Spirit Signs

Spirit Signs

by Salicrow, author of Spirit Speaker and The Path of Elemental Witchcraft

Death touches all of us; moving, shaking, and rearranging that which we call normal. When we lose someone we love we are often thrown into a whirlwind of emotions as we struggle to make sense of our life without them. Amplifying this feeling of loss is the separation modern culture has created around death and dying; something that is particularly true of first world nations. I believe this disconnect, particularly in the United States, was created in part by television’s portrayal of what it means to be American as presented to the masses in the 1950s and 1960s. Suddenly all the cultural traditions of our multiethnic country were whitewashed into a Leave It to Beaver vanilla smoothie that left little room for venerating the dead. Life was about living, and no one wanted to be bothered with the unpleasantness of death and dying!

This hollow view of death has failed us. We need more; we desire knowledge and an understanding of the death process. We can no longer look away. It feels wrong for our loved one’s last moments to be handled by the sterile hands of hospitals and funeral homes. It’s not that these places should be shunned, just that they are not enough! This separation from the fate we all eventually embrace has left us soul sick. While some find solace in the perspectives presented by religion, most find these still lack depth and come with few substantial answers.

Having grown up in a family with psychic gifts, I learned that it was a privilege to have contact with the spirit world and that with this advantage came responsibility to both the living and the dead. I knew at a young age that everyone has the ability to experience our Beloved Dead—the ancestors, guides, and loved ones connected to us—and that like all things some people are better at it than others. I was fortunate that my family kept our traditions around death. My great-grandmother, Grammy Brown, was the matriarch of the family and the most important person in my young life. Grammy was half Irish Traveler (an Irish nomadic indigenous ethnic group) and half Blackfoot (an indigenous people of the United States). Both of her parents were psychically gifted and shared their cultural traditions with her, which she in turn shared with me. These teachings were not only on how to communicate with the dead but also on how to give honor and respect to our ancestors who paved the path before us.

With these teachings in mind, I wrote my book Spirit Speaker to share what I know of the spirit world, including ceremonies and practices that help create a living connection with our Beloved Dead. Here is some introductory guidance from the book to give you a preview of what you’ll find within its pages.

ANCESTOR ALTARS

To venerate is to give honor or show respect for something. Venerating the dead is the act of creating a sacred practice in which we make time and hold space for our loved ones in spirit. It is an act of love, and it carries great healing potential, giving us a healthy way to express the sorrow and grief we feel at our loved one’s passing. After all, the hardest part of someone’s death is dealing with their absence!

One of the easiest ways to start a relationship with our Beloved Dead is by creating an ancestor altar. An altar is a shelf, table, or cabinet set aside for spiritual or religious purposes. Items placed on an altar are done so with intention, chosen for their energetic significance or sentimental value. Ancestor altars are specifically focused on loved ones who have crossed into spirit and can be created as individual shrines or family altars. Altars erected for individuals are often created with healing in mind, giving those who mourn a place to grieve, whereas altars connected to our family/tribe are more traditionally places utilized to honor our ancestors and ask them for guidance. Both are places of magic and healing.

Once your altar is created it is helpful to spend time with it each day, lighting a candle and sitting for a few minutes in prayer or talking to your Beloved Dead. Come as you are, be real, and remember who they were and the relationship you had with them in life. Drink your coffee with them, share stories of the family, ask them for support, and allow yourself to be fully present. This means making the conscious effort to leave behind your everyday worries for just a few moments. We need to sit at our altar in much the same way that we enter a cemetery, with our mind sincerely centered on how much we miss our loved ones. The more regularly we use our altar, the easier it will become to perceive when our loved ones are with us, because sacred shrines become stronger and stronger connecters to the spirit world the more actively we engage with them.

OFFERINGS

Another way to interact with our Beloved Dead is through the act of giving offerings. The best offerings come in the form of the simple things they loved. Their favorite foods or drinks are wise choices, as are cigarettes, marijuana, and alcohol. In fact, the things most spirits love to talk about are food, drink, and smoke. We love those ingestible bits when we’re alive and miss them when we die. While a spirit cannot actually eat a piece of pumpkin pie, they can enjoy the memory of it! They love it when we eat, drink, and smoke their favorite things or leave such things as offerings on the family altar. My dad and great-grandmother were both smokers, which means I often place cigarettes on my altar, and on occasion I smoke a cigarette for them. Of course, these things will not disappear if you leave them on your altar, as spirits are not actually consuming the items, they are enjoying the energy of them, so remember to clean up your altar before things spoil. Items removed from an altar may be disposed of in the same manner you would dispose of regular food or drink.

Not all offerings have to be consumable. Songs and stories, particularly those that tell of our ancestor’s deeds, are also great offerings, as are religious items, bits of jewelry, wooden spoons, and recipe cards. Playing your grandfather’s favorite music while you tell your children tales of his misadventures and dancing around the room in fancy dress as you think of your favorite aunt are also beautiful ways to give honor to our Beloved Dead. Other offerings may come in the form of flowers, driftwood from their favorite ocean spot, or items we find that make us think of them.

SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

The spirits of our Beloved Dead are constantly connecting with us and often try to communicate with us through signs and symbols. The effort that they will go to for our attention is remarkable and endless in its possibilities. While most spirits try techniques that have been used by others and recognizable by the living masses, some reach for the obscure, and some truly impress me with the persistency of their communications.

Whether it be alphabets or mystical icons, our thoughts are activated by symbolism. Religion and spirituality utilize this truth often, bestowing power on or through holy symbols. This innate understanding of the symbolic language is something spirits rely upon in their communication. Often when I connect families to their Beloved Dead, I will be shown symbols that connect to memories between the spirit and their living loved ones.

A grandfather showing me a purple colored heart will often bring the family to tears as the image gives them reassurance that this spirit truly is the one they seek, knowing he had received a Purple Heart medal for his military service. The spirit of a child smiling at me and showing me a rainbow over and over again makes sense to the mourning parents who have a picture of their daughter with a rainbow painted on her cheek still hanging on her bedroom wall. In addition to spirits using symbols to communicate through mediums, they also use them to directly connect with their living loved ones. In fact, it is one of the most common things they do, showing us dimes, feathers, butterflies, and Elvis.

While most spirits use symbols with personal significance to make contact with the living, they also use symbols and signs that are more universal in nature, such as cardinals, crows, and jays. There is a powerful connection between these songbirds and the spirit world, in part due to their strong relationship with humans, as these birds are bolder in nature and interested in the human habitat. While other birds are used, too, they are less common and usually hold some kind of personal connection. Interestingly, spirits will use images of the birds as seen on greeting cards or art as often as they use the birds themselves, directing their energy at the image in the hope that their living loved one will sense them and recognize the symbolic connection between such birds and the dead.

Another favorite sign given by spirits comes in the form of songs played on the radio. Many of us can relate to the experience of riding in our car and having a song come on that nearly brings us to tears, as we immediately feel the presence of our Beloved Dead with us. This marvel, while often unexplained, appears to be one of the most emotionally moving and hard-to-disbelieve experiences people can have. I believe this is due to the vibration of the music combined with the spirit contact, which moves us in a profoundly emotional way. It is important to understand in the case of songs on the radio that the DJ is completely left out of the loop; they have no part in the communication. If our Beloved Dead are visiting us when a song comes on that they have a connection with, they push their energy at us in the hope that we will feel them through the music. The emotional impact of the song opens our aura, making us more sensitive to their energy. When a spirit sees that they have made a successful contact this way, they will repeat the action over and over again in the hope of creating a bonded connection that allows us to recognize them when they are around.

Coins are another form of communication utilized by spirits. Dimes and pennies are the most common, but some spirits use signature coins such as fifty-cent pieces or two-dollar coins. In the case of common pennies and dimes, the spirit is relying on the fact that such things are small and often displaced. They are not making coins appear from the ether; there are no pennies falling from heaven. Instead, they are again throwing their energy at us. Having spotted the coin themselves first, they take advantage of our symbolic language, hoping that we will remember the connection between coins and spirit contact. Energetically they are directing themselves into the coin, illuminating it with their essence.

The use of symbols in spirit communication can be used by spirits in multiple ways, with spirits generally choosing a few symbols that hold personal connection between them and their living loved ones. Whether it be a shamrock, the United States flag, a peace sign, or a flamingo, they will direct their energy at their chosen symbol over and over again in the hope of catching our eye and getting us to see the signs! Along with experiencing these images in our waking world, we may also experience symbolic communication with our Beloved Dead in our dreams, as it is a favorite place for spirits to reach out in communication.

I could most likely write an entire book on the ways spirits reach out for connection, but Spirit Speaker is not that book. It is a book of hope and understanding, meant to be a guide to the otherworld (world of spirit), with my hope being that anyone reading it may find a deeper understanding about what happens when we die and of how “alive” our Beloved Dead really are. When we open our consciousness and begin to understand that we do not cease to exist when we leave our body in death, then we begin to live our life with a deeper sense of purpose and joy. When we become open to the many ways our dead are utilizing to communicate with us, we feel less lonesome, as we realize we are never really alone. While you may not be able to work with your spirits with the clarity that I do as a medium, you can call on Grandma to stand beside you when you’re going through hard times, and you can lean on your dad when you’re scared and lonesome.

Whether you are exploring work with your ancestors and guides on your own or through a professional, remember to record your experiences. If you are working with a medium make sure to ask them if you can record your session, as going back over the recording provides an opportunity to glean more information from the experience. Remember to record your experiences in your book of shadows/sacred journal and start speaking to your guide as if they can hear you clearly, because they can. Your guides can hear you whether you speak out loud or in your head. That said, I recommend speaking out loud if you are able as it keeps the mind from wandering and makes us more aware of the fact that we are actively interacting with spirit.