Scones alone: A Samhain story about feeding the dead

Well, it's that time of year again--October, when the air gets crisper and the veil between the world gets thinner.  It's the pefect time to dust off our best tales of ghosties and spooks, and also to celebrate the return of the beloved dead, our ancestors and departed friends.  One way to honor the dead is with offerings of food and drink, a practice that that exists throughout history and around the world.  In keeping with the season, I thought I'd share a little personal story about trying to serve tea to a spirit last All Souls' Eve.

I guess I should include some background.  I don't regularly work with the dead, and I don't have any great talent for mediumship.  But I have had some isolated experiences with spirit contact in my life--just enough to know firsthand that there's some validity to it.  When I moved into my current home three years ago, I gradually became aware of one particular spirit.  I now think of him as one of my ancestors, though he's not a blood relative.  He identifies himself as one of the settlers of the area, someone who loved this land before I did (and still does).  My house is just past the northeast edge of the land that was once his family farm.  He's not much like a ghost--more of a guardian spirit, one of the genii loci that just happens to claim a human past.  In the past couple of years, I've been able to find out more about him, through a mix of psychic means and regular ole mundane research.  Through various experiences, my doubts have been quelled, and I've developed a sort of granddaughterly affection for him.  He's also been an important teacher for me in the last couple of years.

As All Soul's Eve approached last year, I began to think about what might make a suitable offering to show my gratitude.  Food seemed appropriate--a lot of the memories he'd shared with me related to food.  He remembered the scarcity of wheat flour, and the trial of eating dry corn breads for a couple of years until they could get a wheat crop going and a mill established.  He told me about raising dairy cows, and that the milk and cheese produced from Texas grass never tasted as sweet as the stuff he remembered from home.  He loved the abundance of fruit here--berries and plums that could be cooked into jams that didn't even need sugar.  Since I knew that this spirit was originally from Devonshire, England, I settled on the idea of a Devon-style service of tea and scones for my seasonal offering.

However, I felt that the details had to be just right--and that wasn't going to prove easy.  If you've never had a Devon-style scone--well, its not a regular English scone, those dense and doughy triangles studded with fruit.  It's actually closer to a Southern biscuit, round, but drier and sweeter and made with cream instead of water.  I checked just about every bakery in town, but couldn't find anyone who made something resembling a Devonshire scone.  So I found a recipe online and assembled the ingredients.  Over the next few days, I tracked down the remaining essentials:  Clotted cream from Devonshire to represent the homeland.  Texas strawberry preserves for the adopted land.  Good tea (loose leaf, not bagged), china cups, saucers, spoons, and a teapot of hammered tin.

On Samhain, October 31, I took the day off from work.  I got out of bed and baked the scones.  (They came out a little dense and crumbly, but a good effort, at least.)  I put hot water in the teapot, and gathered the dishes and cream and jam.  Then I put everything in a cardboard box with a tea towel, belted it to the passenger seat of my car and drove the mile or so to where the old homestead was. 

Of course, the original buildings are long gone.  Part of the place is a lake now, part is a busy road, and part is a public park.  It's active in the evening with people strolling and exercising, but during the workday there's often no one in sight.  It was a crisp, clear late morning--a  Monday.   From the parking lot, I could look and see that there was nobody around for a quarter mile.  Perfect.

I carried my cardboard box into the park and found a bench.  I sat down on one end of it.   I set up two plates, two cups, and two saucers--one for me and one for him.  I put two scones on each plate and split them lengthwise.  I spread the cream on the scone first (Devon style--they do it backwards in Cornwall), then heaped on the preserves.  I brewed the tea and poured two cups (plenty of cream, no sugar).  Then I tried to decide what to do next.

You see, this was the first time I had made a food offering to a spirit, and I had some unanswered questions.  I had done some research beforehand and found that food offerings for the dead are common to many cultures, but I found few resources that addressed what you actually do with the food in case the hungry ghosts don't show up to eat it.  Some of the advice was even contradictory.  I read that you eat the food, and offer the spirit the experience of tasting the food, because spirits don't have mouths to eat, which makes sense.  I also read that you should under no circumstances eat the food, because it is an offering for the dead, not a snack for you, which also makes sense.  I was planning to do what I usually do in such situations, which is go with what feels correct at the moment and hope I don't screw anything up too badly.  I took the first sip of my tea, trying to stay in a magical mood but feeling just a little silly.

I don't know what I was expecting to happen. I didn't see anyone, obviously.  I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary, other than the intensity of my concentration on the ritual.  As I mentioned before, I can be a little dense.  I don't always know when spirits are present, but I am a bit more confident in my abilities as a tarot reader.  So, I pulled out my cards--the ordinary 52-card deck I use when I'm in public and want to be discreet.  I asked if my guest was present.  I shuffled the deck and drew his significator on the first try--a definitive "yes" if ever there was one.  I still didn't know what to do.  I took a few more sips of tea.  It was aromatic and perfectly warming on that cool October morning.  I began to think I could easily drink both teas, if need be.

