They're not just your grandmother's ghosts anymore…
by the Editor
Really, we here at EAP are always interested in looking at things differently than the present default settings–you know, those assumptions that brought us to the magnificent culmination of Western Civilization we are all experiencing today. (In passing, let me say one of my most valued possessions is an eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica…that was the edition put together in 1911, right before the outbreak of World War I, the event that…er…sort of threw all those ideas about constant progress toward perfection up for grabs. This edition is not only scholarly, meditative, and completely unified, it absolutely sings out in harmony about a bedrock basic belief that Western Man had pretty much figured everything out…the rest just being a mopping up operation, and an enjoyment of ever expanding prosperity and peace. Sigh. It's a wonderful dream, and they had it, lying lazily by an English stream, eating strawberries and drinking Pimm's Cup, and I wish I were with them there right now.)
We think it's worth looking at any assumptions. Take the one about ghosts. That they (and visions and monsters and fairies and angels and all sorts of other things stuck up in the attic of Western Civ's summer cabin in the mountains) are a quaint superstition of our ignorant forefathers. N'existe pas. In any size shape or form, except in the form of chilling stories told around the campfire (in between the one about the poodle in the microwave and the one about the guy with the Hook).
Maybe. Maybe not, though.
And by maybe not, we don't mean anything in particular. We're not particularly on side with the idea that ghosts are dead people, or a sign that there is an afterlife, or…or…or…really, not on side with any of that. What we ARE on side of is the fact that these experiences happen, they happen a lot, and that there is no place in the present discourse for them to be looked at and integrated…whatever it is they DO mean.
Whenever that happens to an idea, we always think it's a good idea to keep an eye on it. Because, we figure, there's probably more there than meets the eye.
So…have a look at Laura Roman's account of the architect living in her apartment . At BJ Beauchamp's meeting with her grandmother . At Hecate Kantharsis' lifelong relationship with…with what she's not entirely sure . And then, there's the undeniable fact that I Once Saw a Green Tara in a Courtroom in Liverpool.
And Brian Griffith reminds us that Goddesses frequently really do exist. (In a conversation that entertained me greatly the other day, Brian remarked that it always amused him to read older Western scientists patronizingly dismiss Native American superstitious beliefs, for example, that we are all descended from animals…)
Linda Sandoval reports charmingly about a ghost from her childhood. David Budbill , as always, nails his poem straight to the door. Ralph Dartford is definitely the prime post post post modern EAP ghost story writer. And David Horowitz, unlike those guys in the 1911 Brittanica, thinks maybe it's not such a GOOD thing that we resemble a ghost of the Roman empire.
David Marin is too busy raising those three kids of his to think about ghosts. But he is plenty worried about the way things are going…given that his kids were born to illegal immigrants, and when people talk about depriving those children of their citizen's rights, they are not talking about statistics, or a Glenn Beck fantasy…they are talking about HIS KIDS.
GREENBEARD is back. And there are more things in heaven and earth on board that ship than was ever dreamed of in anyone's philosophy. With the possible exception of Terry Pratchett's.
And by the way, ASK WENDY is a lot kinder to her ghostly correspondent this month than she is wont to be. I wonder what's up?
Welcome back.