touch” in such ways. The idea, perhaps, is that a landvaettir is a spirit presence that inhabits rather than is the stone. The stone is to be given food (ordinary human food). This seems congruent with practices in Asia in which feeding stones is for the purpose of creating a welcoming place, or seat, for the desired deity or spirit to stay while it (or He/She) is addressed, or to keep it calm and pl...