Boy, once that door is open, you’re off and running.

It’s been a full-steam ahead experience of practice readings for friends and family.  I like to start off by contacting a family member (who is on the other side) of the person I’m speaking with.  In this way I can get a few confirmations right away that I have the right person (Did she look like this?  What do you want to ask her?  Does that sound right?)  Within a few minutes it’s apparent to both of us that I’m tuned in, and this relative often helps facilitate the reading by showing me the answers to questions.

In some cases though, there is no other living person.  Spirits are starting to pop up on a daily basis.

At work, I was typing on my computer when the power cut out.  At first, I didn’t think anything of it.  I thought the power had just gone out and the generator had kicked in, causing the computer to reboot.

But then it happened again, and I heard running feet and a giggle.  A boy.  What’s your name?  Danny.  Danny-boy.

Danny was shy, hiding.  He wouldn’t go into the light when I invited him to it.  I called to my guides, asking them to get someone for Danny to bring him home, and his great, great grandmother showed herself.

“Go with your grandmother, Danny.”

He wouldn’t go.  Well, I had work to do.  I went about my day, and a few hours later I returned to my computer again.

Click.  My computer turned off again.  I thought, “Wait a minute,” and I checked the computer on the desk next to mine – it was fine.  The power hadn’t gone out, just my computer had been turned off.

Okay then.  I guess computer work will wait for a bit, so I stayed in the store room and unpacked boxes, while talking to Danny.

Danny wouldn’t go with his grandmother because he didn’t know her – she had died long before Danny was born.

I was then given information in quick succession, wither by Danny, his grandmother, my guides or all of them.  Danny had come to the hospital with a lung full of fluid.  He had died.  (TB?)  He was waiting for his mother, his mother never returned.  She was an alcoholic.  Her spirit never returned for her son.  Danny’s sisters and neices all died in similar ways.

His grandmother said, loud and clear:  “Those residential schools destroyed two generations of my children.  I am the only one for Danny now.”

She then showed me the image of a child who had died in one of Canada’s many residential schools for native kids – children in these schools died at a rate of 20 – 50%.  This is well documented genocide.  They died of abuse, malnutrition, untreated disease and broken hearts.  She showed me how a spirit became so sad that after it died, the consciousness dispersed, returned to the creator.

I understand now that there is a literal meaning to the works “To destroy someone’s spirit” or “to break the spirit in someone”.

The problem remained, how to help Danny.  I remembered a creation story that I learned when I was a girl, from an elder at the indian friendship centre: it was about how the Crow created the world from a snowball.

I decided to tell Danny this story, since I had his attention.  He asked “What is snow?”  “You know what snow is,” I replied.  I explained that it’s the white crystals the rain become in warm weather, which we do sometimes get in this climate.  I explained where I come from, there is no rain in winter but so much snow.  Some people even make houses out of snow, there is so much.

“That’s silly.”  Danny said.

I finished my story, and Danny wasn’t buying it.  He didn’t believe that the world was created from a snowball, not one bit.  “Well, your grandmother has a better story, I’ll bet.”

And indeed she did.  She sang a story in her language.  She was playing with string in her hands, like a cat’s cradle came, to show the pictures of the story she was telling.  I recognized one word at the end of each verse refrain, but I’d have to hear it again to tell you.  it sounded like “anishnabe”.  Something like that.

When the grandmother finished her story, Danny was not as shy of her.  I said, “Follow your grandmother into the light, Danny.  She had so many stories she wants to tell you.  Don’t you want to hear them?”

He did, and he left.

I was left thinking about residential schools, the fragility of our spirits, and the sacredness of children.