My Introduction to the Occult
I’ve always been fascinated by the occult arts, from the stories my grandmother told me, to the Bible stories my parents tried to use to warn me away from them. I always wanted to know more. I started exploring magic through: reading fiction, playing games, watching movies, and writing/researching for my own stories.
When I was a little girl, I wasn’t very close to my grandmother. I was scared of her, and I think she was scared of me. She didn’t have a hooked nose or any of the other misnomers often used to represent witches, but I still think she was one.
Her sight was in dreams. She would have the strangest dreams. The next morning, she would tell us about them and finish up with, I wonder how my friend is doing. A name. At some point, the phone would ring and it would be news that someone had died.
No one really talked about what that was. In the Caribbean Islands, where my family is from, it’s common enough, voodoo and things of that nature.
My grandmother was very particular, she kept her house immaculate, cooked fabulous meals and gardened. She always took her shoes of by the front door and never let her grandchildren in her room.
When my grandmothers best friend came to visit, she showed us how to connect, one very young, one old. I’ll always be grateful to auntie Dorial for the bond she fostered between my grandmother and I. She showed me where to sit, on the bed near my grandmother, and how to wind the spools of thread and yarn. That was when grandma began to tell stories.
At first, she tried to frighten me, but I was curious and I pressed her to tell me more. Sometimes, I wonder if it was hard for her to be a pastors wife, because she never really seemed to be able to tell the whole story, but this is the closest she came.
She told a story of a man waiting on a street corner with an umbrella and a woman walking down the street to meet him. When she reached him, she linked her arm with his and they floated up in the air together and disappeared into the clouds.
That was my favorite story.
It’s short, but full of wonder in the mind of a child.
When my grandma passed away just before my twenty-third birthday I felt distinctly unprepared to live in a world without her. Her funeral was to be on my birthday and I was going through a divorce. I cried and talked to her, I told her I wasn’t ready to do this alone.
I was surprised on the day of her funeral, when my aunt who is so much like my grandma, brought out my grandmothers black wool pea coat and suggested I wear it. It was an east coast mid October day, with rain and a chance for snow, but I was warm and comforted.
Since then, I’ve known grandma was one of my guides, and every year, she tells me that she has my back by reminding me to wear something of hers. I know she wants me to remember: that I’m worthy, that the knowing is in my blood and that I am never alone.