Cardinals: Signs from Spirit

Cardinals is the first chapter of David Scott Myers’ upcoming memoir. He is a psychic medium, artist, and educator.

The first time I ever felt a message from Spirit, it was a cardinal suddenly perched on a snowy terracotta pot. He came into view during a difficult conversation I was having with my aunt. 

“Are you worried about your safety?”  I  asked when the bird came into view, and with the sight of it, an abrupt knowingness washed over me. My question was answered by a silent voice that said, “She is going to be alright.” 

The worry was my uncle, who had recently become delusional. We didn’t know it then; it was dementia. It chewed up his mind and his marriage. It tore a rent in my family that never healed. 

The irony (of course) is that his mother (my grandmother) had dementia before him, and it was my uncle who, when she was going insane, cared for her and had to see the worst of her. Generations of trauma, later revealed to me when I saw the spirit of my grandmother standing beside my bed. A profound mystical experience that I can only describe as an “ancestral download”, the evening I became a psychic medium.

It was my grandmother that I’ve come to associate with cardinals over the years. 

The cardinal on the terracotta pot was twenty years ago, and since then, I’ve learned to pay attention to signs. Often, but not always, the messengers are birds. 

Once, I was dazzled by a hawk. I’d inadvertently interrupted her downward stoop, which sent her rearing backwards, flapping violently, her cream feathers ablaze with orange from the setting sun. Behind her, adding to the crescendo, purple storm clouds and a double rainbow stretched over the eastern horizon. A beautiful sight, again imbued with an uncanny knowingness.  

The next day, I received a phone call. It was the first time I spoke to my biological mother. 

I picked up the phone in my car, sitting in a Wegmans parking lot. During our talk, my car started shaking. I looked over the dash, confounded, to find my friend Brian playing a gag. He was humping my headlight like a derranged hobo. Spirit has a sense of humor. 

This event sent me on a hyperspeed path of self-discovery and healing. Part of that discovery was learning that there were psychics on both sides of my biological family.  Part of that healing was learning how to control the extra-sensory information I had been receiving all my life. I could never properly care for myself until I did so. 

This new surge in ‘power’ was a delight, but also a burden that weighed on my psyche and my marriage. I couldn’t turn off the messages I was receiving from the dead. At night, when sleep was about to take me, my bedroom would sound like a busy cafe. I would see strange faces eagerly peering at me. Sometimes, the faces weren’t human. 

Amidst the confusion, something became clear: I had to learn how to tame this talent, maybe turn it off for good. 

Later, I found the answer to my questions in a small wooden building called The Octagon. It was built in 1890, in a tiny community built by mediums called Lily Dale. During a class literally called “Introduction to Mediumship,” I learned the name of that odd, sudden knowingness I felt when I saw the cardinal on the terracotta pot: Claircognizance. 

Clear knowing, an intuitive gut feeling, what I describe as an invisible instant message, right to the brain. I’m getting one right now, in this very moment. 

Presently, I’m at my friend Maria’s house. Looking at a cardinal on her dining room wall, expertly drawn in colored pencil. He has a mate, and they’re perched on a lively spatter of birch branches. It’s the first thing I notice; it’s the only thing on the wall. She's getting ready to sell the house. She’s mourning. Her husband, Adam, died from brain cancer less than a year ago. Adam was a dear friend of mine. 

“I’m gonna get this house exactly how I’ve always wanted it … then I’m gonna leave.” She says with a cackle, serving macaroni and cheese to the kids. It's a playdate, and we’ve just arrived. Maria is raising two kids on her own, and my three have joined them for the afternoon. 

“I really like this picture,” I say. 

“My grandfather made it; he was an artist”.  

“Can I share with you some…some of my own serendipity right now?” I ask, at a loss for words. 

“Of course,” Maria replies, pouring milk. 

“Yesterday, I decided that I was going to try and start writing about spirit, and my experince as a medium… as soon as I started writing, five cardinals flew into my backyard right in my view… Now I’m here… and you have this.” 

What I’m failing to explain is that, to me, the painting is a sign. Not only that, it is a sign of a sign. Spirit is doubling down. I can feel it. It is telling me to “pay attention.”  The ‘fake’ cardinals on the wall have made yesterday's real cardinals more real. 

The messengers are no longer ephemeral, darting between naked willows in my backyard. They’re vibrantly frozen in quick, graceful strokes of colored pencil. Full of consciousness. Hanging over the children, hanging over Maria and me. Hanging over a kitchen thick with memories of Adam, swirling about like the nag champa recently lit. 

