My Dad's Ghost
I have been contending with the feeling of paranoia stemming from my dad's ghost watching me. In order to relieve some of this, I thought it would help to leave something at his grave. I chose a tiny glass bottle, shaped like a test tube with a cork, about 4mm thick and 1cm tall. On the way to the cemetery I imagined poking a part of the spirit hanging about me being trapped inside the corked tube. That way he would be tethered wherever I left the bottle.
When I arrived at the graveyard, figured out which one was my dad's grave, and stood by it, a raven crowed in the sky right above me. The cemetery has been done up now, so it's cement all the way. There's no actual ground. But there was a little hollow bubble in the base of his tomb which, with a little bit of work, I managed to jam the bottom of the bottle firmly into. I told my dad, quite firmly, that I was not going to put up with this, that when I left his grave I would be leaving him here, bound, and he would never be allowed to be part of my life again. I commanded him to stay here.
Just as I reached the end of what I needed to say to him, the raven swooped just over my shoulder, rested on his grave-top briefly, and then landed up in a tree watching me. It was as much of an omen of defiance and refusal as there could be in the circumstances.
Instead of giving me comfort, strength and confidence through powerful imagery, I found the whole thing even more distressing and harrowing. And as much as I might try not to believe in the reality of the omen, ultimately it forms a stronger image in my head than the one I went there to create.
But over the week, it has been churning away at the back of my head. It is a strong image, one I will never get out of my head. But since I went there to create a strong image, I just have to re-interpret the scenario.
And so I was thinking. If someone truely has a power, they might show you it in such a way in order to further intimidate you. But on the other hand, if you have just taken their power away from them, they would try a power-play to try to convince you of your failure in order that you continue to bow down and let them in.
The raven could well be taken as my dad's defiant spirit objecting to what I came to him to do and say. But not because he was showing me I failed, and had no power to demand such a thing of him. It would be because it was his only remaining means of attempting to control me.
I have been watching other birds for signs, and I can tell you that no other bird I've seen has behaved in any unusual way, and none has seemed to watch me. And that's despite the mind's natural bias to look for signs that fit the hypothesis currently in one's head.
I will never forget the raven swooping over my shoulder. But that is now my reminder that whatever power my dad had has now gone to grave with him, and I need never visit him again unless I so choose.
On Thursday, James was eager to remind me that I have it within me to resolve things on my own. And he was right to remind me of that. Because I do have it in me, and I'm not using everything Paul taught me. What we discussed [which can only be found in a private entry] still stands. There are things I can't do without further help. But there are things I can resolve on my own.
When I arrived at the graveyard, figured out which one was my dad's grave, and stood by it, a raven crowed in the sky right above me. The cemetery has been done up now, so it's cement all the way. There's no actual ground. But there was a little hollow bubble in the base of his tomb which, with a little bit of work, I managed to jam the bottom of the bottle firmly into. I told my dad, quite firmly, that I was not going to put up with this, that when I left his grave I would be leaving him here, bound, and he would never be allowed to be part of my life again. I commanded him to stay here.
Just as I reached the end of what I needed to say to him, the raven swooped just over my shoulder, rested on his grave-top briefly, and then landed up in a tree watching me. It was as much of an omen of defiance and refusal as there could be in the circumstances.
Instead of giving me comfort, strength and confidence through powerful imagery, I found the whole thing even more distressing and harrowing. And as much as I might try not to believe in the reality of the omen, ultimately it forms a stronger image in my head than the one I went there to create.
But over the week, it has been churning away at the back of my head. It is a strong image, one I will never get out of my head. But since I went there to create a strong image, I just have to re-interpret the scenario.
And so I was thinking. If someone truely has a power, they might show you it in such a way in order to further intimidate you. But on the other hand, if you have just taken their power away from them, they would try a power-play to try to convince you of your failure in order that you continue to bow down and let them in.
The raven could well be taken as my dad's defiant spirit objecting to what I came to him to do and say. But not because he was showing me I failed, and had no power to demand such a thing of him. It would be because it was his only remaining means of attempting to control me.
I have been watching other birds for signs, and I can tell you that no other bird I've seen has behaved in any unusual way, and none has seemed to watch me. And that's despite the mind's natural bias to look for signs that fit the hypothesis currently in one's head.
I will never forget the raven swooping over my shoulder. But that is now my reminder that whatever power my dad had has now gone to grave with him, and I need never visit him again unless I so choose.
On Thursday, James was eager to remind me that I have it within me to resolve things on my own. And he was right to remind me of that. Because I do have it in me, and I'm not using everything Paul taught me. What we discussed [which can only be found in a private entry] still stands. There are things I can't do without further help. But there are things I can resolve on my own.