My other blog posts about the Seabeck Retreat are here: Part 1 and Part 2.
Saturday night, we are scheduled for a walk to the historic Seabeck cemetery. I’m already aware that there are surprises planned for the walk. (Thanks, Michael Dylan Welch!) I have no idea what those surprises are, but I’m looking forward to finding out.
We gather in the lobby of the inn, where we are given glow-in-the-dark necklaces and bracelets to wear. I decide my necklace makes a better crown and wear it that way.
To get to the cemetery, we have to walk through the woods. There is a large group of us, and we are spread out. People start joking about individuals going missing. I wonder if those in charge of the walk might have us sneak off one or two at a time, until the main group starts wondering what happened.
But the walk is uneventful.
We arrive at the cemetery and are told to try to be quiet, both to be respectful and to keep a certain ambience to our trip. I turn my flashlight to its high setting as we enter the graveyard. No one is going to surprise me.
Quick aside here—The flashlight I’m using is an amazing flashlight. Boyfriend got it from his father who is interested in emergency preparedness and self-defense. On the low setting, my flashlight was lighting the woods better than most people’s flashlights were. On the high setting, I know I don’t have to worry about things hiding in the shadows.
I start with the group, looking at gravestones of various individuals. Family members are often buried side-by-side. We wonder about their stories.
Soon, though, I break off down a small path, curious about what surprises I might find.
A flutter of white just outside of the cemetery catches my eye.
I turn my super-powered flashlight towards it.
A woman in white and a man in what looks like a Civil War uniform stand next to each other, talking.
Awesome, I think. They’ve created ghost scenes. I keep my flashlight pointed at the couple and wait to see what happens next. In my mind, I’ve already started creating stories about how they were star-crossed lovers or how he died in the war and their ghosts are said to meet up in this, the last place they were together. (The facts that Washington wasn’t even a state during the Civil War and that people in Washington were far enough from the battles that they probably weren’t fighting didn’t cross my mind.)
The couple seem to be whispering to each other but aren’t really doing much.
I wonder if they just have a short background scene they’re doing. I wonder whether I should walk closer and interact with them but decide not to because that would break the magic that the “ghosts” were creating.
Eventually, we are called back to gather back by the entrance of the cemetery.
As I rejoin the group, I wait to hear everyone else talk about their ghostly experiences.
No one does.
I’m confused, and I walk out of the cemetery without commenting.
Michael Dylan Welch tells us to form a circle.
Now, I think, we’ll hear about the ghosts of the star-crossed couple. Michael will ask us if anyone saw them.
Instead, Michael starts talking about death haiku. Many monks and haiku masters write haiku when they know they’re going to die. We are told to think about how any of us could die at any time, how the last haiku we wrote could be our death haiku.
It would be easier to think about this if I had any idea what the last haiku I wrote was.
I hear what sounds like a meditation bell and assume that it’s being used to keep us focused on the present moment and our death meditation.
Then, flute music.
One of the people attending the retreat plays the flute, so I immediately know this must be Jim.
A woman in white walks towards us.
The woman I saw outside the cemetery.
Her face is covered by a white veil. Her hands are covered with gloves. She is white from head to ankle, the effect only ruined by hiking boots.
She holds a stack of cards with death haiku (by famous writers) written on them, walks slowly heel-toe, letting each of us see the writing on the card, before she stops in front of Michael, who takes the first card.
She repeats this process—walking around us, strange music playing in the background—before stopping in front of a new person who grabs their death haiku.
There is something entrancing about this, like perhaps the spirit knows which death haiku is meant for us.
I read the haiku and find myself wondering which one I’ll get. I am drawn some of them, but there are others I don’t care for.
When the woman finally stops in front of me, she is holding a sign that says:
now as a spirit
shall I roam
the fields of summer
—Hokusai
I’m glad I got this poem. It seems happy to me, makes me think of Greek mythology and the Elysian fields. Now that the weather has started getting cold, the fields of summer sound especially appealing.
After all of the death haiku cards have been handed out, our lady in white disappears, returning to wherever she came from.
* * *
The woman in white, our ghost, remains on everyone’s mind for the rest of the retreat. Everyone tries to guess who she is. People talk about the death haiku they received. Most of them seem to find the haiku fit them somehow.
* * *
After the talent show the next night, I start talking about my experience, about how I saw the woman in white while I was in the cemetery.
“Oh my God! That was you!”
I turn.
Michelle (who helped me figure out how to draw a bat for my haiku rock) is staring at me. She and Jim were worried about my light. Jim evidently thought I couldn’t see them. “There’s a white fence. Just sway, and the person will think you’re part of the fence.”
(By the way, Jim wasn’t wearing a Civil War costume. Evidently, from a distance, his hat and coat just looked like they looked like they were from that era.)
Michelle and I laugh about how I thought I had found the cemetery walk surprise when I saw them. I have solved her mystery (who was shining that flashlight?), and she has solved mine.
K. Simon 
Nice story.
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