Sex, Money and a Velvet Chair
For Halloween, I went to the Isle of Apples to visit my ancestors. This a ritual of my tradition. Each year at Samhain, a.k.a. Halloween, we make this voyage of the witches to that shining land where the beloved dead wait to greet us when the veil between the living and the dead is thin.
I came back with sex, money and a velvet chair.
We cast the circle and as we call the elements, we call all the parts of ourselves: air and mind, fire and desire, water and belonging, earth and our bodies, center and spirit. There are 99 witches on the Zoom call, witches from all over Cascadia and beyond. Over the course of the last two years, we have learned how to make our magic on the wires and I feel the sacred space open up around me as surely as I did when we gathered on the shores of the deep lake in person.
And then it’s time to call the dead.
I used to be afraid of this ritual, of “seeing dead people.” I was afraid of it in the same way that I was once and sometimes still am afraid of my own inner darkness. But over the course of this pandemic, I have learned a thing or two about going into the dark and coming back out again. I know that where there is fear, there is power and on the other side this kind of fear is liberation. I know that showing up with connection to my lineage is essential to creating belonging, working with my privilege and giving the magic that I have to give in this time of The Great Turning.
So I go.
Bramble calls the mighty dead. Her name fits. She is a wild old witch, silver hair like a tumble of ancient vines. She is holding up a skull that covers her face as she calls the ancient ones who made us who we are and who have lessons for us now. Her voice is like sweet wood and it comes through the skull, saying “Like calls to like. Like calls to like. Like calls to like.”
I feel it move through my bones.
We work with ancestors because there is old wisdom here. We honor it. We call to the radiant ones that, far back in our past, lived in right relationship with the land. This is part of doing our ancestral healing and if you’ve read or listened to Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands, you know that doing our ancestral healing is part of the work of now, of creating a just and life sustaining society. Remember the part where he talks about the new research that shows ancestral trauma is passed down in our genes? Resmaa says his people already knew that.
So did mine. In fact, this is one of my favorite things about being a witch. There is no conflict with science. There is a lag… but eventually science catches up.
(To be clear, knowing this is not the same as being done with our anti-racism work. My tradition of witchcraft, the Reclaiming Collective, is on that path. It is long.)
After Bramble called the mighty dead to be with us and to guide our journey, it was my turn. I call the beloved dead – not the ancient ones but the ones we knew and loved in our lifetimes. I call to my friend Colleen Cook, who died of cancer, who was a witch and a mother and an activist. Colleen who gave zero fucks as she blogged about her death process. Colleen, who told me, laughing, “It’s not your job to be a perfect mother, it’s your job to keep Forest’s therapist employed.”
Colleen who wrote me a note that I still have which says “You are changing my life by being you.” Ah, beloved.
I call to Colleen and to all our beloved dead from my heart and it goes out like a cry of loss, of heartbreak, of recognition when I feel her arrive: There you are! I ask our beloved dead to guide our journey to the Isle of the Apples, the shining isle, where the trees are bare and in bud and in blossom and in fruit all at once. Where the cycle of life is whole and all things are possible. Then Ruby calls the dark goddess, the queer one, the mysterious one who opens the way and I know that Hekate, which is one of Her many names, is here with me.
And then my friend Maevyn, who is also an elder, begins to guide the trance. (This ritual was full of elder power. This is what it’s like to be guided by lineage. This gift from my lineage is one of the reasons. why my life’s work is focused on coaching the women and non-binary leaders who will be the elders of our movement someday.)
Through our breath and the practice of years, Maevyn takes us to the shore, where the boats are waiting and I step into the one that I know is mine just as the singing begins. It is the Salt Spring Island witches, I think. Their voices blend and weave, conducting us over the water. My boat is the silvery color of driftwood, a single white sail pulling it forward over the dark waves. The sail, the song, the sail, the song, the black water.
And finally, the approaching shore.
In my mind’s eye, this all looks like film noir, like it was shot using the Silvertone lens in my iPhone.
I hear Maevyn‘s voice saying, “The shore is shining. This is the place where…” but the words fade with the image of the dead coming to the water’s edge. My Great Aunt Mabel is here, her signature orange lipstick and matching orange hair is greyed in this weird light. My ancient Scottish ancestor, Alexander William Ruthven, who I call AWR, is here too. I first found him through working with my tarot cards but the white privilege of having intact ancestral records mean that I was able to find out who he was. That Wheel of Fortune reversed on my mother’s side? That was him. He was caught trying to assassinate the King of Scotland and his lands were seized, name taken. Executed. You wouldn’t know it looking at him now. He has been my ally in healing that extremely fucked up line for four years and now he is all about liberation. Mine. Ours. He has become a protector of the sacred and he said “Ella, you must tell the truth in spite of the living.” Maybe that’s why he looks a little like Mark Twain to me. Tall and rangy in an oversized white cotton shirt with wild white hair and a grin like he’s about to tell a terrific secret.
