The hubris of the paranormal brought on by the popular TV ghost shows exemplifies the continuing increase of countless people having reported their related experiences as factual evidence of the afterlife-come-back to communicate with the living. However, personal experiences are not proof. It only means they experienced something they cannot explain or understand. Most reports are truthful, some are not. But what happens when that "truth" is spoken not by an adult, but rather by a child whose description of their experiences carry a weight of validity borne of their innocence?
The evidence for ghosts, especially malevolent ones, is no better today than it was 10, 50 or 100 years ago. The reason may be in the way the searching is being done. If spirits are real, they were around and dealt with long before the Age of Technology, and with successful outcomes.
The specific kind of assistance required in cases such as these is beyond the resolution capabilities of the average paranormal investigator. It requires someone whose knowledge has been passed down for generations, a knowledge of the "medicine" and possessing the special talent for using the procedures necessary for helping the afflicted and achieving resolution. This specialized kind of assistance and involvement is as necessary as that of a surgeon being required to perform a heart transplant.
Enter someone I am proud to call my friend, Medicine Man "Omolkhua" of the Chitimacha Nation. Just like having a need for a medical doctor that at times has been put off until the issue can no longer be ignored, he is called upon only when someone is in need of help... with the "unseen." Native American medicine beliefs are commonly shared by all tribes, however the methods vary widely. Beliefs are a critical component of both an event happening and its resolution. If you live in a world where the forces of evil or ghosts exist that can harm you, then they just might. What we believe affects us in ways we don't realize.
I'll set the scenario for this true story/case. Your belief is up to you. The names have been changed to protect the family's privacy.
There is a young family, husband and wife living in a small, modest home. They have two daughters. One is 6-years old (we'll call her "Emily"). The other, who we will call "Amanda," is 9-months old. The family was doing some remodeling. One of the bedrooms required some floor boards to be replaced. As the father (we'll call him "Henry") was working in the room, Emily kept saying the name "Aurora." The mother (we'll call her "Mary") didn't put much serious thought into what her daughter was saying, thinking it cute and that she must be referring to something she had seen in a movie, like the Disney character "Aurora" from the movie "Maleficent" or "Ariel" from the movie "The Little Mermaid." Mary went so far as to put a movie on the TV for the daughter to watch, thinking that was what she wanted. As Henry was removing the floor boards, he noticed what appeared to be a kind of card. Upon closer examination, it was revealed to be a common "Holy Card" that is found in the Catholic religion to commemorate the passing of a loved one. It contains the name of the deceased, dates of their birth and death, a picture of either the deceased or perhaps a saint of the church and a particular prayer of the deceased's family's choosing. These are made available to all those attending the funeral home "viewing" (last goodbye - last respects) or at the service offered up the next day for the deceased in the church they belonged to or attended when alive.
As Henry began reading the card, he was stunned to find the first name of the deceased was listed as "Aurora." Henry showed the card to Mary and they both turned in astonishment toward Emily who returned their gaze with a kind of blank, smiley look and said "yeah, Aurora." Henry and Mary are immediately thinking, "Okay, what do we do now?" Upon contacting Omolkhua by phone they stated, "you know, we thought about talking to you about this, but we hesitated. We didn't want you to think we were nuts. What should we do?" Gathering more details from Henry and Mary, it was found that Emily was waking up a lot at night, coming into her parents' room. Each time they would put her back in her bed, in the same room along with her 9-month old sister who sleeps in her crib there. Emily states her sister is always waking up quite a bit during the night as well. Henry claims Emily was never like that as an infant, seldom waking up during the night while her sister is waking up five, six, seven times a night. This was obviously stressful and wearing on the parents. Omolkhua agreed to try to help them, getting their address and arranging to come to their home on an upcoming weekend.
The cold, winter day (no snow) came that was mutually agreed upon for Omolkhua to arrive. While still outside, having not been there before and not knowing the arrangement of rooms inside the house, Omolkhua points to the right side of the house and tells Henry, "this is where your girls' bedroom is." Henry replied "yes." Before having Henry show him into the house, Omolkhua stops Henry and says, "Last night my mom, who has passed away 11 years now, came to me in a dream. In this dream, I was in a room. My mom was not very tall, maybe 5 feet 2 inches. In my dream she didn't speak. She pointed in the direction of what was a kind of curio, little knick-knacks on shelves, head level or higher. Do you have anything like that?" Henry replied, "No, my daughter has a little play area with dolls and such but nothing that I can think of that is high." Omolkhua continues, "in this dream, my mom is pointing to something up top. I reach for it, and to verify that I have the right thing, I looked back down toward mom and she was gone. I then woke up and still half asleep immediately said, 'mom, where are you?' Realizing I had just had a dream I laid down and went back to sleep, thinking nothing further of it" [that "something high up" will eventually come into play].
