Call Of The Ancestors

Not long after I had bought my first boat, Waterwitch (then called Nirvana), I had my first psychic medium reading.

This happened by ‘chance’, although I don’t go by the ideas of ‘coincidence’ much these days, understanding the coincidental workings of the Universe more within the context of spiritual synchronicity, or as I like to call it ‘The Breadcrumb Trail’.

After having followed The Breadcrumb Trail now so many times, of synchronous meetings, spiritual signs and symbols dropped mysteriously onto my path, I know that our Spiritual Guides are always trying to give us opportunities for learning and growth.  Synchronicity is one of the hallmarks of this process.

So I had put up a little hand-painted sign onto the back deck of my boat, simply saying “Tarot Readings & Healing”.  It was very gypsy-fortune-teller, advertising my services to anyone walking down the public towpath, past my boat.

Now the comings and goings on the towpath are a fascinating thing to observe within their own right.  Many people come and go up and down the towpath for all sorts of reasons.  There are all sorts of characters and strange folk using these lesser trodden byways.

It is, firstly, a waterway transport route that connects towns and cities through areas of beautiful rolling countryside, so there are many cyclists whizzing past on their way to somewhere, very often running over the dogs being walked, or children out for a countryside adventure with their parents.  It has long been noted by boaters that for the most part, cyclists are a menace, disrupting the gentle pace of life on the waterways with their ‘must get there fast’ approach to transiting through our living space!  I have seen fully grown swans flying at cyclist head height, parallel with said cyclists, chasing them out of their territory!!  The swans don’t like the cyclists either! 

Then there are the fishermen - equally as much of a menace… my goodness, I could write an entire chapter devoted solely to the crazy and troublesome antics of fishermen, from my 20 years of life on the water.  And perhaps I will at some point.  But that is not the theme for today!

Then there are the joggers, ramblers, and dog-walkers, families on days out, children having unsupervised and mischievous adventures out in nature, the maintenance crews and lock-keepers who keep the waterways operational, and other boaters coming to or from their boats, carrying wood, coal, water, shopping, portable toilet boxes that need emptying, and all manner of DIY equipment and materials for achieving ‘Zen And The Art Of Boat Maintenance’!

There are also the vagrants, hobos and hermits who prefer the peace and tranquility of the towpaths where, for the most part, they are left alone or can exist in their own way without the expectations of modern social ideas of who, how or where they should be.

There are also the occasional robbers, raiders and junkies, scoping boats for whatever they think they can steal.

There was one man who I would regularly see power walking past my boat.  He was a short and stocky man, who never said anything as he marched past with determined strides.

One day, there was a knock at my door.  I went to go and see who it was, and it was this man.  Now, I can’t for the life of me remember his name, I wish I could, but for the sake of telling the story, let’s call him John.

John said hello and asked me about my sign and the Tarot Reading that I’m offering.  He then tells me that he’s a Clairvoyant Medium and asks if I would be interested in doing a trade in skills.  A Tarot Reading for a Clairvoyant Reading.  I accepted his offer, and we arranged for a time for him to come back and do both of the readings.

Now at this point, I’d like to mention that I was still refining my skills and gifts as a Tarot Reader.  I was still comparatively young and inexperienced, somewhere in my mid-20s, and from where I sit now, I look back and can see that I still had a lot to learn!

But a witch is a witch, and you’ve got to start somewhere, right?!

So anyway, John came back on the appointed day to do our skill swap.  He was the most unlikely of Clairvoyant Mediums.  He had a thick Yorkshire accent and looked like he should be serving fish and chips in a fish and chip shop! 

I gave him the Tarot Reading first.  He then, very kindly, told me that I should throw away all my books on ‘how to read Tarot’.  In fact, he said, “get rid of ALL your books on spirituality.  Less theory, more practise!  Stop listening to other people’s ways and find your own ways.”  This was probably one of the most powerful, profound and useful lessons anyone has ever given me in treading my spiritual path.

He then proceeded to tell me his own story of how he became a Clairvoyant Medium…

He had started to see The Dead, and hear their requests, asking him for help.

He tried, for many years, to block them out, ignore them, and try to get on with a ‘normal life’.  This didn’t work.  He said they were very persistent!  So he took up all sorts of dangerous sports and activities to try to distract himself from The Dead and their constant demands on his time and attention.  None of it worked.  The Dead just got louder and more insistent that he listen to them.  So eventually he gave in and joined a spiritualist church, to try to understand and work with this skill that was becoming stronger and louder every day.  He learned skills to block them out while he was trying to do normal life, like shopping at the supermarket, for example.  But they would only agree to leave him alone when he promised to set aside time to listen to them and serve their needs.

The more he allowed himself to listen to the requests of The Dead, the more he realised that this gift that he had been given, to be able to see and hear them, was actually a gift intended for The Living.

He told me that he began to understand that The Dead really, really wanted The Living to know that they were still around.  That they hadn’t just disappeared when their bodies died, and that they wanted to provide information to The Living, indisputable proof of their continued existence, by providing information or evidence through John, that he couldn’t otherwise possibly know.

He then told me that he could see three dead members of my family who were there with us, and that they had all died by suicide.

He first described a young man who had vomit all down his face, who had died by a drink or drugs overdose, who went by the name of Adam.

