My Sacred Places: Angel Mounds

Each of us has visited places that we regard as sacred. Cathedrals, burial grounds, and monuments to soldiers fallen in the line of duty readily come to mind. When we broaden the definition of “sacred” to include any place inspiring our loftiest ideas and our highest respect, we have a host of consecrated locations. This series of blogs is dedicated to a few of my sacred places.

My India Ink Drawing of Woodland Mound,

Which I Made for Dr. Conard Carroll

When my brother and I were enrolled in one of many summer sessions at Indiana University, we decided to spend a Saturday at Angel Mounds. After AD 1000, a large settlement of Native Americans thrived beside the Ohio River; the impressive civilization lasted until 1450. The inhabitants farmed the area for miles around. The site boasted a dozen impressively large structures including various mounds and a palisade.

As it turned out, my brother and I had chosen a stiflingly hot day. At approximately 11:00 a.m., we parked our car and walked through a weedy field toward a reconstructed section of the palisade wall, which once had bastions at rhythmic intervals along the half circle that stretched from the river, around the village, and back to the river again. The sun beat down on our heads. We were standing on soil that crayfish loved. Every inch of ground was steamy. Even while standing still to read the markers interpreting the archaeological site, we felt sweat beading on our foreheads and dripping down our backs. We weren’t being baked; we were being boiled!

We had come to see the mounds, and we were going to see them, no matter how sweltering the day might be! We went from one to the next, surveying each in its torrid splendor. Not a breath of air cooled our perspiring faces. All was breezeless and scorching. We were the only visitors to the park. Others were wiser. Others were enjoying themselves in air-conditioned rooms somewhere. We trudged from a platform mound to a conical mound. We could have wrung the moisture from our shirts.

We found appealing the thought of climbing above the tropical bottom land, so we scaled the cone before us. We dragged our feet through tangled grasses, our tendons pulling hard as we scrambled up the steep embankment. When we reached the top, we sat down to drain. The view was spectacular. The turquoise haze of southern Indiana lay above the land bordered by motionless trees. The great river lay beyond with scarcely a trace of movement as if it were a lake instead.

For a long time, neither of us spoke. I felt that we were becoming one with nature.

Just then, with a sarcasm that only my brother can wield, he jeered, “It probably took them a long time to make this mound. I bet they wish they could have had our modern earth-moving equipment. With a good bulldozer, they could have scraped this mound together in less than a day.”

Out of nowhere, a furious wind suddenly crashed against us. We took one look at each other, jumped to our feet, and dashed pall-mall down the slope, nearly falling several times in our rush toward the level plain. Once we regained our breath, I said, rather accusingly, “They didn’t like that very much!” Contritely, my brother said, “No. That stirred up something we had no right to disturb.”

Neither of us felt safe. We abruptly concluded our visit by striding back to our vehicle. Since that day so long ago, we have journeyed to many prehistoric sites in Ohio, and, needing no reminder, we have kept a respectful attitude throughout our trips.       

My Friend the Medium, Installment 6 (Last Installment in This Series)

Ever since Mary’s death, I’ve toyed with the fanciful notion that she was called to heaven during a severe lightning storm because the powerful energy made for a smoother passage for her soul. I like to think that the light of her being rode on a lightning beam into the clouds and beyond.

All of us who knew Mary were devastated. We cried incessantly. Dabbing our eyes with tissues, we said to one another, “Mary wouldn’t want us to cry. She would want us to laugh.” Although she was 70 years of age, she had seemed many years younger. Everyone missed her youthfulness, her joy, her wisdom, her friendship, and her love.

Mary’s brother, who was an engineer, summed up his sister’s talent. “She had an extraordinary gift,” he said. I like his wording. Her gift was indeed rare because she brought tremendous reassurance and happiness to so many people!

My Photograph of Early Spring

Within three days after Mary passed, one of her closest friends opened his front door to find a butterfly hovering there. It alighted on his shoulder. An Irish tradition transplanted in America through immigration holds that souls of recently passed loved ones can appear as butterflies to inspire and guide those living.

One day, I had nothing better to do, so, for a few seconds, while half asleep, I pretended to type what Mary would dictate if she could be standing and talking nearby me: “How opportunity comes is mysterious, but it surely does come when you are ready. Be in good spirits! Joy is everywhere in trees changing colors and birds at the feeder! Write what you hear being written, or else you will have directionless books. Be ready! Have faith!” I immediately felt I was wasting time. The expressions did not sound exactly like Mary, and I did not regard them as profound.

Only a few days after typing those words, I received a letter from one of Mary’s friends in Omaha. She wrote, “So tell me, have you heard from Mary? For some reason, I feel you have. Mary used to say she would not speak in parables if she could break that barrier [death]—she would communicate clearly, no games! Is this happening now? Has it happened to you? Have you tried for it, or has it simply come to you?”