The cardinals are witnessing this moment, knocking on the door of my mind. Pounding. 

The knowingness. The silent voice again, saying, “Pay attention.” Pay attention to what? I’m forced to be here. Forced to be present. Reluctantly, I’m forced to feel. 

The purpose of my visit is to look at Adam’s stuff, and Adam has a lot of it. Adam was a puppeteer and YouTuber. When he was alive, he converted the living room into a television studio, where he amassed a following of over 100,000 followers. Now that Adam is dead, the studio is a proper family room, his equipment in bins, away in the basement. 

When Adam was alive, he was MacGuyver, Inspector Gadget, and Jim Henson rolled into one. His clothes were always dusted with foam, fur, and bits of neon ostrich feathers that seemed to wave like inchworms blindly stretching for a branch. Adam was a true artist and magician. 

His ultimate trick was his disappearance. His theatrical exit. His death. When Maria gave his eulogy (to 2,000 people), she shared the stunning fact that throughout his life, Adam insisted that he would never live to the age of 38 and, keeping his word, he died the day before his 38th birthday. Adam’s final words may as well have been, “abra-fucking-cadabra”. 

Maria and I reminisce over a photograph hanging on the fridge. A man in blue jeans and a bulbous white helmet, flying a jetpack over a ski resort chalet. It’s called the Jet Belt, and it was invented by Adam’s Grandfather, Ernie “The Bear” Kreuntinger. “Once I learned that Adam’s grandfather invented a jetpack, Adam’s personality made so much more sense to me,” I say with a smirk.

Another photograph, Adam’s stupendously cringe senior photo. He’s wearing a top hat, cane, and cape. His magician costume. A brilliant move, he used it as a promotional shot for his magic show. Maria mumbles about how embarrassing it was. I can only imagine. They were high school sweethearts. Anything Adam went through, Maria did too.  

In the basement now, looking through Rubbermaid bins full of video equipment. I’m not sure if I want anything. Like Adam, I turned a room in my house into a studio, and like Adam, it has been taken apart and put into bins. After he passed away, I stopped making art. Adam was my inspiration, friend, and often my mentor. At least once a week, I would call Adam to pick his brain. Neither of us knew it was growing with cancer until he fell to the ground at a work-sponsored volleyball game. 

Looking at the bins, I realize I’m haunted by something. Adam was a big help to me in my life, and I worry that, when he needed me the most, I didn’t help him. What haunts me is the last conversation I had with Adam. My shyness. The words I didn’t say. It’s vivid in my mind, my visit to Hospice. The last time I spoke to Adam. 

Just as a dog looks like its owner, a puppet maker looks like his puppet. Before cancer, Adam looked like a silver-haired Gobo Fraggle: a springy, well-dressed, busy body with a perpetual smirk. Cheerful, generous, and inventive. 

Presently, a different person is sitting on the bed. A tired, war-hardened creature from Jabba the Hutt’s palace: a traveler who has seen some serious shit on the outer edges of the galaxy. His body weathered by time, injury, and all sorts of chemical exposures. 

The half-paralyzed madcap craftsman’s ship is going down, and he’s staring into the abyss. 

“Are you comfortable?” I ask. 

“Never,” Adam said.  

The drive here gave me plenty of time to think about what I wanted to say. I feel like I even rehearsed it, but I find that I’m more eloquent when I’m talking to myself.  Presently, I’m at a loss, and this moment is awkward as shit.  Breaking the silence, with his good hand, Adam gives me his phone. On it is a religious boomer Facebook meme that his aunt recently sent him:

A picture of a solemn angel that reads, “Remember to always pray to God.” I’m surprised. Adam is an atheist. In ten years of friendship, we never spoke about spirituality. The meme had the standard evangelical Facebook fine print flair: “Share this with a friend.”

I scoffed. “Do you want to share this with a friend?” I asked. 

“I’m sharing it with you,” He said, with a heavy push from his diaphragm. Annoyed at my dismissal, he looked up at the ceiling and began to tear. “I dunno…do you believe in the afterlife?” He asked. 

My friend just asked me a sincere question. This is not just some curious, playful campfire chitchat. Adam is dying; he wants an answer. Here I am. A medium in training, looking death in the face, too much of a pussy to spit something out.