That was my cousin.  He died when I was still a child.  I had only met him once or twice when I was little, and didn’t know him well at all.  But he had indeed taken his own life by eating a pile of pharmaceutical pills and drinking a lot of spirits.  His name was Adam.

This information stunned me.  It was the first time I had ever experienced this kind of information landing, and those few sentences shifted my Reality Paradigm like nothing else had before.  I had long been interested in concepts such as reincarnation, out of body experiences and life after death.  But I had never had any direct evidence of it.

This was my first indisputable proof that consciousness did not end when the body dies.  But it was absolutely not the last!

Adam wanted me to pass on a message to his parents, my Aunt and Uncle, not to buy the red car that they were thinking about buying as it was not a good car!

John then went on to describe another man who was soaking wet, and a man with a rope around his neck, both of them had also killed themselves.  I didn’t know then who they might be.

Over the next couple of decades, I had a few other Clairvoyant readings with different Mediums.  Again, these readings were not sought by me, but came to me in indirect and round-about ways, either being offered to me through skill-swaps or by friends.

But each time, ‘The Suicides’ turned up.  They would rock up like a little gang of ominous spectres, with their method’s of Death showing themselves to the Mediums each time.

Just before I left the UK to move to Guatemala in 2020, my friend Steph gave me a reading as a parting gift.  She ran the Wellness Centre that I had worked in for the previous few years, and she had been opening up and offering this Mediumistic gift that had been knocking on her door loudly too. 

By this point, in my own Shamanic work, I was having regular conversations with The Dead, as part of my work to remove intrusive Spirits from people’s energy fields, or to give it it’s proper title, Compassionate Shamanic De-Possession.

Steph and I had many conversations comparing and contrasting our most recent interactions with The Dead.  We identified that we had a haunting going on in the building, as Spirits of The Dead seemed to know that there were practitioners working in the old Georgian manor house who could help them cross over to The Light.  They started making themselves known to whoever could see, hear or feel them. 

One particular night, I was in the building, late and on my own.  I was setting up for a weekend workshop that I was running, which started first thing the following morning.

I was organising materials into piles and wrapping things up into little gift bags for my students, which we would be using in the workshop.

Twice that evening, I came back into the workshop room and my piles of things had been moved!  Steph then mentioned that she had felt and heard the presence of Spirits of The Dead in the building too, and so had another practitioner.  Their experiences had both been in Room Five, a small lesser-used treatment room that was next to the big workshop room that I was setting up in.

So I had a conversation with my guides about what was going on in the building, and they confirmed that there were indeed Spirits of The Dead loitering about.

Initially, this was a surprise to me, as every day when I started and finished work, I energetically cleaned the room that I was working in, as well as the whole building.

All my teachers were very hot on teaching principles and practises of Spiritual Hygiene, and so I have always cleaned every space I have worked in, before and after, as well as the bigger area around it too.

The Manor House that was the Wellness Centre had two large Yoga studios downstairs,  one upstairs, and several treatment rooms upstairs too.

My Guides told me that Spirits of The Dead that were attached to anyone who came into the building, for yoga or fitness classes, treatments or therapy sessions, were gathering in Room Five to wait for the regular cleansing rituals done by me to help them to cross over.  Because Room Five was used the least, this had somehow been designated as their Waiting Room for The Dead, to await their weekly opportunities for Transition!

So at that point, I decided to install an Angel into Room Five. 

For many years, I had worked closely with Archangel Ezekiel, The Angel of Death.  He would take the Souls of The Dead to The Light when they were ready to cross over.

It is worth understanding that when people die, they have the opportunity to cross over to The Light upon Death.  But they will only do this if they are At Peace with their Life.  Many are not At Peace, and so miss this initial opportunity to cross over.  They are then stuck, Earth-Bound, until somebody with the right skillset can hear them and help them.  But many Spirits of The Dead stay attached to The Living, or haunting areas, buildings or houses, because they cannot Transition themselves.  They need the help of The Living to advocate for them, often to help them come To Peace, and then request spiritual help to accomplish the actual Transition. 

Archangel Ezekiel is my Ally who does this Soul Transition work.

And because Angels are multi-dimensional beings who exist outside of Time and Space, they can be in many places at once simultaneously.

So I asked Archangel Ezekiel to get comfortable, and take up permanent residence in Room Five, and to immediately Transition any Spirits of The Dead who jumped off our incoming clientele, seeking help in crossing over!

By this time I had discovered from conversations with my Mother, that her Grandfather George had killed himself by jumping off a bridge in London, which explained the soaking wet Suicide Ghost Ancestor, who always turned up at the Clairvoyant Readings.

Despite having had many conversations with Steph about The Dead, I had never mentioned ‘The Suicides’ to her.  But sure enough, in the reading she did for me just before I left for Guatemala, all three of them rocked up - the little macabre gang - like an ominous warning.

Steph described each of them, asking me “Who’s George?  Did he jump off a bridge?”

“Yes” I replied, “George is my Great-Grandfather on my Mother’s side, and yes, he jumped off a bridge in London.”

By this point, I had had so much evidence provided to me about the existence of Spirits in general, that I was no longer surprised by this kind of spiritual confirmation, nor did it rock my Reality Paradigm.  In fact it just cemented it further.

But by far my biggest confirmation came from an experience where I became possessed by the Spirt of a Deceased rock climber at the notorious, ancient and huge pile of large rocks and boulders in Yorkshire known as Almscliff Crag.