The friend’s letter persuaded me to save my typing for future reference.

Over the ensuing decades, I experienced perhaps a dozen occasions when, for no more than a few seconds, I felt as if Mary were trying to communicate with me. Such fleeting occurrences took place when it seemed as if she were the farthest thought from my mind. I always concluded that my subconscious mind was still seeking to compensate for the loss of a dear friend.

All the same, I have turned again and again to the sentences that I typed on that day when I was pretending to take dictation. I have wished that my often cynical temperament would permit me to follow the advice. I am frequently pessimistic, and I customarily gripe that I lack opportunity. Finding joy everywhere is a challenge for the defeatist that I have become. “Write what you hear being written, or else you will have directionless books.” I have pondered the meaning of that guideline, and I have taken the suggestion to listen carefully to what I have to say before stringing words together in sentences. I have followed the counsel to write what I hear, and I have developed as a writer with sixteen books to my name and over two hundred articles.      

Now I am nearing the age that Mary was when I met her. Perhaps illogically, her ideas have helped reaffirm my more traditional expectations set in motion by my parents, who regularly attended a Methodist church. Mary had always believed I would become an author. Did she assist me? Yes, she undoubtedly did. During the part of her life that I was privileged to share, she taught me to observe people accurately and to hear their stories fully. Grateful for the lessons, I have passed these gifts forward to students in my writing classes at the university.

My Friend the Medium, Installment 5

While blogging about Mary, the medium I once knew, I’ve been thinking that those of us who want to believe in what mediums claim to do are those that want additional proof of life after death to undergird faith that has been developed through religion.

Mary consistently situated her mediumistic abilities within her Catholic upbringing; for example, she said the guardian angels her parents had told her about were the spiritual guides that spoke through her.

I asked Mary in what way she “heard” the spiritual guides. She said she meditated so as to clear her mind. Whenever an idea began to take form, that idea did not originate with her but from a guide outside her.

Over the years that I knew Mary, I was gradually becoming skeptical of whether her readings were from guides. I suppose I have a proclivity toward scientific thinking, which demands incontrovertible proof, even though I have enjoyed a long career in arts and literature, fields so expansive as to entertain speculation beyond scientific evidence.

My skepticism persisting, I began to consider that Mary might be a counselor unusually adept but not a conduit for voices from beyond the grave. I know she helped the customers that came to her for readings. She offered them advice that benefited them. Often, her readings began by contacting FGH, Mary’s master guide, but ended with lengthy conversations about the clients’ specific difficulties and solutions to those problems.

Mary developed quite a list of customers, most of them earnest people who visited her regularly. She was a positive influence in their lives.

The year after Mary and I enjoyed Quebec City, we decided to take a vacation in Omaha, where Mary’s husband had died unexpectedly and where her financial troubles had begun. In May, we set out for Nebraska. We had a lovely time along the way. I remember one spectacular sunrise in Iowa City after pre-dawn showers that made the world look fresh and new.

Arriving in Omaha, we drove past the suburban house where Mary and her husband had lived. I could tell that Mary felt ill at ease in the location. We rang the doorbell, and the owner graciously permitted us to step into the living room where Mary and her friends in Omaha had regularly gathered to discuss books and to share spiritual concepts. Even though Mary spoke in sunny terms about her time in that house, I could tell she was reliving the sadness of the sudden loss of her husband not long after they had moved there.

While we were in Omaha, Mary and I delighted in long visits with two of her closest friends. They were women very different from one another but alike in their high regard for Mary. One had been a stewardess in the early years of jetliners; she was a stately woman who carried herself with the grace of a model. The other was a housewife who loved to cook; wherever she was, she inspired a sense of comfort. The group talked about the past but also about more recent spiritual investigations. I listened intently. Both of Mary’s friends said how greatly she was missed, and I developed the impression that Mary had been the adviser to whom the others had turned.

When we came back home from our journey to Nebraska, Mary and I were tired but elated from having experienced uplifting conversations. All the same, I sensed that our world had no intention of remaining pleasant.

The summer flew by, and Mary and I were ready to begin another fall semester. Every evening of the week before the first day of classes, thunderstorms roared. The lightning was fierce.

My Drawing of the Lightning

Mary and I had come up with the idea to market recordings of her talking extemporaneously about spiritual concepts. I served as the interviewer. We had doubts about the success of our venture because we lacked professional equipment. Using an inexpensive cassette recorder, we were trying to do in the dining room of my rented house what needed to be done in a studio. Each evening that we met to record, the thunder crashed and rumbled so loudly that our tapes were not the best.

