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!
What a lovely story.
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