Ghost Catching with a Dress

Nov 2013.

     I'd watched a video of a very beautiful conversation among therapists and others talking on the death of mothers. The phrase ‘ghost catching with a dress’ came up in relation to finding clothing, letters, and treasured objects belonging to mothers who had died. I was very moved by the image, for I have such items from my own mother. Indeed, most of the crockery and utensils I use on a daily basis were from the cupboards of my mother. Hanging in my wardrobe is a red coat my mother made herself of the lining of officer’s coats during the war, there are gloves she made,  and there is a dress she fashioned from silk that I only very vaguely remember her wearing to a party once or twice. She was an extraordinary seamstress; a skill I entirely lack.

     Ghost catching with a dress is, for me, the catching of glimpses of my mother’s life and story and those others I have known and loved. Glimpses sewn into the gossamer of memory – sometimes poignant and painful, sometimes sweet and tender. 

     Life, death. What are these? When people talk of death, premature or after a long rich life, like my mother’s, I wonder yet again, what it all means.

     The taking of one’s own life, throws another angle into the mix. There are many therapists who express deep concern for those who contemplate their own death, and while I too am disturbed by this, I am brought yet again to the existential place that I face on a daily basis: What of life, what of death?  I cannot see those who contemplate taking their own life as a sign of mental illness. I cannot, for the same reason that I acknowledge death as intrinsic to life and life intrinsic to death. What gets thrown up into the air like wind in fallen leaves, is the integral mystery of existence itself. I cannot sweep this knowledge, this subtle awareness I have, into a neat pile to be put discretely into the rubbish bin. This is the greatest mystery I know of. Death is not a medical problem and suicide is not a medical condition. Death is, as life is, and relationships are.

     What is caught in suicide are ghost catchers of clothes, of toys, bric a brac, books and letters; of the tears in memories, of  hearts broken, of anger, resentment, bewilderment, lots of questions unanswered. These are perhaps more poignant than even the caught ghosts of those who died a normal death.

     I have had friends who have died by their own hand and know something of the strangeness of this. One man, I had shared a meal with only a fortnight before he gassed himself.  Was I partly to blame? I could not think so, for as the ghosts in cloth unravelled after the funeral, the threads emerged of a life of disconnect, of  feelings of alienation and lostness.  This poor friend could not speak of what he suffered and it is here that my feelings are stirred, and it is now here that I offer myself as a therapist to hear and share the burden of pain.

     Death, and life, are touched by the living in a fluid process and grief and loss are felt as those we’ve loved move into another dimension. It is not so much the death bit that shakes me, but the threads of life that are not always seen and understood; threads that need, somehow, to be shaped into a dress to catch the ghosts of real flesh and blood people in our stories, recollections, and a need for some kind of farewell. We living need to let go and yet to remember and to let go and yet to recollect. Our grief is not to be discarded mindlessly, but to be brought into the fabric of our life to enrich us and also, mysteriously, give us the courage to let go, let be that majesty that is  life.

Dying to Dreams. What then? by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

      Death comes in many forms. We live and we die. All organics things do. We lose loved ones, human, animal and even plants. This is life. We also lose dreams, hopes and expectations. This, also, is part of life, but what do we do then, when we, still very much alive lose things we’d pinned our hopes on that  just don’t come to pass? Sometimes life can be not merely a disappointment, but a desert of despair. What then?

      Desire to die through suicide is very common these days, and much of this desire comes from this empty landscape of despair. Where do I belong, who am I, where is my place? These are some the questions asked. If I do not die, what  then? What happens afterwards?

      The old crone rides a crow in a charnel yard and then, inexplicitly, goes up in smoke. She personifies disappointment, loss, and despair, and around her is frenetic activity, anxiety, and a desire to get away as far as possible from what  is feared: a horrific implosion of nothingness.  The Hindus give her the name, the Goddess Dhumavati. She is shunned, denounced, avoided, like the widows and other outcasts of India and here in our own streets: here in the faces of the mad,  the alcoholic and drug addicted, here is the torment of those  in extreme pain. This is the face of damage; this is literally the deathscape of cosmic collapse.

     What then? Here is the extremely uncomforting call to consciousness. Here is the real reason ours is a call to conscious awareness. Dhumavati has within her transformative powers to unleash awareness that cannot be attained in gentler ways. Here is awareness that many spiritual ideas and practices do not touch.

