How to Re-home Angry Ghosts
by Gair Hemphill Crutcher Feb 7, 2025

When my wriggling slippery body was fishtailing through the birthing canal and fully flowing breath in and out in loud baby bellow, the Mariona (the maid-midwife, unmarried, dedicated only to her craft)—made the sign of blessing on my forehead and toned a welcoming-the-new charm.

Blessed soul, he is marked by the sign of the healer, she said to my parents.

There is over my heart a curious leaf-shaped, tiny yet clearly feathery imprint of the achillea millefolium. Even through countless my chest has not been pierced by metal. My mother Arethusa said the mark reminded her of the breathing tentacles of the sea cucumber; how it breathes the salt water like a bellows.

Marcus Arelius Antonius was an itinerant bard of our time. He wandered from hamlet to hamlet, town to town, festival to festival, city to great city, with the permission of the Ceasar. He spun transporting stories as readily as the Mistress Spider weaves her silk paths. In this way, Bard Marcus Antonius covered many untrodden miles and keenly observed the fresh youth of the state. Worthy candidates, he recommended to the Imperial War Strategios, the commanders responsible for tactics in battlefields.

Thus I was plucked at too young an age and marked for conflict. My playmates on the school grounds were fellow child soldiers.

Oh what innumerable split-off woundeds, deceased and half alive; perforated bodies, shredded minds of soldiers; desperate grieving mothers, sweethearts, civilians who fed the forces, wives, mamas, babies, midwives were NOT befouled by the monstrous blood fests raging over the land. The blood ran in rivulets; it fed the soil; it fed the birds and animals.

My general designated me a position little reported in the sagas of times that enter myth, legend, epic poems and tales of heraldry and valor. He designated me Therapeuo: Bringer of Succor to the Dying; Bringer of New Skin to the Injured. In this way I was spared the woeful task of inflicting wounds and focused on making everyone in the hellish realms of war, as comforted as they or their condition would allow.

Healing plants grow where they are needed. Holy YARROW. plant of a thousand uses, the potion of wellness, the indispensable green ally, grew everywhere. Achillea Millefolia, my beloved birthmark. She was praised and indispensable to every household. Folk carried it with them in their pockets. Indeed, the appearance of Yarrow along the tracks and roads marked migrations and displacements of conquerors, armies, and refugees.

The thousand-leaved plant named after Achilles treated the deepest wounds. Comfrey was for superficial cuts. All soldiers knew to grab it, carry it, and chew to a poultice to staunch the deepest wounds. Our savage soldiers tried to keep this secret from our enemies. But nature does not discriminate. Our blood across the land made it grow even greener.

She was a legion healer of the deepest wounds of the living. But what of the lost dead souls searching the landscape, cut down in shock, looking for their homes, not sure where they were, not realizing they were dead. What of these shades?

Yarrow holds many secrets, enough for lifetimes. If you take a feather of Yarrow and gently trace the skin, it opens a portal between embodiment and formlessness. You must engage this doorway with affection. You mustn’t court the black powers.
How many times have I relied on this mighty roadside medicine, to cleanse and restore me after another cataclysm of death agonies, the shrieks of the grievously cut down, the raspy hiss of the circling vultures. It so readily suffuses my tissues.

As a seasoned Therapeuo I eventually realized I need not hold the feathery green veins to my body, for Her medicine was with me all the time. Ha! The oracle laughed when she met me. Salutations, Friend Green Skin: even your blood is green! You are ably protected and topped up with healthy blood. Continue your practice of breathing in the mothering memory, the embrace of the Healing Plants and Stones and Birds. Teach it to your tribe, your troops, and all your patients. Teach them how to let these earth-gifts from the Goddess move the excesses, the lingering ghosts, the petty tempests. Teach them to trans-substantiate pain into blessing.

Some knew this already. They held power that through their hearts’ devotion to whatever they valued, every breath became a resurrection. So even though I waded in the most putrid paths, I was no longer afraid of shades—the world’s, my own. Evil forces were broken shards who needed to be reabsorbed into the All.

My medicine mentors were steeped in ancient wisdom which had migrated (just as Mother Yarrow does) all the way to our Great Salt Sea from Serica, that distant land which stocked the silk trade route with silk and the finest porcelain. These healers taught me to sing soothing anthems, ballads and love songs to broken ones (whether embodied or disembodied). Sometimes in whole legions, sometimes just one heart to one heart: Come hither, lost ones. Come hither, loved ones. Come hither. Thank you for giving yourself. Your own garlanded home awaits. Meet under the fig tree in the pomegranate grove next to the obsidian temple to, tomorrow when Grandfather Sun is at his apex. For you there is a special blessing, a particular tune, a specific Guide who will lead you on to the Great Compassionate Light. In the meantime, take succor while I sing to you this Lullaby for the Wanderers.