At dusk on the day when Mary taught her first university class, she was to stop by my home for another recording session. On cue, the thunderstorms appeared. I walked through my darkened house while waiting for Mary’s car to pull into the driveway. The lightning was especially frequent, and the thunder was particularly powerful. After Mary was more than an hour late, I began to worry. I rang and rang her telephone number, but there was no answer. After another hour had elapsed, I drove to her apartment to see what was keeping her. I parked near her car. I knocked on her door. No answer. Using a key that she had given me, I let myself into her entryway. Lightning was still flashing on the horizon. I called Mary’s name. I walked through her rooms. I found her sitting upright on the edge of her bed. I said, “Mary, what’s the matter?” She did not reply. I reached my arms around her to shake her, and the skin on her arms was cold. I jumped back in shock.

I ran to her phone to call 911. Soon the paramedics arrived. They said that Mary had died at about the time that she was supposed to drive to my home. In the palm of her hand was a pill prescribed for her heart.      

My Friend the Medium, Installment 4

Quebec City was a welcome relief from the troubles that had been afflicting Mary and me. Mary’s friends from the days when she managed the English-speaking radio station greeted us. I spoke bad French but somehow communicated. Mary and I toured the sites from the fort to the boardwalk. A carefree atmosphere like a comforting blanket wrapped the city.

We stayed with the couple that had purchased Mary’s house. As I write this series of blogs, I remember so distinctly the first time I entered the basement and strode up to the bar where, many years before, Mary had met her spiritual guide, named only FGH. Having heard so many stories from Mary, I felt that the basement of that house was a special place full of benevolent potential.

My Ink Drawing for Mary's Business Cards

Mary engaged in readings for her Canadian friends. She usually asked the questioner to choose a card from a regular deck of playing cards. In turn, Mary concentrated on the card as a way of clearing her mind. Then she began to bring through messages from the questioner’s deceased loved ones that affirmed their eternal connection and that confirmed life after death. Mary was anything but pretentious. Affectation was not part of her personality. She was simply a kind soul who wanted the best for everyone. At the time that we were in Quebec, Mary did not charge for readings. Later, she began asking for modest fees because she wanted to be perceived as professional. When she started to charge a fee, the number of her customers skyrocketed.

While Mary and I were visiting Canada, Mary had the leisure to learn what her friends had been doing throughout the intervening years. One of her friends had studied therapeutic touch and had begun a practice employing the technique. I participated in a session, which, ironically, did not involve actual touch whatsoever. The therapist’s hands remained at some distance from me. With my eyes closed, I experienced a deep relaxation.

The trip to Canada reinvigorated both Mary and me and inspired us to continue on our quest for knowledge of philosophical topics.

After we returned to the states, Mary invited her late husband’s aunt, who lived near Louisville, to visit for a few days. “Fay makes me look like an amateur,” Mary said.

I met Fay for dinner at Mary’s apartment. Fay was a thin, elderly woman with so much jet-black wiry hair that her face appeared to be surrounded by a huge ball of steel wool. We ate salad and pork chops while chatting about this and that. I recall that Fay and Mary talked about their afternoon trip to Value City Furniture, where Fay had seen bowls that she had liked but had not purchased. After dinner, Fay and I sat on Mary’s couch while Mary sat in her customary chair. Whenever I picture Mary, I see her leaning in her chair with her shoes off and one foot drawn up behind a knee.

It was during the after-dinner conversation that I discovered Fay’s gift. She would be talking about something as mundane as bowls at Value City and would abruptly interrupt herself to utter a disconnected sentence or two revealing knowledge that she could not have gained except through extraordinary means. Here is a reconstruction:

“I wish I had bought those bowls, but I have plenty of bowls and certainly don’t need any more. You recently had a student who died in a wreck. I see fire all around. He says to tell you he didn’t suffer. He was really surprised to find himself on the other side. All the same, I liked the bowls, and they would have come in handy for salads.”

Such disjointed sentences kept coming for an hour or longer. Many of the comments that Fay directed toward me included facts she could not have known, unless Mary told her. To this day, I don’t know why I reacted in the way that I did. I grew increasingly uncomfortable and fearful. Finally, I excused myself and returned to my townhouse. I almost typed “fled” just now, and maybe I should have done so. I truly fled from Mary’s apartment. Fay’s talent for piercing through the bubble of what we assume is reality unnerved me.

I never saw Fay again. Within a few months, she passed away. Mary was quite right: Fay made Mary look like an amateur.

I distinctly remember one anecdote that Fay shared. She said that, when she was a little girl, her parents held séances. First, Fay was put to bed, so that the adults could pursue their séances without interruption, but Fay would only pretend to be asleep. She would sneak to a landing on the stairs, sit down, and listen to the adults. “I watched spirits go up and down the stairs,” Fay asserted. “I’ve always known there is much more to life than we think.”