      I am very moved by Dhumavati and her crow and sometimes evoke and explore what she means with certain clients because she illustrates so profoundly what most of us are terrified of and will avoid at all costs. I have a crow figurine that I use as a symbolic bird to explore grief, loss, and the death of dreams. Together we journey into the Shadow realm to bring consciousness to what we do not yet understand. Riding on the back of the bird we symbolically fly to the very edge of existence itself.  I sometimes do this work using the magic of clinical hypnotherapy, a modality of focussed relaxation and a bringer of profound insight. My clients are well supported by me in this journey. It is work we undertake together.

       Without attempting to go to this  silent heart centre we are too readily whipped around by the high winds of elation and despair, too ready to pin our hopes on the promises and whims of other people who are just as confused as ourselves, too willing to seek comfort from unsafe sex, obsessive hoarding, indulgence in excessive food, alcohol and drugs, and then, of course, there is the attraction of suicide, annihilation and obliteration, but what then? The call to the silent centre is a hard one to obey. It requires staring into the black eyes of this old crone who carries our dreams in bags on her back, requires noticing how these dreams dissolve into nothingness like tracing our fingers in ash, and requires staying present with despair, until that too disappears.

Ghost Catching with a Dress by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD, Dip Clin Hypnotherapy

Nov 2013 

      I recently watched on YouTube a very beautiful conversation among therapists and others talking on the death of mothers. The phrase ‘ghost catching with a dress’ came up in relation to finding clothing, letters, and treasured objects belonging to mothers who had died. I was very moved by the image, for I have such items from my own mother. Indeed, most of the crockery and utensils I use on a daily basis were from the cupboards of my mother. Hanging in my wardrobe is a red coat my mother made herself of the lining of officer’s coats during the war, there are gloves she made,  and there is a dress she fashioned from silk that I only very vaguely remember her wearing to a party once or twice. She was an extraordinary seamstress; a skill I entirely lack. 

     Ghost catching with a dress is, for me, the catching of glimpses of my mother’s life and story and those others I have known and loved. Glimpses sewn into the gossamer of memory – sometimes poignant and painful, sometimes sweet and tender.

      Life, death. What are these? When people talk of death, premature or after a long rich life, like my mother’s, I wonder yet again, what it all means. 

      The taking of one’s own life, throws another angle into the mix. There are many therapists who express deep concern for those who contemplate their own death, and while I too am disturbed by this, I am brought yet again to the existential place that I face on a daily basis: What of life, what of death?  I cannot see those who contemplate taking their own life as a sign of mental illness. I cannot, for the same reason that I acknowledge death as intrinsic to life and life intrinsic to death. What gets thrown up into the air like wind in fallen leaves, is the integral mystery of existence itself. I cannot sweep this knowledge, this subtle awareness I have, into a neat pile to be put discretely into the rubbish bin. This is the greatest mystery I know of. Death is not a medical problem and suicide is not a medical condition. Death is, as life is, and relationships are.

      What is caught in suicide are ghost catchers of clothes, of toys, bric a brac, books and letters; of the tears in memories, of  hearts broken, of anger, resentment, bewilderment, lots of questions unanswered. These are perhaps more poignant than even the caught ghosts of those who died a normal death. 

     I have had friends who have died by their own hand and know something of the strangeness of this. One man, I had shared a meal with only a fortnight before he gassed himself.  Was I partly to blame? I could not think so, for as the ghosts in cloth unravelled after the funeral, the threads emerged of a life of disconnect, of  feelings of alienation and lostness.  This poor friend could not speak of what he suffered and it is here that my feelings are stirred, and it is now here that I offer myself as a therapist to hear and share the burden of pain.

      Death, and life, are touched by the living in a fluid process and grief and loss are felt as those we’ve loved move into another dimension. It is not so much the death bit that shakes me, but the threads of life that are not always seen and understood; threads that need, somehow, to be shaped into a dress to catch the ghosts of real flesh and blood people in our stories, recollections, and a need for some kind of farewell. We living need to let go and yet to remember and to let go and yet to recollect. Our grief is not to be discarded mindlessly, but to be brought into the fabric of our life to enrich us and also, mysteriously, give us the courage to let go, let be that majesty that is  life.