CATCH A MYSTIC WIND WHEN IT BLOWS...

People often ask me why it is so important to speak to the dead out loud.

"Because it creates a place for them in this dimension, or in this reality. They are beyond us now," I explain. "Even just the softest whisper, if it moves even a few molecules of air, creates a place for them to inhabit and exist. And it strengthens our ties to them in the afterlife."

However, when the dead speak to us, it is often in a soft breeze on our arm or across our cheek. Or a quiet rustle in the trees. And sometime it's a cold wind that chases the sibyl's leaves in eddies at our feet, and makes us thrust our hands deeply in our pockets and walk quickly toward safety and light and other humans.

When I walk the dog at night we go round a cul de sac lined with maples. Even during the day a quiet conversation is going on among the branches and the breeze. I love it, and I love it even more at night, when the stars are part of the discourse, and even the planes landing look lyrical against the darkness.

Tonight as we walked the dog and I were especially happy with the chatty leaves and bright Mars in the wind washed sky. I was thinking I would write about wind "signals" and the language of trees. (The word for human is "monster". Only very old trees with hollow trunks will talk to people. If you listen you can hear the voices of the dead and spirits of nature. The higher the branches that wave the higher up the message, etc.)

But then, as we came back down our street the dog pulled me past the house, anxious to extend her walk, which is also our usual routine. Sometimes I let her keep us going to the end of the street and sometimes we turn to come home. Tonight was so pleasant that I let her have her head. Half way down the block she felt something stronger than I did, and wanted to turn back. This has happened before, and I wonder if there isn't a "real" and human evil on our street. She always stops at the same place, she always want to cross the street, and when we get home she sniffs the whole yard and inspects the perimeter of the house, as she did tonight.

But I think that now the Samhain winds have begun to blow, especially this year, this year of Fire and all things Martian (fire, war, disease, accidents), there are bad spirits about. A dark wind had begun to blow when we turned back, and I feel it still, despite my fierce and faithful guardians on this plane and in the Otherworld. An angry spirit, a lost and wailing banshee looking for someone to haunt. I am unlucky that the spirits know I see them. (Indeed, I maintain a passageway for them between this world and the next.) But I am lucky that I do see them and can recognize what that chill is, what that threat is that I feel. Perhaps others think they have just gotten "spooked" by the wind.

And Wednesday worries me. Too many fives. 05 10 05. Fives are sharp and fives are Martian. The spirits are speaking all around us right now, and they are making noise in the spirit world, and waking those that have slept soundly. What demons have we let lie for too long? What needs to be not just caged but vanquished? The dark spirits are more opportunistic than the good, just as it is so with the living. Watch your temper. Watch where you are going. And if you feel spirits around you for bad or for good, call to your Guardian's-- whether you know them by name or not--and renounce all evil from your life and person. The only hands that can do good or ill on this plane are human hands, not spirit ones.

A strong wind can blow ill, but it can also cleanse. Listen to the whispering leaves, and if you feel that you need to turn back, trust your instincts and find somewhere to shelter the night. And when you speak to the dead, speak aloud.

PRAISES THANKS AND BLESSINGS!