The Mountains Hold Secrets - and Spirits

Appalachia is so much more than it's glorious mountains, so much more than its trails where hikers scurry like ants for the sunlit peaks that reach for the sky. It is so much more than sweeping valleys, where daisies and jonquils bounce into spring, declaring their unabashed joy to be alive.

Deer trails crisscross the landscape, and on either side of those trails, Appalachia's woodlands, 'lovely, dark and deep' shelter the secrets of the mountains, hiding the human dramas, the back porches of small cabins where moonshine stills abound, and the rutted roads that jolt and bump bright yellow buses that carry the children to school.

There are spirits in these mountains, animal and human. Were you ever in any doubt? And in the spirit of this blog, of looking beyond the realms of possibilities, here's something you'll enjoy!


In her new book, "Them That Go", my friend, and fellow author Becky Mushko, has captured that spirit that lives deep inside the mountains and the people who live there.

One of those people is Annie Caldwell who rides the bus to school everyday, over 15 miles of rocky, winding roads. She sits in the back because she's different. She isn't like the others. She isn't like one of the stereotypes that go to her High School. She isn't vivacious and pretty like Loniss, the flirtatious cheerleader, or clever like Bert the nerd, who isn't like Lucas, the handsome quarterback who loves the cheerleader, or Sarenda Lovejoy, a free-spirited hippy child. And she is nothing like the girl who spouts the bible to put people in their places. Annie is different.

Her best friend is Aunt Lulie who happened to be born at midnight in these hills where it is well-known that if a baby is born at midnight, she will have second sight and will be able to see and talk to spirits. It's even more auspicious if that baby happens to be the first born girl. Many thought of Lulie as a witch with her long grey hair and missing teeth. But Annie loved her. Her kinship with Lulie is deep on many levels, including the fact that she is able to hear and speak to animals.

She has known that animals can speak for a long time. Ever since Rhody, the cow, began to tell her things that nobody else knew. Then one day, it was discovered that all the laying hens were missing; and Annie was the only one who knew where they were. She knew because one of the hens told her that they had been stolen by Silas Mosby. When the hens were found (In a shed on Silas's property) the hell fire and damnation preacher Elder Stoutmire, was summoned to exorcise the demons out of Annie.

But Annie knew what she knew. She continued talking to woodland animals and, more importantly, to the pets around the neighborhood who seem to know Everything. She took it all in stride, vowing never to tell another soul what she knew.

Until that became impossible, when Annie finds herself embroiled in the tangled mess of murder.


This is Becky Mushko at her best. Superbly written, "Them That Go"  is set in Appalachia in the 1970's. She has lit a torch and shone a light through the woodlands and valleys of the mountains exposing the illiteracy, poverty and the joy that coexists in 'them thar hills.' It's a telescope into the often stereotyped secretive existence of a musical people, sometimes gun-toting, hard-drinking, bible bashing folk we hardly know.

In my opinion it's a valuable learning tool as we, so many of us transplanted from other places, try to get a handle on the people who live around us. Our neighbors, who are so like us in so many ways. Except for Annie who is 'different'.

Becky will be presenting her book at The Franklin Co. Library on March 22nd at 6:00 p.m. and at the West Lake Library on April 14th at 2:00 p.m. I hope you'll be there, and I hope you'll share this blog with your own friends and neighbors. The book is a treat!

More 'beyonds the bounds of known possibilities soon'! Take care.

Old Spirits Young Spirits

Last week, I read a piece of my new book to my Lake Writer's Group. Testing the waters, if you will and asking for their feed back. They're very good at this sort of stuff, and it takes a brave soul to put him or herself out there with something for them to critique, let me tell you.

The group is made up of writers of every genre you can imagine, and conducted by smart people from many walks of life. English teachers (Yikes!) lawyers, doctors, world travelers, spies, I think, - or maybe they're just rehearsing the next scene in their next thriller. I'm pretty sure there are no murderers among us, but if you go by their murder mysteries, you might scratch your head and say, "Hmmmm. . ." She knows a little too much about poisons if you ask me. But don't tell her I said so.

