Ghost Stories

The theme for today is Ghost Stories
(and maybe Zombies and Spirits too).

These are entities that live
in the space between real and not-real
which is probably wider than we can easily imagine.

I was in Thailand one time
just after a terrible tsunami had struck the coast
and caused great death and destruction.
Spending time with people on the street each night
I enjoyed the sense of spirit I felt, not cowed after this terrible event,
the warmth and bustle of the tropical night markets,
and what felt like a lively, human, "embodied" quality.
But when the market closed up
and the carts were put back into their daytime storage
no one would go near the beach.
Ghosts!

Belief in ghosts is common in that part of the world
and even more intense and immediate after the tsunami.
This seemed coherent with daily practice -
ways of living and acting and doing things
as much as mythology, beliefs,  and the events of the time.

I couldn't help draw a contrast with familiar scenes from my own city:
where people - myself included - spend hours of the day
with still bodies,  looking into the distance
and spirits off somewhere separate
in the drama spaces of television
or the links and labyrinths of cyber-space.

It occurred to me then
that Zombies were enjoying a revival
in the popular imagination.

Let's entertain some slightly bizarre notions,
just for fun, just for now:
A Ghost is a moving spirit that has no body.

Folklore in many cultures tells a similar story -
after the body of a person has died,
the spirit somehow lives on
and cannot rest, but stays present
because it has unfinished business with the living
or has lost its way.

On the other hand
a Zombie is an animated body that has no spirit
(and because of this, can't be counted on to behave properly).

How interesting.  Over here is a spirit without a body.
Over there, a body without a spirit.
Looking at the whole world,
this imbalance might be characteristic of groups and areas:
Over here, more spirit than has a home in bodies,
over there, bodies in need of a little extra spirit.

If only these could be brought together
in a bardo dating / match-making service!

I've long thought the Japanese tradition of ghosts and demons
was generous in its imaginative quality and diversity.
They have their own realms,
their own courts, intrigues, and love affairs.
They live their own "normal" and WE seem strange to THEM.
It isn't their fault that it looks strange to us
or that unfortunate things might happen
when we cross paths with them.

Current western notions of ghosts and spirits
tend toward creepy and malevolent.
Maybe that's because we've forgotten
some rich and deep ways of being related
while some other beliefs have fallen away
or skittered out of the clear light of a scientific world view:
Spirits of places,
spirits of our ancestors,
pieces of spirit of others that might be inside us
or parts of our spirit that might be outside,
carried by others,
wandering, or lost,
or on some lengthy pilgrimage.

The holiday of Halloween
derives from the words - All Hallows Evening:
a time to consecrate or make holy.
The spirits of one's ancestors
might on that evening come to dinner
and share a meal and the hearth.
There was a generous lineup of days:
Halloween, All Saints Day, All Souls Day;
Mexico has Day of the Dead.
Something for every Spirit
if you weren't sure which group a spirit might belong to
it had a number of opportunities
to come, be entertained,
impart its knowledge,
or finish its business.

The idea is to have a bit of a party,
a hosted occasion
to invite and entertain them in our Guest House
setting things up to attract them
and help them feel more at home.
Or perhaps we will wear masks and costumes
to partly enter THEIR world,
lending them our bodies
and meeting them in the in-between.
We know, however
this isn't without risk and danger.
Which is why we contain, structure, and limit
these opportunities
for crossover between our spirit world
and the Others'.

These might be stories, or theories, or metaphors,
or something in between.
Beyond the story of separate individualities
there are many possibilities
whether you prefer no-mind, or a universal mind
whose illusion is its fragmentation.
Even science is moving toward
various notions of non-localized intelligence.

And what of our own personal and collective ghosts?

When I was young there where "things" in the dark of the spooky closet
which were banished by the light, by mother's gaze,
by going there together and looking:  
by our embodied presence.

As an adult, things are similar:
neglected places and projects accumulate a feeling of being dispossessed, a bit haunted.
This is banished or lightened by getting active,
by entering and inhabiting those places
or even mainly one's own body-mind,
but especially with others present.

We might sense ghosts near the boundaries
of our personal and collective identities,
hanging around the edges of things, places or ideas,
or when a particular configuration of people come together,
circle their campfire,
pitch their tents,
or convene their committee meetings.

Some say the universal mind seeks a return to wholeness;
others see it as reaching toward it for the first time,
or of loving and playing with diversity;
on the other hand perhaps this is an imagined unity
and fragmentation is the steady reality.
In any case, psyche tries to keep track of the wandering and diverse parts of itself
and ghost stories are a kind of catalog of spare parts
and partly broken or partly healed wholes.

Ghosts and spirits live in the in-between spaces,
around the edges of the well-known.
They are hard to see and remember
and too important to forget.

What's in YOUR in-between today?