Omolkhua proceeded to do a smudging with sage he had brought with him. He also brought sweet grass and a feather, explaining an extra feather was for Emily to use to wash the smoke, showing her how to do it, smudging Henry and himself first before entering the home. Asking why the extra feather, Omolkhua said that he didn't know, that there are some things he feels complelled to do without knowing the reason. The smudging of the home proceeded in a clockwise direction (akin to the medicine circle). Omolkhua gave salt and tobacco to Henry. He instructed Henry, "take a good handful of the salt and to sprinkle it on the outside of the house from the outside of the doorway to the street, not needing to be a solid line but building it across. Take the tobacco, and on the perimeter of the property, when the sun is coming up tomorrow, sprinkle it in a clockwise direction until it is all used up. While doing this, imagine you are in the Grand Canyon next to a sheer rock that goes upward as far as you can see, blending into the sky above, becoming a perimeter around your home. You can feel it coming up, but when you look it's like glass, you can see on the outside, but if you were on the outside trying to look in, all you would see is a sheer wall of rock. You cannot see it from the outside, but from the inside it is glass. You can see your neighbors and the things around you."
Omolkhua further advised Henry, "you are the father, you are the man of this home. Your job is to protect the family, being there when they need you the most. THIS is the moment your little ones need you the most. I will ask you to do some things. It is nothing obscure. To you it will be strange and different, but nothing that you would consider awful, nothing like that. Actually, it's pretty simple. So, you're going to seal the property and you are going to put a perimeter around your home. You are going to create a wall. This wall is created because of the love of a father for his home and the protection of his children. But it has to be when the sun rises the next day."
The smudging proceeded with Henry. Having him lift his right foot, the bowl went underneath close to his foot, using the feather to move the smoke around the foot, then the other foot the same. From the feet, while standing still, the smudging went up and around Henry's body to the sky. Attachments are then dealt with. Omolkhua explains, "when an attachment happens, it's like a spider web line or silk line that attaches from them to you, and this thing travels. What I am going to do is cleanse and then break any ties or attachments. So, it will be weird, but just do not move!" Once Henry's smudging was done, the feather was taken. Beginning at the crown of the head, downward, with a stroke like wiping dust or something that fell on somebody's head, the feather was used to cleanse Henry. Then, the feather was used like a sort of sword, striking quickly and fast through the very top of the head and around the body like cutting a rope or spider web. This process removed anything that might be attached to him or the family. This completed the entering-the-house process.
Taking the sage in the bowl, smudging proceeded at the door, bottom right hand corner, going around the bottom, upwards to the top and back down, and then the center. This allows it to begin to create a seal. Because it smokes quite a bit, Henry was encouraged to open a few windows. Omolkhua says, "When I begin smudging, and they are not welcome to be in the home, they flee the area and they will just literally go out of the home out of an opening. I am going to seal the door, windows, and back door if you have one. Every bedroom, bathroom and closet will be smudged. The smell will be in place but your house will be clean."
As this was being done, Omolkhua noticed that the utility room door was closed. He considered that kind of unusual, as he had asked Henry prior to open up every door. As they got to Emily's room to smudge it, Omolkhua asked Henry if he had a string of a sort, a yarn. Henry asked why? Omolkhua tells Henry, "the process of creating the circle in your left hand, in effect is creating a void or window to the unseen world. As if your life depended on it (it literally will or it could), with the intention in your heart to protect the home, your family and children, you reach in there with your right hand, grab this person and you pull. You pull them through the circle and then close the string. Don't pull it so tight that you cannot undo it, but tight enough that it closes. You've got to do this each in the four directions. It sounds odd, but it is the extreme of what we are doing. As soon as you begin, I will begin the medicine song. Do not stop. Do each four corners of the room and then I will walk you to the next step."
Henry began and Omolkhua began his song until Henry was finished. Henry was then instructed to hold the string as tight as he could. The string that Henry made the four knots was not to be let go or his grip loosened on it. They then proceeded to the front door while Henry was made to stand on the inside, extending only his hands outside the threshold and undoing the knots in the string. As he undid each knot individually, Henry was instructed to say out loud, say it in his mind or whatever is comfortable that it was his home, it was not welcome there, a home of love, family, peace... the children are his children, not theirs, it needs to move on!
