Believing in Weird Things

Tulip, lounging on her side with one paw resting over the leg of a 3-legged side table, her chin resting there too. A white and blue tablecloth dangles off the table, and a green blanket and brown stick are on the near side of the table legs. The walls behind Tulip are peach with white baseboard.

Strange and Unusual Ideas

I’ve been blessed with people in my life who do strange and unusual things, and thus make it feel safer for me to do the same.

A few years ago, I took an animal communication course with Nancy Windheart. The foundation of animal communication necessitates believing in telepathy: that we are able to communicate with each other, and animals, without using spoken language.

This was a hard one for me to wrap myself around, not just because I found it hard to believe, but because I was terrified what it would mean about me if I did believe it. If I leaned wholeheartedly into being someone who thinks she’s talking to animals, what would people say about me?

At the time, I was still directing my energy toward working and learning in academia. Research and peer review and careful craft were the pathways I knew to reach reliability.

I had also had some experiences that couldn’t be explained with those tools: going to a Reiki session and feeling a pregnant belly swell on my body, while my material body was flat on the table. Feeling like trees were some of the beings who understood me best. Receiving useful and specific guidance from Tarot readings.

I believe that science and magic are the same thing, and that what we have studies and empirical data around is deemed “science,” and what we don’t understand / can’t prove with studies and data is deemed “magic.”

I have received and given energetic healing, received guidance from trees, and I have communicated with animals. This is the shit that I was afraid would get me called “crazy,” and dismissed.

Here’s the thing: I think that shit is some of the most important shit I will ever know or experience, and that it’s essential to visioning an earth-based world rooted in inclusivity and care. I can’t stand within my integrity AND ignore telepathy because I’m afraid people will judge me. They are mutually exclusive.

Most of the time, when people judge me harshly or dismiss me, it’s because allowing for the possibility of what I’m doing and saying is scary to them. And I can have compassion for that. Being scared is terrifying, and messes with our nervous systems and brain functioning.

Usually, at most people will give me a weird look. Surface-level they know they’re supposed to be polite, so they’re polite, and deeper-level I think there’s a “wait I gotta come back to this later - really?” reaction that happens. I can handle a weird look, though in the past it would’ve shaken me really badly. In fact, I can handle it now because I let myself get shaken, and then recovered.

Okay, here are some other weird things I believe are real:

Ghosts / spirits

Ancestral communication across time

Speaking with / channeling extraterrestrial beings

Communicating with plants

Manifesting (I practice an anticapitalist approach)

I plan to add to that list the more I hear about and experience. It’s a form of rebellion: I will not be contained by the socially acceptable narratives about what it’s “safe” to believe.

Righteousness gets messy, so let me say: I do not intentionally impose my beliefs on anyone, and I do not need others to believe what I believe to be okay. My beliefs are not about limiting anyone else’s existence or rights. Not all beliefs are acceptable in a tolerant, care-driven vision for the world. Use your own critical thinking to decide which is which.

Animal Communication

Nancy’s class was online and involved receiving communications, sent several days prior, from her animal companions, then writing to her with what I received, and getting confirmation or correction on whether what I’d received was what had been sent.

And that shit worked. “Yes, my cat was indeed sitting in the kitchen where there are brown tiles on the floor,” is roughly what I heard back from her once after describing a room I saw. I was getting real communications - not just from animals, but from animals in New Mexico (and I was in Maine). This was telepathy in practice.

Since, I’ve worked with an animal communicator to talk to my own animal companions. Communicating with our own animal beloveds, while it seems like it should be the easiest, is especially hard: the stakes are high, and the pressure is on. So working with someone else has been immensely helpful.

The person I work with has told me things my rabbits say that are hilariously true to their personalities, or that reveal truths about our home that the communicator could not have known. As my belief has grown, the weight of hearing what my animals need and feel has become a lynchpin in how I treat them, and how I love them.

Witch Wound

There are good, historical reasons to be scared of showing our strange beliefs. I have compassion for myself in being wary of the reactions from others that I’ve experienced in this lifetime and previous lifetimes. These things make me want to hide under a bushel.

This past week, I attended a Spiritual Salon with a group of colleagues: energy workers, creators, and other spiritual folks who work for themselves gathered in a Zoom and we went around and just took turns talking about what we believe. The purpose was simply to be heard with care and respect.

The amount of overlap I experienced in the “unusual” beliefs I hold made me think that maybe they’re not so unusual - maybe we’re just nervous to talk about them. And maybe it’s become a higher priority for me to find others who are as passionate about exploring new spiritual ideas and experiences as I am.

The only thing that can really heal a witch wound is being visible, and receiving respect and love. It’s a slow process (which I love), and one that I’ve found transformative and connective.

If you have strange beliefs you’re wary to share, I am here to hear what they are, just as a compassionate witness. I’m on the other end of the line, interested in what you think.

Village Witch’s Corner

My intention this week : 

Give space for recalibration and flow. Leave long moments of silence in which to reground and reorient.

Question I'm asking this week:

Where do I want to be more visible? How can I make this happen?

What I’m listening to:

Judee Sill by Judee Sill. A lesser-known and powerful folk singer of the 60s and 70s, Judee Sill seems to have become a “hey have you heard of her” artist for people of my generation with folk and indie musical taste. Incredible lyrics, unique voice, strongly recommend.

What I’m Reading:

Still reading ACOTAR. Still really enjoying it.

Tiny Spell of the Week:

Sit in a quiet room and stare at the wall. This is not strictly meditation, so you only need to focus on your breath and presence as much as keeps you grounded. What does staring at a blank wall do for your brain? What unclenches over the course of 10, 20 minutes that has been spiraling tighter?