Compass & Quill

I am fully aware that this website is being “wasted” in some ways. No content plan. No overall theme. The design is unattractive. I seldom use imagery, AND I’m incredibly longwinded. Who has the time or energy to read these long, rambling paragraphs that lead to nowhere? Add to this that there’s no telling when I’ll publish next, what it will be about, or how useful it will be. In other words, there’s no hook. There’s no reason for you to come back. That’s OK.

Half of the time, writing here is just a way to console myself with the game of words. I never edit, and I ramble needlessly (to an outsider, anyway). But I need this, and I need it to be this way, and so I’ll keep it for awhile longer.

I’ve been doing Morning Pages in accordance with The Artist’s Way for the last six weeks or so. I didn’t write them yesterday, and I was angry all day (not necessarily about that, but it is an interesting coincidence). I didn’t do them today, and now I’m here, vomiting up nonsense for strangers. This should probably be a lesson. Get the bullshit down in the 5-subject binder, then move on to clarity online. Something like that, anyway.

What I really want to say today is that I’m thinking a lot about what I’m being called to do. I don’t know how to accomplish it, but I somehow still have faith that it’s within reach. That’s new for me, faith.

Starting to sing again opened me up to the knowledge that my mind-body connection was broken long ago. I have an idea of the big initial trauma, but honestly, it could be any of a number of things that happened around the same time. Either way, I’ve been training in classical voice with an exceptional teacher for a year and a half now, and though I have blocks that are keeping me from releasing my voice properly, I’ve learned more important things about myself, my capabilities, where I need to apply pressure, what dark crevices of my soul must be peered into if I’m going to move into my power. I’m sorry I can’t give you greater clarity on this; at the moment, everything is intuitive. (Which is pretty ironic, given my end goals.)

Instead, let me tell you a ghost story…

During my sophomore year in college, about twenty-four years ago (eek!), I lived in a three-bedroom apartment with four other girls. It was a cosy upstairs apartment in a two flat that was probably built around 1920 or so. Two of us shared a room, one girl slept on a converted sun porch, and the other two girls had their own rooms. I never went home between academic years, so I moved into the house when our freshman-year classes ended in May and lived there alone all summer. The other girls arrived at the start of the next school year. The place always made me a little uncomfortable, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the haunted house I grew up in. I only remember one thing that happened to me, though I wonder if any of the other girls experienced more.

It was fall, and the weather outside was perfect, so the living room window was open to catch the cool evening air. I was the only person home. It was quiet outside, with barely any breeze. I was studying on the living room couch, and decided to lie down and rest my eyes for a bit. The living room was a long rectangle, and the couch was on an interior wall, probably 15 feet from the exterior wall (though I’m bad at judging distance, so it could have been closer to 20 feet). The open window was almost directly across from my feet. I was lying there, in that comfy spot you hit when you’re drowsy but not yet asleep, when something blew HARD into my right ear – the ear that was facing the couch. I immediately got up, grabbed my things, and headed for the library. Later, I tried to rationalize it as breeze coming in the window at a very specific angle and bouncing off of things, but that never made sense. Then something else happened to that ear.

Ten or eleven years ago, I was living in Chicago and going to Bikram yoga every day. I’d always show up ten minutes early to have time to lie in savasana and release my day while acclimating my body to the humid, 105-degree room. Some days, I would just lie there and try not to panic, but on other days I’d easily fall into a meditative state. I’d been following that same protocol at various yoga studios for years, and always felt that it did me good. But this day, as I lay there in that blissful in-between place, a woman’s voice, stern to the point of threatening, spoke directly in my right ear: “You’ll never get away from me!”

It was terrifying, but also so real that I honestly thought that another student must have crawled up quietly to play a prank. I opened my eyes and sat up; there were a few more students in the room, but they were all lying prone on their mats in savasana. Whatever I’d heard wasn’t a human. For years, the only thing my brain let me think was that it was a dark goddess. I think this was a way for me to feel somewhat held and protected, rather than like I was potentially in danger from some invisible angry lady. I never heard from her again (thank goodness), so I put that aside, as well. At the time, I didn’t connect the dots between this and the thing that had happened in college.

My dad died in March of 2019. In October of 2021, I decided to have a Dia de los Muertos altar in my house, and put photos up of all our beloved dead – relatives, friends, and pets. As part of the effort, I was looking for picture frames, and I needed a specific size of frame to suit the only photo I had of me and my dad together. I’d been looking for weeks with no luck. One day, I was in Target, happily bopping along, looking at throw pillows (what can I say, I’m a nester!), when I heard my dad say, “That one’s neat!” in my right ear. I turned in the direction of his voice, and directly in my line of vision was a carved wooden frame with the exact size of opening I needed for his photo.

A few things about that, since you won’t know anything about my dad:

1. He was a talented woodworker who loved hand-carved wooden objects and sought them out at yard sales and Ebay. The frame was exactly something he would have picked out.
2. I don’t know if it was a technique he used just with me, or maybe he used it with every kid he taught (he was a shop teacher and a Boy Scout leader), but saying “this is neat” was kind of a catchphrase. Said in a gentle, lilting tone, it was always an invitation to take a closer look at the thing he was holding or pointing out. I’d actually forgotten that by 2021. We didn’t have a great relationship in his last few years, and I’ve lived on the other side of the country for 20+ years now. Hearing him say that in my ear was a shock, but also exactly the thing I’d need to hear to take a look in that direction instead of running away.
3. I want to reiterate that this was a voice speaking in my ear, not a voice in my thoughts (I’m actually one of those weirdos who doesn’t have an internal monologue). Picture someone putting their mouth about an inch from your ear and speaking.
4. This was a powerful moment of connection. It told me that he was OK and that he was paying attention. It told me that he wasn’t mad at me (something I’ve grappled with since his death), and it reminded me of the things that we shared – a love of handmade things, the thrill of hunting down just the right item, and best of all, ghosts. When I was a kid, we bonded over our interest in the paranormal. Or maybe he created that interest for me. However you might want to say it.

Either way, this moment helped me focus in on how various things I’d experienced over the years might fit together. I’m wondering if there were other times throughout my life that I’ve experienced clairaudience without knowing it. I’m also wondering if it is really only my right ear, and if so, if there’s a reason for that in our brain wiring. Since hearing that voice in the yoga studio all those years ago, I’ve actively avoided meditating, but so many signs are pointing me back in that direction. I know that it will be healthy for me as I try to get my mind and body back in sync. I wonder what that will mean for me down the line.

OK, time to get to work. Thanks for slogging through this with me. Maybe one day I’ll learn to keep it short and sweet 🙂