Goddamn it, Dave. Say something. I felt like I was on stage in front of hundreds of people. I don’t believe in the devil, but if he’s real, he would certainly want me to keep my mouth shut. To keep my friend in fear, and for me to walk away from this moment ashamed of myself for the rest of my life. 

Goddamn it. Say something. 

I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I did speak up for Adam and myself, and in my mind, I said something like this: 

“You are going to be just fine, Adam. You have always existed and will continue to exist. This body of yours is just your “ride”- a vehicle.  Consciousness is not located in your brain. Your brain is like a VR headset. You are infinite consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.”

“I never thought about it that way.” Adam considered, still looking at the ceiling. 

Adam died a few days later. It was February. That summer, I returned to Lily Dale to take a class on platform mediumship. 

Platform mediumship is the performative work that mediums do that you see on TV. The medium reads in front of a crowd, taking what messages may come from Spirit. The class is held in the lycium, which looks like a small cafeteria. Our instructor is a wonderful, middle-aged, burly bear from South Carolina. Large glasses, a High and Tight haircut, and an unbuttoned shirt showing a thick necklace with a fat crystal pendant. What Mr. T would look like if he worked at an inspirational bookstore. His voice is commanding but gentle. He vascillates between lecture and channeling Spirit. 

“Looking at people’s faces, their reactions can be distracting, but you don’t wanna close your eyes, see, I look at the back wall just above people’s heads- I have a woman here, likely a smoker… she is showing me popcorn…but she isn’t eating it…popcorn balls?...ah,  she is making christmas tree decorations with it.”  

Eventually, each student will go up and channel Spirit for the crowd. I decide to go first, not out of eagerness, but fear. If I don’t go now, I’ll never go. I put on the obligatory blindfold that the instructor provided. 

Immediately, in my mind's eye, I see a little boy bounding and skipping through a gravel street. Suddenly, the vision has changed, I no longer see the boy, I am the boy, lying on a hospital bed. My arms outstretched, receiving intravenous things from tubes that run out of my field of vision. 

I begin to describe to my classmates what I see. In an effort to help me provide more evidence, my instructor asks, “Is there anyone else in the hospital room with you?” 

The question pulls my mind back into the room. I can feel my legs underneath me, the vertical weight of my body.

“No. Nobody else is here”, I am the boy again, scanning the room. Empty, save the orange cushioned chairs, and phony wood laminate cabinets. The place looks old, from another decade.  

I am myself again, wondering if I’m doing this wrong. All eyes on me, the blindfold gets warmer. Why isn’t anybody else here? Why can’t I answer this question? My knees start to tremble, my throat and fists fighting the urge to cry; there is something inside me dreadful. The jock refuses to cry. 

I am the boy again; I don’t have ‘big words’ to describe my feelings. The hospital room is overwhelmingly empty. Nobody else is here. My heart swells. 

“I- I just feel so lonely. I was so playful, running and jumping around, now I can’t play anymore, and I can’t understand why, I can’t understand why nobody is here with me.” 

I am the lonely boy, and my message, my evidence, is my loneliness- The endless hours I’ve spent alone, and my little mind that can’t comprehend it. 

“Is there anyone in this room who can hold this message?” My instructor replies. 

Acknowledging I’m blindfolded, he says that someone in the room has raised their hand. Someone knows this boy. I’m on the right track. 

“Is there anything Spirit can show you, maybe a thing, like a gift or a moment they shared recently with this person in the room that would provide more evidence?”

In my mind’s eye, I’m no longer on a hospital bed. I’m sitting in front of a large ice cream sundae, happy, looking at all the whipped cream. Still blindfolded, I describe the image. My instructor tells me to take it off. 

It was a woman who raised her hand. With a smile, she tells us that the spirit, the little boy was a family friend. He was sick for a long time- a disease of the immune system. That's why he couldn’t have many visitors. He spent a long time alone. On her fridge is a photograph of the boy from a fundraiser they held for him. He’s smiling wide, in front of a large banana split. 

To conclude my session, the instructor gave me some advice. “It’s OK to be in touch with your feelings.” It has certainly never been my strength. 

I’m still running from them. 

The five cardinals in the willows, now the two on the wall. Spirit, God, the Universe, whatever you want to call it, just gave me a smack- reminding me of a promise I privately made to myself and Adam that I would share my story. 

That I would say something, dammit. 

The light above us flickers. “That's Adam,” Maria says. 

“I know it sounds weird, but I don’t miss him, because I feel like he is always here”.