The reality of being a ghost in the future haunts me. What’s odd is that right now I’m being haunted by my future ghosts. I feel like I’m being watched by multiple selves from in different dimensions. Haunted by who I was intended to be but haven’t arrived at yet; who I was, who I am, and who I will be, are all working on my soul. 

The Six of Swords is often identified as “Celestial Navigation,” a journey toward an ancient-future. Sixes symbolize a collection of some sorts, both the seen and the unseen and at the same time; multiple selves with multiple souls. 

The card depicts two figures in the boat. One person is sitting in the middle of the vessel; they are wearing a hooded cloak. An equally mysterious ferryman is at the back, guiding the small skiff out to sea. Each of the six swords represents a different era of the future. The two-edged blades are rising from water at different heights giving the 3-D perspective of distance. The image on the card sends two messages: the pilgrim is still “not there yet” and “the ferryman will always demand a fee” at the end of life. We haven’t arrived but there’s going to be a cost to this ghostly pilgrimage.

We can’t know if the traveler has an intended destination, or if the navigator is in control of destiny. The title of Celestial Navigator more than suggests that the hooded person sitting in the boat is simply along for the ride. Does the ferryman determine fate? Maybe the angel of divine foreknowledge is at the oar? Or possibly we are both the traveler and the ferryman?

Cambria is a small village on California’s Highway One, an hour north of San Luis Obispo. On a crisp pre-dawn morning, the full moon was setting into the ocean. Her light was cast across the water right up the shore. Looking closely, souls can be seen sitting in the ferryman’s boat navigating up the light toward the moon. I could see my future ghost on one of the ferries. But I could also see my ghost soul still standing of the shore.

How have I interpreted the messages of these two ghosts: “We haven’t arrived yet but there’s going to be a cost to this ghostly pilgrimage.” Let’s go back the Six of Swords. Being I haven’t arrived yet, the six swords in front of the vessel is calling me to take up new methods of craftwork for this is my soulwork; expand the imaginal by exploring new ideas, taking up a new artistic endeavor, listening to nature’s many voices, going on walk through a cometary and having a conversation with the dead. My ghosts are provoking me to experience life as a pilgrimage of wondering and wandering. And what’s the cost of the journey? I have to continually be at my craftwork as soulwork because I am my ghosts only channel of new experiences. The more I take on during life, the more soul I’ll have to share as multiple future ghosts.