When the Dead Want Our Attention
(A Year of Living with the Dead: Day 4)
Before I really began acknowledging that the dead were real and close, they often struggled to get my attention. It wasn’t enough for them to appear in a dream—they had to appear in the room. It wasn’t enough for them to pop into my thoughts—they had to make the lights go off or the music turn on. I am actually very relieved these days that I can hear them whispering and they don’t have to shout so loudly. It can be disconcerting!
Once my son, home for the summer, discovered just how committed the dead could be to proving they were there. He was, in his early twenties, dubious about his mother’s interests, mostly ignoring my collaborations with the other side. Still, the every-expanding ancestor altar was hard to dismiss, standing between the dining room and the kitchen. There were his grandparents, family friends, beloved pets, and ancestors and saints of all kinds. But he didn’t interact with them. One hot day, alone in the house, he was making himself a sandwich. The air was still and heavy, the world quiet except for the thrum of cicadas—when he was startled by a loud clattering right beside him.
Every single photograph had fallen off the ancestor altar onto the floor at the same moment. For no apparent reason.
He looked around, barely able to breathe. There was no sudden gust of wind and besides the windows were shut to keep the night’s cooler air inside. There were no cats downstairs. He heard no mouse skittering. Unnerved, he walked into the dining room excepting to see a pile of broken glass. But not one of the photos was broken and not a single pane of glass was even cracked.
One by one he picked them up and put them on the dining room table noting his grandfather, his grandmother, wondering who this old lady was or this handsome young man. Who were these people? What did they want?
That was what he asked me when I got home. “What do they want from me?”
Indoctrinated into a culture of fear with the dead, we imagine they want to hurt us, or scare us, or curse us…but even the worst of the dead want only the best for the living. (okay, yeah, I’ll write about this tomorrow.)
“What do they want?” I smiled at my sweet son. “They want to know what YOU want. Because they are waiting to answer your prayers. They want you to know they are ready to get to work, to collaborate, to play, to make magic happen in your life.”
“Really?”
Nine years later my son doesn’t need such extravagent gestures from the dead. Like his mama he has become adept at listening, knowing their subtle languages, hearing them on the wind and in his heart. He works with them too.
How do the dead speak to you? Have they ever shouted at you to get your attention?
Perdita Finn is the author of Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World and the forthcoming Mothers of Magic: Recovering the Love at the Heart of the World. She teaches popular workshops on collaborating with the dead. With her husband Clark Strand she is the founder of the feral fellowship The Way of the Rose and the book by the same name.
A Year of Living with the Dead is an ongoing Substack series. Perdita also has a paid substack that includes excerpts from the book she is currently working on and a monthly Zoom discussion on our adventures with the other side. Our next meeting is this Sunday, October 20th at 3 pm eastern time.
They come to me as smells first. I'm very much at the beginning of my opening up for real to them, beyond the annual momentary altar during this time of year. I'm very excited about creating a more lasting altar for the dead as I deepen my work with my own transition. Thank you for your divine timing and encouragement.