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When Psychic Attack Hits Home

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It was a normal morning at home. I was reading a book about Proto-Indo-Europeans while my dogs slept on the couch next to me, and my husband was off at our local metaphysical store, trading a psychic reading with an astrologer.

Admittedly, our “normal” is not really prime-time normal.

I looked up from what I was doing, and I saw my husband walking toward the house from his car with a horrible expression on his face. Agony, perhaps? Pain? He came in and I asked him what was wrong.

“Migraine. A terrible migraine.”

I ushered him to the bedroom, got him a rag for his head, and helped him lay down to try to sleep off the pain. He was out for almost an hour an a half, which is quite unusual for him, even in a situation like this.

When he rose, he told me that he believed that something was “on him,” but he didn’t really know what that meant. While he slept, he had a rather disturbing dream; one that woke him up with a fright. In meditation early that morning his guide said to be aware of someone or something coming after him. He didn’t know what to make of that message when it was given to him, but he was reminded of it now as we stood in the kitchen, his head still throbbing despite the nap.

“I’m thinking this might be… and I don’t really believe in this… psychic attack.”

My husband is a gifted channel and psychic reader, but he is also a very logical, skeptical thinker. It is common for him to encounter some widely accepted phenomena in the New Age world and have an immediate suspicion that it’s “just made up.” He also understands that psychic work is a balance of intuition and imagination, so one might say that what he does is also “just made up.” Nonetheless, he finds cause to question.

I think this kind of questioning is good among psychic folk and magick workers. We have to be observant of what our experience tells us, and if there is not yet an experience to inform what we know we are well served to be inquisitive. Blind acceptance leads to wishy-washiness, I think, and unreliable results.

But here we were, trying to sort through the cause of this unexpected pain, and psychic attack seemed to make the most sense. Neither of us had dealt with this before, but I, for one, was willing to accept that this was the cause and start searching for a remedy.

(Incidentally, if there is ever desire for proof that I possess a deep, ancient, earthy magic inside of me — something that my grandma has, and my mother as well — all you need to do is mess with someone I love. I guarantee you — you’ll feel it.)

I urged my husband to reach out to a fellow psychic and colleague of his, and while he did I called upon my Patron for Her aid in this matter. As I said, I don’t have experience at dealing with this type of situation, and I’m not completely sure what my beliefs are on the subject, either. So, it seemed best to place the whole thing at the feet of a Goddess.

My husband’s colleague confirmed his suspicion. It was, indeed, psychic attack. We went back to the metaphysical shop and reached out for help from our friend and in-house herb-worker, who made him a scrub and gave him a mantra to chant. We headed home, and by that time he was beginning to feel a little better. I, on the other hand, felt like my belly was on fire.

Something seems to have shifted now. His pain is gone, and there isn’t the sense of something heavy on him like there was before. I was able to work off the rest of my defensive anger at the gym before I did anything rash. It appears that the attack has passed.

Now, I’m left with questions.

What do you think psychic attack is? Do you understand it to be some form of malevolent magick, or do you think the whole idea is hogwash?

Have you ever been in a situation where psychic attack seemed like the obvious cause for a malady? Was your suspicion proven or disproven?

Even having had this experience, I feel the subject is worth some further exploration, and I’d love to know what you think and what similar (or vastly different) experiences you might have had.

To #Occupy, To Fully Engage

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During the month that Occupy Wall Street grew from a small gathering to an international movement I mostly stayed home, busy with the work of selling our house.

Protesters gathered around the Capitol, camped out with their hand-made signs and their earnest expressions, and I sat at our dining room table, worried about whether our eighty-four year old house would pass inspection, frantically scrolling through Craigslist ads in search of a place to live, wishing this would all just end.

When people ask me why we’re moving I tell them it’s because, “we’re entering a transition period.” The line is short and convenient, but incomplete. It’s a tweet more than it is an explanation; fewer than 140 characters, and lacking the details which show just how complex this situation is.

I say it to spare the inquisitor the burden of hearing how financial decisions were made based on promises that were, ultimately, not kept, or that – simply put – we need to spend less money every month. I say it because it’s easier than explaining the whole truth.

I say it to spare my pride, too.

Oversimplify

The how we got here is always more complicated than we make it out to be.

I have this thought when I drive down Broadway in Denver on the way to our small, storage unit, passing by what was first a humble Tent City and what is now a large patch of grass and sidewalk occupied by hipsters and activists and ex-hippies, interchangeably dressed, and carrying signs that read,

PEOPLE ARE THE POWER

WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE?!

EAT THE RICH! (a personal favorite)

Three words here, four there. A tweet, drawn out in Sharpie ink.

The words call out to passers by — We’re entering a transition period!!!

But it’s always more complicated than we make it out to be.

I don’t suspect I will understand exactly how I got to where I am now, to the selling of our home just three years after buying it, until I have a little distance from the situation. I know I share part of the responsibility – a good portion, more like. I could have made different choices, anticipated different outcomes. I could have been more frugal at moments, and more calculating. But, I made the choices that made sense to me at the time.

I wonder if the protesters are at all willing to own up to their own contributions to the system they rail against. It’s easier to place blame on this idea of “Corporate Greed” than it is to examine how our buying habits influence the world we live in. We are all complicit, to a degree.

Unpacking Our Baggage

It would be naive to say that our circumstances are the result of any one single choice, or that a small group of people are the only ones to blame for the world’s ills. Those are easy answers to very difficult questions, and they keep us from being accountable to our own lives.