And then there's me. I see dead people. So I write about what I know. Isn't that what they tell you to do? Yes. So, my genre concerns itself with the Afterlife; and in this newest attempt of mine at the next Great American Non-fiction Book, I'm talking about Pre-existence. So much fun! And there's a lot of head-scratching going on around the table, believe me.

My fellow writers, nice people, everyone of them, give my readings a lot of lee way. They're mostly still trying to figure what the heck I'm talking about, but they're great listeners and very polite about the ghosts I pull out at the Friday morning group.

Case in point: Last week the piece of the new book I read to them dealt with Old Spirits and Young Spirits. "So, what's an Old Spirit?" Someone asked. "Compared to a Young Spirit". The answer caught me off-guard, and my answer was painfully inarticulate as I groped for words that made sense and soon realized I was making very little sense.

Let me try again. To put it in context, the opening chapter of my new book begins with the birth and shocking arrival of a Young Human Spirit. He has no idea where he is or how he got here. Memories of the place he came from, clear at first, begin to fade with the sudden and horrific realization that he has reincarnated on earth.What was he thinking!

"Where am I? Holy sh. . . what is this place? Woah! Everything's upside down! Yikes! What's happening? Heeelp! Can anyone hear me?" 

A Young spirit is not young in years as we understand time in the 3rd. Dimension (Where we live). He's young in that he hasn't been on earth many times, and maybe not at all, so he has little or no experience with what it's like here. No wonder he was yelling for help. He usually comes here to learn, in what may be the original 'School of Hard Knocks', where we earn extra points for our spiritual and human evolution. A Young spirit is either going to remember nothing about anything when he arrives, or he is going to be mightily confused. As this one was.

An Old spirit on the other hand, is one who has been around this block many times over the eons. He's not phased (fazed?) by it. He probably napped the whole time he was in the womb because he knew where he was going and what he'd signed up for. Even if it was a very difficult life - as they sometimes are for Old spirits. They sign up because of their experience, and they sign up to teach and to enlighten the rest of us. They arrive on earth with everything under control, ready to take this life in stride.

It's strange, but the very people who aggravate or concern us the most may be Old Spirits with lessons to teach. Or a child who is born a cripple, what is she teaching? A young man with aids ... We've got so much to learn.

I believe that young or old, our spirits have all been around since time began. Some of them just take their time getting down here. That's my take.

An old friend of mine passed away not long ago, and a very neat thing happened while I was out walking the morning after he died. It was a warm day and my shirt was sticking to to me. My mind was in neutral, not thinking, not even noticing much, when a sudden gust of warm air blew past me. I stopped in my tracks and had the clearest impression of my friend arriving at his destination. The light around him was misty, opaque as I watched him step onto a platform or concourse or something. I saw him reach out to someone, a young man, I think, who was there to meet him. Although he was bedridden in his last days, he was walking strongly, smiling and was obviously pleased to be there. Taking it all in stride. I think he was an Old spirit.

We should post a quiz  on FB : Are You A Young Spirit or an Old Spirit? Click here to find out.

Take care, See you next time.

Where Did They Go?

Let me run some thoughts by you.

When my husband passed on, the biggest question that haunted me (and haunts so many others) was, "But where is he? Where did he go?" He must be somewhere. . . in his case, he was literally here one moment and gone the next. It's not possible. Where is he? There can't be life there one minute and none a second later. He was standing there making breakfast, for God's sake. . .

Here's what I know. The life you were standing there talking to just a moment ago is still there. The human body, unable to sustain it for whatever reason, has given up its life. But life goes on. I am more sure of that than I am about sitting here typing this blog.

I have learned from my own experience, my own research and from the thousands of accounts offered by others, all stunningly similar, that when the time comes to leave this earth we transition from here to one of up to nine dimensions. Some now think there are twelve.

But which dimension? I asked. And where is it? Is it up, down, sideways? Is it faraway?

I understand that earth is considered to be in the Third Dimension, and I believe that upon transitioning, most of us go into what I think is the Entry level to what is known to many of us as Heaven, This level is also known as the Fourth Dimension. For simplicity's sake, I'll call it the Afterlife.

