Search Results for: A Ghost Story

A Ghost Story

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Uncategorized

It’s October, the time of year when spirits walk and magic tweaks at our senses. The perfect time for a ghost story. I wish I could start this one out with “It was a dark and stormy night,” but it was actually a bright sunny day in August and I had just finished getting a healing from my friend, Heather. “So tell me what you saw,” I said. Heather sees dead people and lots of other strange things. Although I am careful to keep things both psychically and physically clear, several clients have told me that when I work the massage room sometimes turns into a spiritual Grand Central Station. So I always ask Heather what’s going on. “It was pretty quiet this time,” she replied. “But I did see this short, dapper man in a bowler hat and a three piece suit walk to the top of the stairs to this floor, check his pocket watch, look over at us, smirk, and walk into… Read More »

Another Ghost Story

Posted C. LaVielle9 CommentsPosted in Gifts from the Multiverse

I recently attended a ritual at the beach with several other women. See Ritual, Waves, and Wedding Magic. One of the incidental joys of the weekend was getting to spend time with and share a room with my niece, Becky.   On the last night Becky and I were lying in bed talking about this and that and how the ritual went and I said, “You know, when you called the powers of the west, your wording was so close to the way we call the guardians of the watchtowers* that they all came—not just the west, but every quarter.” As soon as I said that the light in the ceiling fan started to glow softly and then got brighter and brighter. Then it dimmed back, leaving the room in darkness. Becky and I stared up in disbelief. As if to reassure us that we weren’t imagining things, it did it again. Then the fan came on, sending a blast of cold air down onto… Read More »

Magic in a Mining Town

Posted C. LaVielle9 CommentsPosted in Gifts from the Multiverse

Continued from “A Ghost Story”…..   Louis O’Neill Mellinger, my grandfather, was a magician. Not the type of magician that does sleight of hand tricks, but the sort of magician who, from beyond the grave, could materialize a human skull on the upper left corner of his oak roll top desk in such detail that I was convinced it was actually there. For decades I lived with two equally unsavory thoughts—either my whole family was lying to me when they said that skull didn’t exist, or I was delusional.  Several months ago, and for some cosmic reason that only spirits can fathom, Grandpa decided it was time to clue me in. Through Heather, a friend of mine that sees dead people, he explained that the skull was a construct, a tool that he used in his work. It existed on another plane, and so not everyone could see it. He was glad that I had seen it and that I practiced magic.  Egads! There wasn’t… Read More »

Why Are All the Cartoon Mothers Dead?—Revisited

Posted C. LaVielle1 CommentPosted in Movie Review, Young Adult Fantasy

  Sarah Boxer originally asked this question in the July/August 2014 issue of The Atlantic and I wondered right along with her in a previous post. She points out that not only do children’s filmmakers kill off the mothers with brutal regularity, but they are now replacing them with perfect fathers. She saw this as a last, desperate chauvinistic power grab. An attempt to establish a kinder, gentler patriarchy. And I suggested that it was the film industry’s attempt to model good fathering to a nation of underachieving dads. Disney Studios’, the most matricidal of all filmmakers, latest release follows Ms Boxer’s scenario with chilling exactitude. Into the Woods is a fairy tale composed of fairy tales; and since fairy tales are littered with dead mothers we should expect this. But Into the Woods exceeded even my most fevered imaginings. The plotline is composed of four fairy tales smushed together. • Rapunzel: In which a wicked witch steals a couple’s first-born child because the husband… Read More »

Home Alone

Posted C. LaVielle3 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Writing

Well, not really. Leo, our cat and true master of the house is still here, curled up beside me. But he is quiet, undemanding company. At least until he gets hungry. My husband, son, and a few friends are off for a weekend of camping on an island in the middle of the Columbia River. Unlike the island, the house is warm and silent and filled with joyous holiday energy. I have the entire weekend and Monday to catch up on my writing. There are several things I need to work on, all of which are emotionally charged for me in one way or another. I could do part two of The World. This is the last major arcana card and will be the end of the series that I have been working on for the past three or so years. I’ve enjoyed the work and feel sad that it’s coming to a close. I could work on a blog that continues the story of… Read More »

