Earlier this summer a friend and fellow pagan contacted me
via Facebook, asking me to send some “healing energy” to her father who had
been admitted to the ICU. I could have
done as asked as I often do with a simple inclusion of an extra prayer for them
in my morning ritual. Instead though, I
felt perhaps more was needed. I asked
for more specifics as to what was going on with her father. She began to run the story of what was
happening, and having been a nursing student in ICU for six weeks I quickly
came to the conclusion that things were dire indeed. His cerebral spinal fluid
was disappearing and the Doctors couldn’t figure out where. Then suddenly he
suffered from in increase in cranial pressure and went into a coma and had to
be put on a ventilator. Bed sores were present and several other co morbidities.
My logical, clinical nursing trained mind told me that his chances of survival
were the width of a thread…over a fire.
I of course did not share this with my friend, I learned long ago to be
very careful about saying such things to those who love the one in such a
condition. I told her I would do what I
could. My magical mind told me that this
was going to require a LOT more than just some “good vibes”. I set to work to call upon a spirit of the
court of Bridgit.
I
scanned through Ian’s book and came up with the spirit Slainte Beir. Though I had not worked with her before, she
has, according to Ian agreed to work with the Druids of ADF, and I had done a
number of workings to gain the authority of Bridgit to work with her spirits in
the past. I laid out my alter and
supplies. Cream it turns out is the
spirits preferred offering, but as it turned out, I had none. It was too late for me to go and get some, so
I decided to make do with milk. I gathered
a number of other offering items for Bridgit herself as well as the Cuach
Brid. This working was to take place at
my indoor shrine. I performed the ritual
using the Core order of ritual. Once the
gates were open I called upon my spirit guides for aid in this working. I then called on Brig using the prayers in
Ian’s book. I offered to her and took an
omen. I no longer remember now what
specifically I drew, but the question was if Brig had accepted the offerings
and if I had her go ahead for the working.
I did. I then got my center
again, and called upon Slainte Beir. Three
times I called and gave offerings.
Unlike some lucky folk, I am not one who easily sees spirits or hears
them either. So after the calling the
offerings, I sit and drum and go into a trance state, where I hope to find the
spirits at the crossroads. I was happy
to say that I did. I parlayed with her a
bit and explained to her my need and the needs of the dying man. She told me that it would require three separate
sacrifices of milk, poured over a large rock, and that I would know the times
when to do them. With that the spirit
left and I ended the working.
I wrote
to my friend via Facebook, what the spirit had told me. She agreed to do the offerings, and said it
would be no trouble. I then found out
her father was to go into surgery the next morning. I felt that would be the time for the first
offering. The surgery was to try and
discover what was going on with the man’s cerebral spinal fluid. How it want from not being enough, to be too
much in a very short period of time.
They never found a good answer, but after the surgery and the offering,
he began to improve. I was a bit
surprised to be honest, but pleasantly so.
From that time on he slowly began to recover and improve. Two more surgeries and offerings of milk were
given throughout his stay. After thirty days
in the ICU my friends father was discharged to a skilled nursing facility. He had lost forty pounds of muscle and body
weight and could no longer easily support himself to do activities of daily
living. I am happy to report that a few
weeks after that he was discharged home.
He still is recovering his health, but is for the most part living a
normal life.
So,
what happened? Was it the working? Was it good health care? As someone who has taken care of people in
the ICU, some of whom died, you get a feel for how things are going to go. As a future nurse, hearing all that was
stacked up against this middle aged man, I believe with all I am that it was
the help of this spirit that brought this man back from the brink of
death.
I have
often seen how the study of different types of “hard science”; i.e. mathematics,
biology, chemistry, engineering, ect., will cause people to stop believing in
spirits, gods, and magic. Yet for me it
has had the opposite effect. It seems to
me to only be providing proof that all that “woowoo” magic and spirits are in
fact real and interacting with us. As in this experience, my hard science mind
told me that he would most likely not survive, and yet he did! So something must
have intervened, and that something was most likely the spirit I called upon. So long as the hard sciences cannot in some
way measure magic they will not accept it.
Honestly, I am ok with that. I
hope they never can measure it. I hope
there will always be forces in this world that can’t be understood with measurement;
forces that must be felt and experienced and always leaving us a bit lost as to
how it worked. This is the re-enchanting
of the world. This is how it is done; one
magical working at a time.
