My friend Elisa has a blog that is dedicated to conversations and communications with her son Erik in the afterlife. (I say friend, because the internet makes random people "friends," even though as an ardent and intolerant leftist I find her Tea Party-leaning politics objectionable.) Elisa's son Erik committed suicide three years ago and says that his Soul's work is to mediate between the otherworld and this dimension in order to help with the work of human ascension, among other things.

I didn't buy it at first, but Erik invites everyone to meet him personally for proof of his existence, and many people already have. Even the dead can be cagey, but I find him to be sincere.

Channeling of the dead is not an unusual practice these days, even online. What I found intriguing is that Elisa, like myself, is a professional, middle-class American, a medical doctor, and a mother who has faced one of the most difficult experiences for a woman to ever have to experience, the physical loss of her own child.

Separated by the veil after death, we long for the connection, and even though their emotional and mental bodies mingle with our thoughts, in our consciousness, and always in the dream-dimension, we sometimes ache for the physical presence of our loved ones.

There is much to be said for the practices that bring the dead back to us for fellowship and conversation, if only for a little while, as with the weekly ancestor worship. With all of the proper elements present - the water, the air, the fire and the earth - the ancient magical ritual becomes as easy as providing a family supper for those that you love. We mothers are good at that.