href="#fb3_img_img_90ebbdef-bbba-5dd6-8ef1-36a3d4b31831.jpg"/>
Café du Monde, where the author spent time eating beignets while waiting for sunset. Pontalba Apartments in the background.
I’m choosing this time to connect with the spirit world because during the day as I travel through Pirates Alley, it is so crowded and busy with people that it would be hard to discern who is a ghost and who is a local. So I wait, sipping my coffee and letting the spirit of New Orleans wash over me note by note.
Sunset soon falls, and the crowds begin to disperse. The café thins out, and the waiters take this opportunity to sweep up some of the mounds of powdered sugar that waft across tables and the floor. Jackson Square seems to sigh deeply with a long breath as vendors pack up their art to head home, and musicians pick up their instruments and move over to Bourbon Street to play on the streets to the nightly crowds. The café doesn’t close; it remains open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as a beacon of light and warmth in the quarter. Come here at midnight or at 3 a.m. and the seats will be filled with those who are wrapping up their night from the bars and the bands, locals who are enjoying coffee after a late dinner, and others who prefer the night as their companion.
As the energy of the city shifts during sunset, it’s a prime time to walk again along the alley. This time as I walk along Pirates Alley, I am no longer fighting hordes of people with small children, strollers, and shopping bags. I am not bombarded by the sounds that humans make with hundreds of voices mixed in with musical notes played by the street musicians. Now, here in the quiet, it’s the night and me. In the dark with the streetlamps offering their gentle light, I open myself psychically and ask that should there be anyone here in spirit who wishes to communicate, they are welcome to do so now.
Admittedly, I do this with some trepidation. Jackson Square, though beautiful as it is today, was historically the site of public executions for many years in New Orleans. Execution sites are well known for restless spirits, and I’m not sure what type or how many spirits I may meet here in the still of the night when I put out the call.
Extending my hands outward, I raise my protective white light shield around me, which accomplishes two goals; it creates a layer of protection around my aura to ward off any forces that I don’t want to come too near and brightens my auric light, which will be noticed easily by those in the otherworldly planes. This is a good technique to use to attract attention and can be seen for miles by those in the supernatural world. This can attract beings from both sides who may have an interest in checking out a bright energy source, like moths to a flame.
Opening myself up to the experience, I wait to see who responds to my call. At first, all is quiet and still, which surprises me. I grow impatient and, after a minute or two, let down my guard, which is a mistake. Seconds later, a wave of energy washes over me, and I’m now seeing Pirates Alley as it was in the past. Something here wants me to see their life but isn’t willing to show themselves to me directly. I look around, hoping to see the figure that is engaging with me, but have no luck. The alley appears much darker and quieter at night now than it did in my time, though I can hear the shouting of two men in the far distance.
As I walk farther down the alley, I make out a shadowy figure in the distance. As I get closer, I see a woman sobbing, nearly bent over in grief, holding her arms around her waist as if to support her body from falling to the ground. Her head hangs low and tendrils of her hair have loosened and are falling on each side of her face. She’s cold and appears weary to her core. As I draw closer, she looks up at me with tears streaming down her face. She shouts at me angrily in loud bursts of French. Growing up in Louisiana, I picked up some of the French language, but it was a less proper form of Cajun French, which sounds quite different from the formal French flowing out of her at a rapid pace.
As a psychic, people often ask me how can I understand what ghosts and spirits are saying when they speak in a foreign language, as I only speak English. The best way I can describe this is that in the other planes of existence of the spirit world, language is a pattern of light and sound with its own formula of creation that is quite beautiful; the language is expressed telepathically rather than verbally.
As the young woman on Pirates Alley continued to scream at me in French, I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. I was intrigued by her language and had allowed myself to become both fascinated and captivated. I needed to take a step back and experience what she was expressing to me. As I did, I saw the image of the young man who was her lover. She was not married to this man, nor did her family approve of their relationship. She was from a family of higher standing and he was not French. Undeterred, the young lovers had continued to meet and had been securing funds to elope. The young woman had reached out to an uncle and aunt whom she had thought were sympathetic to her cause, as her uncle had married a woman who was not of the same social class. Trusting them, she had shared her plans about eloping. To her great surprise, her uncle was against the idea. He told her that while he had married his love, he also had the means to raise his wife up in social standing; as a woman, she would never be able to raise the social standing of her young lover and would surely be disowned and disinherited by her family should she proceed further with her plans.
The young woman left her uncle’s home angry, but with the belief that he would keep her secret safe. This proved to be an error in judgment on her part. After she left, her uncle’s wife went to her parents and betrayed her secret to them, hoping to raise her own standing within the family by delivering this news. The young woman’s father then devised a plan to stop this engagement at once and used his considerable resources to have the young man arrested on what were false pretenses.
She pleaded with her father day and night to have the young man released. She swore that if he did, she would never see him again, wishing only for his freedom. She would give up her desire to marry him if only her father would grant her this one wish. She offered to go to a convent or marry any man of her father’s choosing. However, her father refused to relent, and the young man stayed in jail. About a month later, she learned through sources that her lover had died in jail. It was unclear what had occurred. Some said it was natural causes; others said he had contracted a terrible fever and died of some disease, and others claimed he had tried to escape and was killed by guards.
She did not know which story was true, but she suspected that her father had something to do with her lover’s death since she had not given up her daily vigil of pleading with him to release him from jail. Through death, her father had complied with her wish of setting her lover free, but not in the way she had intended. She never knew what truly happened, as there was no burial announcement that she could find and no one could tell her what happened to his body. She continued to come to this area night after night, hoping that he had escaped and would find her at St. Louis Cathedral. This never came to pass, and she decided the only way to find him again would be to join him in the afterlife.
As she looked up at me with tears streaming down her face, I noticed that her eyes were glazed over and that her arms were wrapped tightly around her waist. She was experiencing severe abdominal pain from having taken some form of poison, which was working its way through her body. Her sobbing was from both physical and emotional pain, as she was experiencing what she remembered at the end of her life. Even now in her ghostly form, she still clung to this pain in the afterlife. I spoke softly to her and asked why she was here in the alley instead of in front of St. Louis Cathedral, where she had arranged to meet her young man. She told me that she could not stand near the front door of the cathedral because taking her own life was a sin.
As gently as I could, I explained to her that she did not have to remain here in pain and grief. She could move on to the other side and find her lover waiting for her there. She told me that only bad things waited for her on the other side because of what she had done, and she remained here hoping he would find her. I told her that she had been waiting long enough and that if she could move on, she would find him there on the other side. She replied that she had only been waiting for a short while, and
