They clambered to the top, ready to thank the oddly dressed woman with the light and ask her if they were on a river or lake, in New York or Canada. But she was gone as if she had never existed. The men had their own problems.
Their craft was damaged, and they stayed where they were. The horrid fog lifted just before dawn, and they found they were on the long break wall that comes out of Buffalo Harbor. When full daylight came, they were shocked to realize that the light had led them to a place not far from where they had set out. They also saw that their boat was partly swamped. Helped by another passing boat, they made it to their truck near the launch, and after that to their homes with a story to tell.
So sure was one of the men that their deliverer had worn his daughter’s face that he sat quietly with the girl some time after the event. He asked her, a seven-year-old, how she had known where to find them on the Niagara River. It was this little girl who, thirty years later, told us this story, in which many mysteries remain.
What are these mystery lights, anyway, seen so commonly in upstate New York? Our Iroquois friends might call them all witch lights and add a new facet to their legacy or zoology. Others would call them UFOs, spirits, incompletely formed ghosts, or nonsense. Our ghost-hunting friends might even call them orbs if they turn up on film and nowhere else.
Have the Iroquois hit the nail on the head? Is all this stuff a projection of the power people? Is there some realm that sometimes shows itself into this, a realm in which no boundaries exist and all psychic actors—spirits, ghosts, witches, Little People, and the projections of the minds of living humans—are one?
JOE BRUCHAC ON WITCH LIGHTS
As we’ve seen, the Iroquois tend to be suspicious of all moving outdoor lights. For Algonquin groups, only the ones with a greenish cast are likely to be witches or nether beings, thus objects of dread. Lights of pure white are often thought to be clear human souls on their journey after the body’s death.
The Algonquin-speaking Abenakis have a custom that young and confused souls can become lost and need help finding their way to the realm of the ever-blessed. When these innocents come back as tender light forms, they are saved by the big buck deer, who find and catch them with their broad-spreading antlers, race them to the highest hill nearby, and toss them into the hereafter. What a spectacle that would be! Those broad tines linked by streaks of light like an astral cat’s cradle! It’s said that sometimes these beautiful creatures are too good for their own good, mistaking car headlights for human souls that need saving, and rushing into them.
The Dance of the Two Orbs
The flu swept the Northeast in the Great Depression, and the family of Abenaki author Joe Bruchac (b. 1942) lost several members. One of the stricken was Joe’s grandfather, Grandpa Bowman, a revered elder taking his last breaths in the family home near Cole Hill in the Saratoga County town of Greenfield.
Early on the evening that would be Grandpa Bowman’s last, someone looked out the window and called everyone’s attention. There on the open ground outside the home was a small, white, luminous orb, clearly one of the spirit lights. It moved timidly, as if confused. No one could account for its movements. It neared the house as if it wanted to enter, then backed off as if afraid.
Grandpa Bowman came to for the last time and asked about Eddie, his youngest grandson. No one had the heart to tell him that, only hours before, Eddie had been taken by the same plague.
Soon after Grandpa Bowman passed, someone looked out and spotted a much larger, more brilliant orb, as abnormally large as the other had been atypically small. The little one drew up and circled the bigger and danced like a water bug on the surface of a pond. Then the little light’s movements slowed and became more like those of the big. The pair moved smoothly together into the trees and up Cole Hill.
It was interpreted that the confused, earlier passing soul of the grandson met the more solid form of its elder. Grandpa Bowman’s soul would know its way to the Great Spirit. One like his could have led a herd of others with him.
Whatever they are, these witch lights, bless yourself and all creation when you see them, that the world still has wonder.
4
Medicine People
The shaman . . . not only dies in and of himself, but serves as a sacrament to the spiritual forces of the universe. In this way he mystically unites himself with a sacred order of being, beyond the dimension of this or that person in this particular body.
STEPHEN LARSEN, THE SHAMAN’S DOORWAY
AN AURA OF THE SPIRIT
You’ve had a serious run of bad luck. You know the drill: bounced checks, fender benders, lost jobs, runaway pets. If it can go wrong, it has. The string of disasters is so unlikely that you can almost laugh about it. What next? You might turn to a shrink or a life coach, but he or she can’t do much about what appears to be fate.
Or maybe you’re