My Stroke of Insight—Synchronicity Strikes Again

Posted C. LaVielle5 CommentsPosted in Book Review, Major arcana, Tarot

Several days ago I found Ellis Nelson’s latest post in my in-box. She doesn’t post very often, but when she does, it’s definitely worth reading. This one is no exception. It’s a review of My Stroke of Insight, a book by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor. When she was thirty-seven she suffered a stroke to her left brain which crippled her ability to think in logical sequences, move, and perceive what we call reality. It left her suspended in nirvana, state of being one with everything (her words, not mine). I watched in awe as this amazing woman told her story in a recent TED lecture. The right and left hemispheres of the brain look at the world differently. The left hemisphere uses linear logic. It reasons, explains, and acts. It’s what gets us from point A to point B by 3pm. The right hemisphere uses intuition, and it “thinks” in images and music. It doesn’t do words. It looks at the total picture while the… Read More »

Delphi, Another Step in Our Greek Odyssey

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Goddess, Greece

The town of Delphi nestles on the south slope of Mt Parnasus, and overlooks dramatic hillsides, acres of gray green olive groves and a small, sparkling-blue slice of Korinthiakos bay. It’s just plain, knock-your-socks-off beautiful. And this is only fitting, because back in the day, long before there were Greeks, Gaia, grandmother earth, had her sanctuary in this lovely spot and her child, the terrible Python, lurked underground. This was the time of the Titans. A time when the shadowy, frightful ghosts, gods, and spirits of the underworld reigned supreme.* Even then, legend has it that Gaia’s temple was a famous oracle.** And because it belonged to Her, it would have been the center of the earth, her belly-button or omphalos. And then, down from the big sky steppes of the north, came Zeus. He was a new and strange god. He had no form and no personality. He was huge and incomprehensible and He ruled the vast heavens. And He was definitely a he.… Read More »

The Eschara and the Original Meaning of the Word Holocaust

Posted C. LaVielle3 CommentsPosted in Goddess, Greece

Continued from previous posts…. Towards the front of the site at Elefsina, before you even get to what’s left of the Great Propylaia there is what looks like a large, brick barbecue. And that is precisely what it is. Except it is unlikely that any living soul got to taste the meat that was cooked on it. It is an eschara, a sacrificial altar. “But wait,” you say, “didn’t the Greeks get to eat most of the meat from their sacrifices?” They did. According to Hesiod*, the Greeks had Prometheus to thank not only for fire, but also for the privilege of reserving the best cuts of the sacrificial animal for themselves. The story begins back in the mists of time, back before Prometheus had stolen the divine fire and given it to mortals, back when the gods still came down from Olympus to dine with humans. Prometheus was having his first meal with Zeus and took it upon himself to portion out the sacrificial… Read More »

Why does Greek Mythology Read Like a Soap Opera?

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Uncategorized

I found the following comment on my “Virgin Mary, Isis, The High Priestess, and the Empress” blog: “I’ve never really liked the Greek myths….(and I’ve)……always loved Egyptain paganism, because the women have much better and stronger roles, and their gods just seemed more like more ethical, more pleasant people.” Fond as I am of Greek mythology, I had to agree with him. Zeus and most of the other male gods are obsessed with fighting and sex and spend way too much of their time raping women. Artemis is a spiteful man hater (with good reason, it seems); and Hera, Zeus’s wife, is often portrayed as a jealous, nagging spouse (with good reason, it seems). Apollo and Hermes have the same father, Zeus, but different mothers. They are constantly fighting. Even Athena, goddess of wisdom and weaving, gets so pissed at Arachne, a mortal weaver who claims to be more talented than her, that she turns the woman into a spider. The Greek gods detested hubris,… Read More »