When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [37]
When it became clear that the vengeful teenager was not going to cross over, I pulled out the quince seeds and began handing them around like candy. “Carry them with you, like charms,” I said. “They’ll help protect you from his negative energy.”
“You can’t keep me away from them,” the ghost shouted at me. “I’ll ruin their lives, just like he ruined mine.”
He was furious, but I just ignored him. I had raised teenagers, and I had a pretty good sense of what would happen next. In fact, I was actually afraid I’d start to feel bad for this kid, who was obviously bitter over having to watch his brother grow up and have the life and family he’d never gotten the chance at.
Shouting a string of unprintable expletives at me, the ghost flung open the front door and stormed out of the house. He slammed the door behind him so hard, it rattled the hinges. Let me tell you—we had those quince seeds up in every doorway of the house in no time flat.
Sometimes I wonder if he’s still out there. He didn’t seem like the kind of kid who would take my advice and try to find a funeral home where he could wait for a service and use the white Light to cross over on his own.
The White Light Exists for Everyone
The white Light is there for every creature—including animals—when life ends. Through my many years of working with the Light, I have come to appreciate its protective and benevolent powers. I believe that each time I release spirits into the Light, I am sending them on the next leg of a journey. Though I can never know for sure what kind of judgment or reward may await those who pass into the Light, I have come to believe that it’s a powerful source of comfort to those nearing death. I know that spirits who cross over—become “of the Light”—are restored to their best selves.
I use the Light for a very specific purpose in my work and have taught my daughter Tara, who shares my ability to communicate with earthbound spirits, to create the Light, just as my grandmother taught me. I have never tried to cross over into the Light myself, mainly because I know that, as a living being, I do not belong there. I suspect that since the Light is an energy opening and I’m a solid mass, I wouldn’t be able to enter even if I tried. Although I do not think the living can use the white Light to cross into a spirit world, I do believe that nearly everyone can access some of its protective and beneficial powers. In chapter 13, I will talk more about using the Light as a source of protection from harmful or negative energies.
4
WHY SOME SOULS
STAY BEHIND
And How I Convince Them to Cross Over
YOUR SPIRIT is meant to go into the Light once it has left your body. All the earthbound spirits I’ve spoken to, from young children to the elderly, from college professors to folks who really weren’t all that bright, know that the Light is there for them and that they can walk into it and join family members and loved ones waiting for them in whatever lies beyond this life. But knowing that they are supposed to take leave of this earth and move on to another existence doesn’t mean that all spirits do it.
Each earthbound spirit is as much of an individual as he or she was in life, and most of them feel strongly about their reasons for not leaving. You or I might not agree with their rationale for staying, but when I talk to spirits who have chosen not to go into the Light, they clearly believe that their reasons for remaining earthbound are both logical and compelling.
There are many reasons spirits become earthbound. Most stay as a matter of choice, although some tell me that they had meant to go into the Light, but missed their window of opportunity and didn’t know