What happened next was baffling.  I saw someone approaching from the corner of the park.  Not an apparition.  Just a nicely dressed white man, slightly past middle age, walking a border collie mix along the path behind me.  When he was about six feet away, he stepped off the sidewalk.  He greeted me heartily, like we were old friends.  Then he came and sat next to me, just inches away from the second tea setting.

I guess I should have been worried, being accosted by a strange man in the park, with no one else in sight.  I guess he should have been frightened to come sit next to a crazy lady on a bench with two cups of tea and a cardboard box full of junk.  But it felt fine--normal, somehow.  I offered him the tea.  He didn't take the scones, but said they looked delicious.  I saw the dog coveting them, so I asked the man if his dog could have one.  Then we sat for a while, savoring the tea and watching the dog lick the cream off the scone.  I poured a refill.  I don't remember what we talked about--the weather, probably, and the dog.  I'm certain he didn't ask me what I was doing there with tea for two and some playing cards--because I wouldn't have had a ready answer for him if he did.

When we were finished, he stood up.  He looked me over and said,  "Enjoy your day...and God bless you."  And he continued on down the path.  And I did--I felt as blessed as could be.  When he had gone out of sight, I poured the remaining tea on the ground, and left the last of the four scones there in the grass.

I don't really have anything to add to this story, except to say that it comes close to typifying how magic, real magic, usually works--in unexpected and quietly stunning ways.  It's not always fireworks, but it's sometimes, just...wow.

Have a happy Halloween, y'all!

The five "clairs": Identifying and developing psychic senses

Remember learning about the five senses as a schoolkid?  Psychic ability is often considered to be a sixth sense, and that's one way to think of it.  But there is a more precise construction, which posits five psychic senses that correspond to the five physical senses.  These are sometimes called "the five 'clairs,'" after the French word stem that they all share.  Today, we're going to define all five, and discuss how they're used and different ways to develop them.

Clairvoyance ("clear sight").  Clairvoyance is the ability to see objects remotely, or to receive other true visual impressions through visions or dreams. Clairvoyance is probably what comes to mind first when people think of psychic abilities.  This makes sense, because for most of us, sight is the sense we rely on the most to navigate the world.  There are many sub-categories of clairvoyance.  Clairvoyant information most often comes spontaneously, through brief flashes of mental pictures.  The skill of a trained remote viewer is a very focused kind of clairvoyance.  Clairvoyant ability is what allows certain people to see auras and subtle energy, spirits, elementals, and other discarnate beings.  We can even classify mystics and religious visionaries as clairvoyants, if we're willing to venture that the realms they access have some external validity.

Some clairvoyants see things with their physical eyes open.  Some see them as mental images or behind closed eyes.  Some can receive images at any time; others get visions only in a trance or dream state.  (No way is better than another.)  Visions vary in intensity, too.  They can be as crisp and colorful as a movie, or lack detail, color, definition or motion.

Clairvoyance and other psychic gifts are almost certainly inborn, to some extent--but it is also possible to strengthen and develop your abilities through practice.  Clairvoyance is traditionally linked to the third eye chakra, so try searching for practices designed to stimulate and develop it.  (Too many to cover here.) Visualization exercises are a great way to improve the clarity of your visions (and enhance dreaming and artistic ability, besides).  And of course, if you're ready for it, scrying is one of the best ways to learn to awaken and control clairvoyant functioning at will.

Clairaudience ("clear hearing").  Clairaudience, or psychic hearing, is a gift that is similar to, but distinct from clairvoyance.  Clairaudients can hear sounds playing elsewhere, or receive spoken messages from beyond the range of normal hearing.  Have you ever sat down next to a friend, and "heard" a song playing, only to find out she had that song stuck in her head?  That's one example of clairaudience.  (All five of the "clairs" can involve telepathic contact, but "hearing" the thoughts of others in proximity to oneself is one of the most common forms of telepathy.)  Some, but not all mediums have clairaudient abilities that allow them to hear spirits' voices.  (Mediums who are clairvoyant, but not clairaudient, prefer to communicate through symbols and gestures.)

Clairaudients sometimes report hearing ancillary sounds, such as ringing or buzzing, that accompany the onset of psychic hearing.  Sometimes there is speech that isn't easily discernible--a murmur just outside of the range of hearing, or several voices speaking at once.  This is said to be most common when clairaudience is undeveloped or just awakening.

