I wish I knew what I know now.
Broomsticks and Ectoplasm.
At the risk of being burnt at the stake, exorcised, and probably ridiculed, I confess, I have tried witchcraft and talking to the dead.
Inspired by ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’, I undertook a correspondence course on spell-casting. After the film ‘Ghost’, I tried to be an ‘Oda Mae’. I wasn’t hugely successful at either.
A work colleague asked me to do a money-spell to pay her mortgage. I protected myself in a circle, and chucked some salt around the room before knotting coloured threads together. Her next pay-check was three hundred pounds more than usual — this continued for over a year. She asked me what to do next? She wanted to reduce her working hours as her husband was now earning more, but asking her employer might highlight the over-payments. I did another spell for her at full-moon, requesting a clear path ahead. She then found out her husband had been having an affair for the last year, and only stayed because she was paying the mortgage. She never spoke to me again.
My love-spell was also a disaster. I set myself on fire.
During a smoking-break at work, I told my boss about my witchery studies. I had a lighter in my pocket which had been leaking gas. When I lit the cigarette, my hand went up in a waft of flames. He seemed rather impressed. A week later he sent me a letter saying we were both changelings, and even though he was married and thirty years older than me, it was obvious to him we were meant to be together. I had to leave my job.
I then ventured into job-spells. I set my cat on fire.
I knotted some threads together by my open-fire. Bootsie the cat was very excitable that night. So, I thought the spell was going particularly well, but a lump of burning coal had stuck to his long furry coat. I had to chase a terrified smouldering cat around the house. I remember a firefighter telling me when somebody is on fire, the first thing you have to do is catch them. Poor Bootsie. He never sat by the warm fire again.
I found a job away from creepy-changeling-man and decided to take up talking to the dead. I hoped they might tell me a few things I needed to know.
I learnt to meditate, clear my mind, and trained at the local spiritualist church as a healer. I met some lovely people; I met a few weird ones. One healer told me we had a special spiritual link and had spent previous lives together, but we needed to work through our issues in this life-time. In a healing session he poked his finger into my belly-button. He was married and about thirty years older than me. I made a complaint about his behaviour and he left to work through his issues.
Is there anybody out there? Yes, I think so, but it communicates in symbols, thoughts, intuitions and prayers —
When I prayed for money, because I was financially desperate, a van drove into the back of my car. Whilst the compensation was great, the neck brace was not an attractive look for a spiritual healer. I decided to become a writer. How much trouble could that get me in?
Life moulds us through our experiences. Looking back, as I tried to control events in my life and communicate with my deceased loved-ones, the secret answers to my life were never revealed. But, it did manage to communicate something.
When I think… I wish I knew what I know now, I realise there are some things you know now, and are glad you didn’t know then.
We can’t always control what happens to us. We can’t control what others do. But those things that have been the most difficult to endure, have been my springboard to a better place.