At this time, Mary is standing next to Henry while holding Amanda in her arms. As Henry finishes the untying of knots and instructing the entity to leave his home, Emily shouts out, "Daddy, Daddy, you didn't tell him where the hairy man is!" Both parents simultaneously say, "what hairy man?" Emily quickly runs to the utility room with the closed door. She points to the door "he's in there!" She is very adamant about it. The parents ask, "how do you know he is in there?" Emily replies, "he scares me, he comes out and he goes into my closet and then he wakes me up and that's who is waking up the baby!" The parents, astonished at what they have just heard, look at each other and then at Omolkhua. Omolkhua says to Emily, "okay, here is where I need your help. I am going to give you a little gift. This feather is yours." (Emily got all happy and clapped). Take the feather. I am going to show you what I do with mine (washing the feather with the sage smoke) and I want you to do the same with yours." Emily was very eager to participate and did it her way exclaiming, "now what do I do?" Omolkhua told her to put it in her room anywhere she wants to keep it. Emily ran to her room to put it away in there and ran back.
Henry opened the door to the utility closet and asked Emily where the hairy man was. Emily pointed to the top corner and stated, "he hides in there, Daddy." Obviously no one can see it. Omolkhua tells Emily, "I am going to use something very strong that is going to move him away and never come back." Emily got all happy at that. Omolkhua continues, "what I am going to use, is used in the South, in Louisiana [NOTE: The Chitimacha Nation is located in Louisiana]. The medicine was exchanged between the Natives and a lot of the Africans. They practiced their own medicine. I am going to use this and put it on each door at the very bottom. I am going to seal each room. It has a smell to it but it is not strong."
After sealing the rooms and smudging the area, Omolkhua asked Emily if she felt better. She replied, "yeah! He's not in there anymore!" Omolkhua replied, "Okay, good. Should we close the door?" Emily nodded her approval and closed the door.
Stepping outside, Omolkhua said to Henry, "as I smudged you, with the bowl in the left hand, the feather in the right always, you're gonna smudge your family, your little girl, your wife and the baby." Emily comes outside and she's ready. Henry smudges her. As Mary comes out with Amanda and Henry starts smudging them, Omolkhua made the following observation: Amanda was extremely attentive. Her eyes had the look not of a child but an adult. Her look was piercing. She was watching her dad as he was going around smudging them. Amanda then looked directly at me with her blue eyes and smirked... not a smile, a smirk! I thought, okay, she knows. Emily asks, "will I see them again?" I reply, "no! they're all gone!" "Okay, good", replied Emily.
His work now done, Omolkhua left the family. That evening, Henry texted him stating, "Thank you again for coming. There's another thing I wanted you to know. My wife said that after you left, when we went back into the house, it was brighter. It felt very comfortable, peaceful, serene." Omolkhua reminded Henry of what to do the next day at sunrise. He also told Henry that he felt both his little girls appear to have the gift to sense and feel the unseen. He asked Henry who in his family had that gift. Henry replied that it was from his side of the family, that sometimes he could feel things from people.
Omolkhua told Henry to listen to Emily in the next days or weeks and ask her "how did you sleep, good sleep, bad sleep?... and she'll tell you. If she says "good," leave it at that. Don't dig any deeper. Following up, Henry stated that Amanda was now only waking up at night to be changed or fed, otherwise sleeping comfortably. Emily no longer was having bad dreams or experiencing the hairy man coming and waking her up.
My follow up with Omolkhua:
Moonjoey: What do you think was the "hairy man" and how do you interpret that smirk by Amanda?
Omolkhua: The smirk... she knows what we did. It's like being asked a question that you know the answer to but don't want to tell it. Your look at the questioner indicates you know the answer, but you're not saying. The hairy man I felt was the Hispanic woman that lived there at some time and died. Her name was "Aurora." She would change shape as if a shape shifter, from this person to a hairy man. It was one being. She would do it to scare the little girl.
Moonjoey: I can't think of any other reason to do it than to scare that little girl. But still... why?
Omolkhua: Jealousy. I felt jealousy and anger. There was a mixture of emotions coming from this unseen person. If she had children in life, I don't know. But it felt as if she had been cheated in life, whether she didn't have a chance to make a family or her family was taken away... or she was taken away and couldn't enjoy them. So, it was like a resentment.
Moonjoey: It would have been interesting to know the history of that house.
Omolkhua: I agree.
Omolkhua: In the Native world we burn white sage on a frequent basis. But, some who are not familiar with the practice don't. This land (turtle island) has many giants and others. The medicine people kept them at bay, all of them all the time. That medicine is lost.
[As Omolkhua left the Henry residence, Henry thanked him. As a man of humility, Omolkhua said, "Thank you for allowing me to be helpful. I think that's one of the things that I'm still around for."]
- MoonJoey