Needless to say, the process of developing or discovering clairaudience can be disorienting and frightening.  I suppose this is true of all psychic perceptions, but more so with clairaudience because the experience can be so similar to symptoms of mental and physical illnesses.  Of course, diagnosis of these ailments should be left to the professionals, and you should get help if you're concerned about your health.  However, if you find that strange audio perceptions occur when you're feeling spiritually open (e.g. during meditation or when you're around new people and places) and not the rest of the time, that may help rule out the more mundane causes.

People with clairaudient gifts can focus and improve their abilities through the process of sound scrying.  Similar to visual scrying, a device--a seashell or glass held to the ear, rushing water, or a white noise generator--helps creates a blank space of sound through which clairaudient impression can manifest.  Automatic writing is another way to learn to focus the flood of words into a usable stream.  Clairaudience is linked to the throat chakra, so again, you could try searching for practices to stimulate and strengthen that psychic center.

Clairsentience ("clear feeling").  Clairsentience has got to be the most common psychic phenomenon. Who hasn't had a bad feeling about a person or place, that later turned out to be completely correct? Clairsentience covers a broad range of bodily sensations that provide with information about people, places, and decisions.  This information comes through in the form of tickling or tingling sensations, changes in temperature, and pleasant or unpleasant "gut feelings."  The ability to experience intuitive leaps without any sensory information has another name, claircognizance--but mind and body are so closely linked that this distinction is mainly theoretical.  Both clairsentient and claircognizant folks describe the phenomenon of "just knowing" things, without being able to describe where this knowing comes from.

Some clairsentient people are sensitive to the energy of places or objects--they may have trouble remaining around places that have a buildup of negative energy, without necessarily being able to say why.  Clairsentients who pick up on the emotions of people and animals are also known as empaths.  Often, the pain or emotion an empath's body picks up from others can seem so real, it's hard to separate from their own experiences.  This isn't reserved for the extraordinary few.  Anyone who's ever had a close physical relationship--as a parent, as a lover--has experienced an intermingling of energies at least bordering on clairsentience.

Clairsentience is probably the most widespread of the psychic gifts--it would seem that nature has endowed all conscious beings with the ability to "feel" danger, and also to experience connection with others.  But because it's so subjective, it can be hard to learn to trust hunches and feelings.  One really "out there" clairvoyant experience is usually enough to convince someone of the reality of psychic abilities, but clairsentient experiences tend to be less evidentiary.  Clairsentient awareness builds over time, as you learn what different feelings mean to you, and as you gather that your impressions are usually correct.

Clairsentience is associated with the heart chakra (especially in the form of empathy) and with the solar plexus chakra (the source of the proverbial "gut feeling").  Dowsing (e.g., with a pendulum) can be an ideal divination method for those who have strong clairsentient impressions, but perhaps lack the visualization

Clairalience ("clear smelling").

The last two "clairs" are the least often discussed, but they can be very useful, especially as supplementary skills.  Biology tells us that smell and taste are our oldest senses, the ones connected with our animal past.  In human beings, they're somewhat atrophied.  Most other creatures routinely gather information about their environments through smell, but for us, this ability is so rare that it seems to border on the supernatural.

In folklore, clairalience is most often associated with spirit presence.  It's very common for the dead to announce their presence with a whiff of a familiar perfume or tobacco.  In the realm of ceremonial magic, scent also plays an important role.  Many spirits, gods, and astral places have fragrances that are associated with them, and the proper incense or perfume can be used either as a tool to draw them near, or as a signal of their presence.

If you want to develop your sense of psychic smell, try meditating to get back in touch with this vestigial sense.  When you smell something, you're actually taking molecules of it into your body through the air.  How weird is that?  (And yet, its an apt description of how we move through the mundane and psychic worlds alike, never isolated, always taking in and putting out stuff.)  Close your eyes and see how many smells you can discern in the room around you. You can also practice "visualizing" (or recalling) familiar smells, trying to recreate them in your mind as vividly as possible.

Clairgustance ("clear tasting").

Clairgustance is the least-discussed of the five "clairs"--I've never met anyone who claims to be a gifted third-generation clairgustant.  I once heard a phone psychic describing the experience of tasting the peanut butter sandwich one of her clients had been eating before the call--but that's the only example I can think of.  Taste and smell are very similar, biologically speaking, so I would imagine that anything said about clairalience would also apply to clairgustance.

In conclusion, I'd like to point out that this discussion of the five "clairs" is meant to be helpful for identifying and exploring a variety of psychic gifts.  Obviously, these categories are somewhat arbitrary and the boundaries are blurry--so there's no point in getting hung up on them.  For instance, if you ask a question and hear the spoken answer "yes," is that clairaudience or clairsentience?  In a vision, you smell an orange so clearly it makes your mouth water--are you developing your clairalience or clairgustance?  And so on.  Have fun!