The Visit

According to the Celts, October 31st marks the end of the calendar year. The harvest is reaped and stored, and the cycle of death descends on us as we make the transition into the cold dark clutches of winter. The transition between the old and new on the eve of the 31st is, as the Celts believed, when the boundaries between the living and the dead are blurred, and communication between the two worlds is possible. The Celts celebrated this time as 'Samhain', translated from Gaelic as "end of summer".
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Though the veil between the worlds is said to be thin during this time, allowing for easy cross-over, I have never personally seen any ghosts or received any messages from them. Not on Samhain.
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But I have indeed received my fair share of visitations.

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One day in the early autumn of 1999 I was treeplanting on an old cutblock on Vancouver Island. The long, tiring season had left me bruised and listless, and I plodded along amidst the last remaining heat of the season in a trance-like state, lulled into a slow but steady pace by the occassional birdsong in the nearby forest. Thoughts came and went in their usual fluid, nonsensical pattern of commentary, sentiments, and images as I climbed over a log, planted a tree..... took another couple steps....planted a tree (repeat 1,000 times). And the rambling voice in my mind continued on, chattering away like a squirrel.

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But at some indiscernible point the voice changed. On I planted, listening to this voice that was not my own as I poked and prodded and planted the earth. It was a soft voice, belonging to a man. It was an old, old man, whose voice was barely more than a mumbling whisper, and I found it soothing to listen to. On he spoke, slowly and deliberate, as if telling me a story. I planted about 100 trees as I listened. And then suddenly I stood still and looked around me as if seeing my surroundings for the first time. I couldn't remember the past 1/2 hour, other than knowing I had been listening to this old, old voice. And as I stood there, I realized I had no idea as to what that voice had been saying, because it had been in some other language. I was bewildered. And I wondered to myself, barely consciously, "what was that voice talking to me about?".

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And the voice answered, "Little bear".

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At this point I laughed at my ability for self entertainment and plodded along down the gently sloping hill.

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And then I saw it.

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There in the cool shadow of a large fir log was a small mass of bones and fir. As I drew closer I saw that it was the remains of a bear cub's carcass, long dried and decayed. I knelt beside it and stared for a long time, sad that it had lived such a short life.

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That night I had the strangest dream. I entered an old house surrounded in mist, and walked up its crickety old wooden staircase, to a dimly lit room. I sat on the bed near a window, with just a faint light around me so that I could barely see my hazy surroundings. There was a nightstand nearby, some old, tattered white cotton curtains swaying in a draft, and old wooden floorboards. I felt slightly chilled in these dismal surroundings, yet strangely not afraid.

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Then suddenly there was a hand on mine, soft and subtle so that I barely noticed it was there. I tried to see who was sitting beside me but I couldn't quite make out his features. And then I knew. It was him. It was my cousin Rick who had died 10 years before. He had been taken from us so young, in his early 20's. I felt so at peace sitting beside him; happy and disbelieving in the wake of the calm warmth that washed over me that I knew was my own joy. I turned to him but the features of his face still evaded me. And so I asked, "Rick....is that you?".

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"Yes. It's me".

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And as is the nature of all things, the moment did not last. I awoke reluctantly, still clinging to his presence in that room as his hand slipped from my desperate grasp, back into the mist. The dream, seemingly more real that my present surroundings, slowly began to fade into mere traces of shadow and light. Only my remaining feelings were real. And though upon waking I felt certain that something had truly happened, over the course of the next few weeks the certainty was stolen from me by my lingering doubts. I eventually reconciled with myself that I was clinging to the dream because I wanted so much for it to be real, as all people do who lose those they love.

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A few weeks after this whole incident I visited my aunt Yvonne, Rick's mother. We often spoke of Rick, reviving him by breathing life into our memories. Some of my earliest memories were of Rick and I playing when we were just a few years old, hair flying in the wind as we ran like deer in the woods chasing one another from tree to tree and giggling furiously. I don't know what it was, but my heart always swelled and thumped in my ears whenever I saw him, and so the news of losing him was crushing beyong measure; a deflating weight that emptied me. My aunt was the only person who I felt really understood my feelings, and we often took solace in our shared loss.

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During this particular visit, as we sat around chewing pizza we had just brought back to her apartment, Yvonne told me she went to a pipe ceremony just a few weeks before. I listened with interest, as my aunt is Cree and I loved hearing about anything involving the practice of our traditional ways - most of which have been lost. She carefully explained the protocols of the ceremony, and the passing of the pipe around the circle as each person smoked from it. She said this ceremony was to honour Rick's spirit, and to give prayer for his safe passage to the other world, even though he had left us long ago.

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And then the pipe came to a Cree elder. He was a very old, old man.

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He started his prayer for Rick. "A little bear has died. He was taken from us too soon. He left this world young........."

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I did not hear the rest of what she said, or perhaps I just cannot now recall. All I remember now is the feeling of knowing that I had been visited.

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At a time when the boundaries of this world and the next became thin, perhaps this elder finally sent Rick on his way. I'm glad I got to say goodbye.