Aunt Mabel and AWR are here, already waiting for me as my boat scrapes the shore.
But the ancestor I see the most is the third: Lucina Semina Warren. Her name means Seed of Light and she is racing down the hill with both hands outstretched, running running running toward me and laughing.
This is not what I expected from a woman who went to Hillsdale College in the 1860’s. I expected a scolding from her. Being a woman writer back then means she had Discipline. “Where is yours??” she will ask, pointing to the book I haven’t finished yet.
Instead, she grabs my hands and says “But you don’t have a sister! Sisters are the best! I will be your sister.”
We all sit in the silver grass which blankets the shore all the way up to the line of trees. Lucina is next to me holding both my hands somehow, her great black dress billowing around her. I do want her to help me with my writing! She says “But you know that you can, right?” She says nothing of discipline, of duty or suffering. She says I can love what I love – words. She looks at my past, at the living spell I have been being these 27 years as a witch in this tradition. She looks at my life now, the choices and the isolation and the determination and she holds my hands and begs me to see the truth of this path: Hard in ways she never knew.
“I will be your sister,” she says again. And I burst into tears. It is such a relief, this deep belonging. It is different than the belonging I feel with the living. This is lineage and land and home and it feels secure all the way to my bones.
And then she says “Where do you write?”
I point to a space in my bedroom where I will have a place just for writing… someday. I have it planned: the fancy blush velvet couch, the little modern table…
“You don’t have a place? Oh, but you must!“ She says. (Does she hang out with Virginia Woolf in the afterlife?)
“But I shouldn’t spend money on that,“ I say.
At this, AWR, who is crouched across from me, finally breaks in. He is grinning as he lounges in the grass.“Do you want money? Let me give you some money!“ he says.
“But how?“ I say. “I don’t know what –“
I am about to begin my litany of scarcity: It’s not okay to spend money on fill in thing that makes me more happy/ more powerful/ more dangerous here… Every time I think I’m done with this, it creeps back. Oh Capitalism, thy wiles are many!
AWR waves this away.
“Just say ‘YES!’“ he says. Then I remember. The dead are annoying this way. Very short on specifics.
But he is smiling and sure.
So. “YES!“ I say. He nods and settles back and then my Aunt Mabel, who has been on my left this whole time in her grey and white Hawaiian shirt and white cigarette pants and perfectly curled hair says “Great. Now, can we get some sex happening here?“
Now I am crying and also laughing. I can feel them, pressing love upon me.
Which is when AWR takes both my hands and says “Thank you for the work. Thank you for the ancestor healing.” His face is open and shining and behind him, all his people turn at once with the same feeling and when they turn it’s like the wind silvering the grass, a wave of shining people, and he shows me that this healing that I asked our radiant ones for and that passed through his hands healed this many who are now all behind him, behind me, all our beloved and mighty dead.
Now, Maevyn is saying something again… I look around the shore – it’s like a huge company picnic, groups of witches sitting with their ancestors as far as the eye can see. Maevyn’s voice. We are being called to the meadow. I don’t want to go. I say “I want to stay here with you!” But AWR extends a hand so I rise and we all go, up the hill and through the bank of dark trees and into a huge meadow with the biggest cauldron I have ever seen and it is filled with shining water and a bright flame floats upon it and as I gaze into it I see a big beautiful brick house filled with a different kind of family and I feel the wild space for words and stories and magic gather around me like a cyclone. (Side note: the phone transcribed that as “psych loan.” I’ll take that too! )
This is my YES! AWR smirks a bit because this is why he wouldn’t get specific.
And then it is time to go. Back to the boat. Beginning to speed away. The three of them on the shore, arm in arm, smiling and waving and Maevyn‘s voice, saying “Sometimes there is an ancestor who is ready to return, who wants to get in the boat with you. So, ask yourself, in awareness of the conditions of your life and the carrying capacity of this planet, is this the right time for you to have a child? If the answer is Yes, open your womb. If no, say it firmly, now.” And I say “Not me!”and my boat speeds away and Maevyn says “Witches. If you celebrate your passion in the weeks to come, be safe!”
In the next two days, three things happen:
I get a call. My dear friend is in Europe is struggling. If she paid my way, would I be willing to fly out for a visit? Say, Now? I have not gotten out of the country since my son was born. 13 fucking years ago. Trips to Europe have been squarely on the sneaky, ole “shouldn’t spend on that” list. Five days after the ritual, I am on a plane to Germany where I have a fabulous week and help my friend do all the things that her ancestors would want her to do for her mental and physical health, including walking to the grave of her ancestor of craft, Pina Bausch. (Our ancestors are in cahoots. Show-offs.) The whole thing is witchy as fuck and I come back full of YES.
I have a date with a man that includes dancing and kissing under a tree.
I move the little pink velvet chair that I already have from my living room to my bedroom and begin writing this piece, telling the truth in spite of (and for) the living, each and every day.