Carlos talks about synchronicity. That if we are aware, we'll notice it happens all the time. Friday morning last week, somebody pinched my ankle three times and woke me from a deep sleep. But nobody was in the bedroom with me. (See my previous post.) By 11 that day, I was guesting in Michelle Garrison's Spanish grammar class where the topic of the day was brujeria and santeria and Catholicism in Mexico. I told the students at Cafe Contento, in Spanish, about my experience and that I was still trying to figure out what I had to wake up to. Mouths dropped open; their attention was complete. "Were you scared?" one woman asked.
"No."
"Were you able to sleep after that?" wondered another.
"Actually, I told the spirit I was going back to sleep and to please wake me up at 6:15. When I woke and looked at the clock, it was 6:13."
Mexicans had a whole different take on a spirit visitation. By the end of the day, we were in my brother-in-law Hector's car on our way to a teacher party with him. "So, somebody tugged on my ankle early this morning," I told him. "Carlos was in the living room - it wasn't him."
"Ha, you got off easy," Hector said. "Once the lady who hangs around my mother's house gave me a cachetada!"
I brought it up again at the party. Everybody at the table had a story. The spirit in fulano's house. The shaman who worked in the pueblo near Celaya who died but is kept by the villagers, embalmed and hidden in someone's house. Those pueblos around Celaya, si, hombre. Todos tienen sus brujos.
My 16-year old sees spirits all over the place. Once we went into a downtown store in San Miguel that sells householdy things like hand-blown glass pitchers and glasses, tablecloths, antique tables. "There's a dead person here," she said, as we ascended to the second floor.
"What's he doing?" I asked.
"Watching us," she said, picking up a silver plated spoon.
Carla had promised early in the day to check our bedroom and see if it was our recently deceased friend Mary hanging around. When we got home from the teacher party, I called her in.
"Oh, yeah, there's someone here," she said.
"It is Mary?"
"No, it's one of your maestros, here to give you some conocimiento."
"What's the knowledge I need? What am I supposed to know?!"
Carla shrugged, and ran out of the room. There was a song on YouTube her sister wanted her to hear.
So now I have more questions than answers. Coine on, Gringo Nation, help me out! This is my moment and I don't know how to grab it! Who was in my room and what am I supposed to be learning?
Blue Iguanas, Cold Caguamas, Blinking Jesus and other surprises found in Mexico diario
Oh my! I only dream about dead people telling me things in my dreams, but never had one pinch me before. I'd probably have a heart attack if one did. :P
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind me adding my two centavos, Hubby's family believes that if you are visited by a spirit/ghost, it's because there is money or treasure buried somewhere near you and they want you to find it. Next time your visitor is around, ask where the treasure is? :)
Kudos for not freaking out. As a child I saw lights and felt people around me but I grew out of it. I feel comfortable to be around Mexican culture which generally doesn't pooh-pooh this sort of thing. Or automatically think it must always be scary or bad. Have you figured out what they were trying to tell you, or had a chance to ask? We have a little girl in our house who only seems to be interested in playing with my son's toys or just being near us watching. No messages.
ReplyDeleteSusan:
ReplyDeleteI was visited by my son's spirit several weeks after he passed away. I was also visited by my mother-in-law's spirit moments after she died. I totally believe in this, and don't find it alarming at all. I find it quite comforting, actually.
Don't know what the message to you might have been, but I have no doubt it was real. j