It feels wild and hard to believe, but I have been on a mystical and magical path for the last 22 years as of this month. In that time, I have learned a lot about myself, about people in general, and about the shape and contour of the Otherworlds. The call of the spirit world caused me to take my first steps on this path. Along the way, I have had moments of shifted focus that have centered on my very human and embodied experience. Of course the spirits have chimed in, lending insight and wisdom. However, as my connection to the Otherworlds has deepened and my ability to see beyond myself has expanded, I know that the spirits can and do speak about issues and concerns beyond human ones.
I have seen, heard, and felt increasingly more over the years, so too have my fellow witches, magical practitioners, and spirit workers. We’ve always had our ear to the ground but the spirits seem more restless, more emphatic, more talkative now than they did even five or ten years ago. Honestly, that makes sense because a lot has changed in that time. Humans as a whole are learning more about this world and our impact on it. We are applying not only philosophical convictions but also scientific methods to understand that everything is interwoven within an interdependent ecology. More and more people know that human action and inaction have a direct, measurable, and often problematic impact on everything around us. We see this more clearly now thanks to science. The concept of ecology, from my perspective, also applies spiritually to the Otherworlds. What humans do and don’t do has an impact on the Otherworlds. We often think in vertical terms with regard to power and influence, but in an ecological model, power and influence are always horizontal.
I have taken notice. To quote King Théoden of the LOTR cinematic universe: “Dark have been my dreams of late.” Many members of The Catkin Collective and I have been dreaming and seeing with our third eye greater displacement, more loss, more wandering and grieving spirits. The Gods, the dead, the Other Crowd, and a host of other beings have been fraying the veil, reaching out to get the attention of magical practitioners and other spiritually inclined people. We’ve even observed that people who heretofore have been unaware of such psychic currents are raising their heads and eyebrows as the thoroughly “other” whooshes past.
Yes. The winds of change are blowing and all the worlds are aflutter. Just as the wind kicks up when the seasons change, equivalent psychic energies rise and begin to move when it’s time for the worlds to change. It’s no longer acceptable for a select few to be privy to the goings on along the edge of the veil. We all have to wake up. Though many are only recently noticing the changes occurring across the worlds, it’s been changing for quite some time.
Gods, spirits, and the dead feel it. The Gods have been calling more and more people and putting them in place to assist with managing these changes. Spirits and the dead have been rattled, disturbed, moved, displaced. The activity in every world has increased. Some beings have become more angry, some just more busy, some more talkative, some more lost and confused, some just in a hurry to find refuge in the storm. As the worlds stir, the veil flutters. What was once still enough to allow a calm, happy mirror back to the mortal world with people being none the wiser, now is blowing in the gathering wind. The veil is storm-tossed. It is flashing open to some people’s wonder and others’ dismay. In some places the veil is blood- and/or tear-stained.
In the midst of all of this mighty storming and changing, more humans are bound to notice. When we are indoors in the safety of our homes, we don’t notice a gentle breeze blowing by. But when a category five hurricane rips through, no matter where you are, you notice. If its not on your skin to be felt then it’s in your ears to be heard. If not in your ears to be heard then it’s destruction is visible to your eyes. You notice because it’s big and its in your face and it will not be ignored. The impact we are having on the Otherworlds will not be ignored because it never should have been ignored in the first place.
Humans can’t keep thinking that everything is about them. Too many magical and non-magical practitioners alike are noting the raging storm with wonder and intrigue or simple amusement. We are allowing our sense of wonder and awe at the magical and fantastical all around us to distract us from what these winds of change mean for us and for Otherworldly beings.
In my experience thus far the uptick in Otherwordly activity has looked like bumping into the roaming and lost dead. It’s looked like brand new encounters with types of beings I have never encountered before. It’s looked like less safety while traveling the worlds in the from of more strange and/or aggressive beings interacting with me regularly. It’s looked like astral entities at my door without invitation. It’s looked like spirits masquerading as beings that I have relationships with in hopes of a meal. It’s looked like refugee spirits from my apartment building dropping in.
Any one of these experiences could and would be discounted as par for the course or just another wyrd happening on just another day as a spirit worker. However, taken all together, these experiences represent a pattern, a shift toward a concerning trend, a fraying of the veil. It all means something. It all matters. There are no coincidences, only early indicators or ignored consequences. Signs. Omens.
To my thinking, all of this maps on to the general mess humans are making of the planet’s environment, our collective refusal to get along with one another, rampant destructive globalization, dominant imperial powers’ refusal to cater to anything but the almighty dollar, and other unsustainable nonsense. You may or may not agree with my theory regarding part or all of the cause of the disquiet in the Otherworlds, but I sincerely hope we can agree that the storm in the Otherworlds is definitely happening.
So all of this begs the question what do we do. Specifically what do mystical and magical types do in this wild and deeply troubling reality.
I believe that we magical practitioners, shamans, healers, spirit workers are not here just to observe the who and the what and the where of these happenings. We are not just here to sit in our lawn chairs and watch the roving spirits fly by or simply ward ourselves and attempt to wait it out. Those of us who see and know and work magic by pale moonlight are here to investigate, to ask questions, to understand. We are here to ask the how and the why and the what next. It is with answers to these three questions especially (to the degree that the Gods, spirits, and dead are willing to answer) that we as magical, shamanic, healing, spirit-bothered people can do the vital and important work of building bridges across the Otherworlds, shoring up alliances and connections, making new alliances and connections, and thereby healing our relationships with the worlds, with the Gods, the spirits, and the dead. This looks like everything from information gathering and investigating to prayers, offerings, and service to hospitality for spirits on our “side of the veil” that need a hot meal to strengthen them on their long journey through this storm.
Right relationship is the medicine for all of this. We are being called to be diplomats and other kinds of helpers. The more people waking up, paying attention, and taking responsibility then the more capable we will all be of charting the path to right relationship with all our relations (past, present, and future; human, animal, and plant; the dead, the spirits, and the Gods) and making it through this storm. On the other side of it, may we be hale and whole, if deeply and possibly unexpectedly changed.
Wandering Woman Wondering 