I have been inspired by Scott Millers workshop in San Diego, to tell some stories. I’ve shared these with clients who tentatively bring up such experiences, and the conversations that followed once they could trust I wouldnt judge them, were often so healing and profound, but I have not shared them publically until now.

In a slightly paradoxically tickly presentation, Scott shared research on mystery. That’s right! Just hold that thought for a moment! Something like > 80% of people believe in the spiritual/ supernatural world, and they say it is because they have had direct experience that confirms their belief. Psychotherapy has been so busy trying to give scientific certainty to Itself, that it has hidden the Magick and mystery that was strongly present in its ancestry, under a bushel. Scott Miller shared interviews with people who were NOT helped by therapists but were helped by Clairvoyants or psychic healers. What we heard was a reflection on the field’s inability to hear what a client really wants when it is outside our view of healthy psychology.

I don’t think this is limited to the supernatural. I see many people who’s world view was negated by a supposed mainstream doctor/therapist who thought they had the “truth” only to have their “patient” drop out of treatment. There are also people I know I have done this to, and my great fortune is to be amongst colleagues who I can speak to about such stuff ups so that I can learn and improve.

And so to the stories.

17 years ago, in my first marriage, when my youngest was just 10 months old, my husbands sister killed herself. We knew she had been troubled, so when we got the call that she was missing an emotion set in. An emotion I’m not sure I have felt before or since. There is some texture worth knowing, but skip the next paragraph if you don’t want to know.

We had celebrated her 35th birthday the evening before at her parents house, with her husband and three small children who were 6, 10 and 12. She and I sat on the grass and spoke about some of the shit she was dealing with. The evening wound up and they left with the usual goodbyes. I thought they had gone when she walked back into the house saying “where is she?” And walked up to me and hugged me. It felt warm in the moment, and appreciative, and that was all. I doubt I would have remembered it, if it did not turn out to be our last living contact.

My son, maybe a year before, when he was 3 and he only had one sister, was in his booster seat in the car as I was driving along the narrow country road near our home. Typical of Tasmanian roads, the narrowness and poor construction was reflected in the open speed limit and use by large trucks. So we were driving at highway speed when out of the silence Liam said ” whooo” , in a giggly voice ” I just imagined that we were upside down and I was hanging upside down  in my car seat” He was still giggling but for me it was chilling and I slowed right down. As we came around that corner at slow speed we were stopped by a crash scene. A car had hit a cow, and it was stopping all traffic. Had I come around at speed I realised there would have been nothing I could do to avoid being part of the scene.

So that day, in 1999, when I collected the children from our Pat, after the call at work that my sister in law was missing, we were driving down the highway and Liam said, “whooo, I just saw Aunty Leesa on a cloud” I felt the same chilling feeling.

But that’s not the story. The next paragraph is a bit more background, so don’t read it if you don’t want to know.

We lived on 5 acres of bush. Typical Australian bush, dry, no topsoil, no green, no European plants. So the wildlife and bird life was native and used to the harsh environment. Leesa was found near our home on a vacant block, in her car, with a well researched, successfully orchestrated, efficient device to deliver carbon monoxide into the car. She was found by our local country policeman, strangely on a block owned by a friend of our Pat. She looked beautiful. She had done her makeup, and had just had her nails done. Sitting next to her on the passenger seat were cards she had written to her children.

What happened next, was what happens in families where someone they loved and was loved by dies unecessarily, but from a practical point of view there were things to be done, and her children came to us for the weekend. Enter another huge emotion, but one that I knew.

Saturday morning, one of our cats came towards us as we were out on the back deck looking at the bush, and in its mouth was a white dove. There are no white doves in the Australian bush, but there it was. The contrast of red blood on white feathers… but it was not dead. I rescued it from the jaws of the cat and all 6 children gazed upon it. I explained that birds are very fragile creatures and it had had quite a shock, but we would put it in a box and keep it quiet and see. My experience of trying to save injured birds was that it would be dead in the morning.

The next morning I opened the box and it was alive and well. I carried it outside with 6 little people milling around, helping them to be quiet and hold some care and tenderness towards it. It didn’t seem frightened so I gently put it on the rail of the back deck, where it sat, and allowed her children to stroke it, particularly allowing her 6 year old a lingering touch. I don’t remember what was said, but I will never forget watching that small child and that white dove. And then it flew. But not away. It stayed around for the whole weekend, looking in the windows so boldly that I feared the cats would get it again.

And, at the end of the weekend when the children left, I never saw it again.

I don’t remember if I made it meaningful or comforting to the children, though I hope I did, but I remember powerfully the feeling of meaning and comfort that I felt.

The collateral damage, not only to the people who knew and loved this woman, but to the police and emergency crew who attended has been profound and ongoing. I know she would see the irony if I said I have an urge to “dig her up and beat the shit out of her” for that, but it is much more useful to find a context for healing.

I have heard so many stories like this from clients over the years, and while theirs are too unique and private to share, the conversations about them provide a magical opportunity for healing to happen.