Part of what I identify as a Pagan Value is being fully present in the world, fully present to all of what is happening around me. In the world has negative connotations to some, but to me it feels like the path of choice, quite literally.

I choose to face this change of life without resentment or blame. I choose to acknowledge how painful it is to let go of the comforts of this house. My choice is over and over to be honest about what is happening, and not to scapegoat anyone.

This approach to living is by no means exclusively for Pagans, but for me it does feel like an extension of my spiritual growth and practice.

The Movers Are Here

We are all entering a transition period. There is evidence of it in the streets, in our homes, in our pockets and in our hearts. This is an inevitable progression, and it will likely continue to be difficult and challenging.

But it presents us with the opportunity to be fully engaged in the living of our lives; our complicated, messy, mistake-riddles lives that are also magical, and substantive, and worthy of more than a sign-slogan, a tweet, or an easy explanation.

What we do with that opportunity is our choice to make.

An Early Autumn Chill

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Our realtors walked through our bedroom and pointed out that my jewelry (a.k.a. Pagan Bling) would need to go, as would our book shelf of Buffy DVD’s and the half-dozen, brown, wooden elephant figurines left over from our big, gay wedding. They were pleased with the size of the closet, though, if not a little concerned with the clutter.

People like to see space, they told us.

How metaphysical, I thought.

They surveyed our kitchen next, which is lined with glass-doored cabinets, and they said that we’d need to do something will all that food.

Keep only the food you’ll need to eat for a couple weeks at a time.

How survivalist, and barren.

They looked at the wooden counters tops, which were once doors in a previous incarnation, and they mused that wood would probably be ok; the counters didn’t have to be granite. Our appliances, on the other hand, they would never pass. Stainless steel, it seems, is a crucial element in the sale of houses these days. This cold, hard metal can make or break a deal, our realtors assured us.

It really makes a kitchen “pop”!

Popcorn makes a kitchen pop. I love popcorn. I make it often, and I eat it in bed out of an oversized bowl that my mom gave to me. But my air-popper would have to go, and so would the bowl, and so would my grandma’s “See/Hear/Speak No Evil” antique monkey mugs.

They moved on to my office, home to my altar, my books on Druidry and Paganism, and all of my magickal supplies. This room would need a complete overhaul, clearly. The tapestries would come down off the walls, and the candles, statuaries and divinatory tools would be put into piles, first, and then boxes.

This room would make a good office. Leave the desk, and maybe a lamp. Again – space is a good thing.

I couldn’t breath.

Checklists and Upgrades

After their inventory of our possessions was complete, they gave us a schedule, a list of names and numbers of general contractors, and then departed with a forced cheeriness that could not have been more disconnected from the achy feelings in my belly. This wasn’t a home-invasion, exactly, but I still felt a little violated.

There was little time for the trauma, though. We had our task: pack up the outward representations of our personalities, and do it quickly. Like, two weeks quick. The air would turn cold soon, and we didn’t want to miss the Fall market.

Since that initial visit, we’ve erased much of what was unique inside our house. We’ve created a spacious (empty) and simple (bland) environment to put on display for as many strangers as possible.

(I have some parenthetical resentment, I won’t lie.)

Making space for strangers is weird. It almost feels like hospitality, but not quite. Never before have I sought people’s approval in such a outward, physical way. My treasure troves of trinkets and journals, aura photos and drams of oil, each picked out for its beauty, its function, or the tingle it gave me when I first picked it up, began to appear different when I stared looking at them through the eyes of a potential buyer. Liabilities? Maybe. These things that are connected to my spiritual practice were transformed, passively, into potential barriers between us and our financial freedom.

They needed to be boxed. My hearth must be dismantled for the change I seek to occur.

A Change Of Seasons

There are still two weeks left before Mabon, but I’m feeling the transition to Fall begin within the walls of my home.

Autumn is the season where we are all forced to accept that the year’s growth is coming to an end. The green of the leaves, the fruit from the vine, all that we’ve planted and made from dirt and sweat and water, it all begins to cease; to draw back. It is not dead yet, and it is still plenty beautiful, but the beauty is different now. The color is harder to hold, for you know that in time reds will become browns, and browns will take over the sidewalks and become crunchy and brittle, and everything that is now will soon not be. There is a melancholy beauty to the whole process.

Autumn is a season where we all consider the coming cold, and we wonder how we will survive it. The season has turned metaphoric for me in a profound way, for I stand now with uncertainty about who will take ownership of this space, and where we will land once it’s all over and done with.

How will our plants fair the move? How will we manage the dogs in the midst of house showings? What sorts of sacrifices will be made, unplanned and sudden, and how will we fare them? As I take apart the evidence of my achievements, removing the postcards and bookmarks that show proof of my journey thus far, what am I left with?

Perspective

I look outside my newly cleaned window (sparkling windows, our realtors told us, are essential when showing a house) I still see green. The tiny leaves which turn yellow and rain down on the grass and clog our gutters are still holding fast to their property. They aren’t selling just yet. They’re going to hold out until the moment is right; until the weather has turned and there is no sense in clinging to the life they’d grown accustomed to.

We’ve both got a little more time until we must become something new.

 

Have you had a similar experience? Have you been faced with the decision to sell or move out of your home, and did it give you cause to reflect on your life? If so, I’d love hear from you. Please share your experience in the comments. And, I’d be very grateful if you shared the post with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or your social network of choice!