The First Time I Called the Spirits

By Sandy Whitlow

“I didn’t know what I was doing. I only knew something was listening.”

I was nine years old the first time I called the spirits. Not during a ritual or guided ceremony—but on a quiet night while at my Maw’s house, alone, with only a flickering candle and the weight of a name I didn’t yet know how to speak.

The photo had caught my eye that afternoon while my mom and Maw (my grandmother) were going through old photos. Tucked inside a worn, leather-bound family Bible, it showed a woman with braided hair and eyes that mirrored mine. Her face was firm, her shoulders squared, and something about her stare felt… waiting.

That night, I took the candle from the hallway table and closed myself in the guest bedroom. The air smelled of old quilts. The walls creaked with settling wood. I knelt before the dresser and placed the photo there like a relic, lit the candle, and whispered:

“If you’re there… I’m listening.”

A Breath in the Silence

There was no dramatic wind, no sudden flicker of flame. Just silence—and a stillness that felt too alert to be empty. My skin prickled, not with fear, but with recognition. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t afraid either.

Something stirred—not in the room, but in me. A quiet opening. A deep remembering. Like the turning of a key in a lock that had been there all along.

I whispered again. I don’t remember what I said—only that the words came from a place beneath language. The way rivers know where to run.

What I Found in the Flame

I didn’t tell anyone what I did that night. How could I explain it? I hadn’t read a book on summoning. I hadn’t memorized chants or spells. I just… felt my way into something old and real.

And something responded.

Over the years, I’ve called out many times—on Samhain nights and quiet mornings, in circle and in solitude. But that first time was different. That first time was pure. A child’s call to the ancestors, unburdened by doctrine, uncluttered by fear.

It wasn’t about power.
It wasn’t about magic.
It was about connection.

Final Reflections

I don’t know who she was—the woman in the photo. Maybe a great-grandmother several times removed. Maybe a wise woman whose name was never written down. But I know this:

She heard me.

And that was the beginning. Of the path. Of the practice. Of the promise that I would never forget who I came from—or how to listen when the veil thins and the candle burns low.

I was nine.
I was untrained.
I was hers.
And I still am.