I know, because I've been told, and I have researched until Morning's Light, (sorry) that it is a place neither up nor down nor sideways from earth, It is right here with us. Many have seen it about three to four feet removed from this Third Dimension. It is so close that we can touch it. And it is almost a replica of our home planet earth only so, so much better. It is where those we have loved here on earth are living now, still loving us, still in our lives.

In dreams I've had, I've watched people from this other dimension talking to me one moment and turning away and disappearing the next. Where did they go! Just like a transitioning human life, they have suddenly switched dimensions. Out of my dreams and into the 4th, 5th or 6th dimension, or wherever they're going next.

I spent one such dream with my husband, Walter, discussing something troubling that was going on in our family, where he showed me what had happened and what needed to be done. He was so real, so vibrant, so reassuring. I remember saying, "You're here! Really here!" The conversation was deep and earnest and seemed to go on for some time. Then, suddenly, he stood up, and I watched him go, wishing he would stay, silently asking him to stay, but he kept walking and, as I watched, he vanished into a crowd of people not more than a few feet away from me. He was here one moment and gone the next.    

So, my conclusion is that when they left, they didn't go very far. They are here. Very, very close. On the other side of the veil, that separates dimensions. They are with us. They still share our lives. they still celebrate the good things with us; the graduations, the family reunions, new babies, they share the sad things, and they hear us whenever we speak to them. Believe it.

Next time, I'll tell you what I know about the fourth dimension, the entry level, and, as I see it, the first stop between here and the Afterlife.

Sweet dreams, everyone.

IMAGINE!

It's a new year, and the world has another chance to renew itself, and another chance for humankind to excel  in all the right ways. Imagine. 

As the sun rose on New Year's Day I let my thoughts rise unchecked, and imagined myself looking through an open window onto a brand new world. A world that's a long way from reality as we know it in 2016. It's a world that breaks the bonds of possibilities as we know them, and explodes with a distant dream; a dream of acceptance of one another, a dream of harmony and Peace. 

Impossible? Nay! Not only is this not a part of a Coco Cola ad, I believe we can see it happening. The seeds of this new world are germinating. 

If we look, we can see the sprouts in every street Cafe all over the world, in every market place and every shopping mall. The face of the world is changing. I know you've seen it. In spite of the wars we wage, on foreign shores, and on each other, the very basic nature of human kind is making change happen all around us, and nowhere is it more apparent than in this melting pot we call the USA.

The faces of the earth are changing. I know you've noticed the earth tones of pale brown and cafe-au-lait complexions that decorate and people our television programs, of people who walk along our city sidewalks, that visit our national parks and monuments. No, these are not tourists. They are us. Where there were once strict boundaries to hurdle, we're now seeing an ever-quickening mixing of races and cultures and the beginnings of a blended society.

Change can be, and usually is, jolting, and there are a few who will never let go of the exclusivity of the races. Not for a very long time anyway. Championing the separateness of humankind, these die-hards come in every shape, size, culture and color. But in the end, the changes that are happening will happen in spite of the urge to keep everything as it was.

I'm okay with that. And, having seen the end result of all these changes, (through my near year's window, of course) I am quite okay with that.

Imagine.

A world full of people colored in the beautiful earth tones of our planet. The pale browns and tans, the deeper rose in someone's cheeks, and, surprise! The light gray of eyes that retain the strains of Scandinavia, in a copper-toned face from Asia. Other eyes, deep brown, that still hold the shape of the orient in an old-ivory colored face that's tinged with the browns of Africa. And the warm Latin blood lines still evident in the golden brown skin hues of a dance troupe from Detroit - or Minnesota.

It's coming. In the face of it, I hope we'll keep all that is good in us. Our music, our dance, our art and our foods, our amazing accomplishments, passing them on to future generations. The blending of different music sounds good to me too. The blended foods  -  for sure! I also hope that we'll embrace it all with interest, curiosity and excitement!  

It's all here. It has begun. The blending of all of us is in full swing and I can't help thinking this is a very good thing. Look at it this way: If we succeed in erasing the color bar by blending ourselves to look more and more alike, I can't help believing we will do away with the biggest bar to harmony on earth. Similar changes to cultural and religious differences will surely follow, and when this world's complete, I think we will have a true brother and sisterhood of men and women. And John Lennon can rest in peace.  

Then, because of all the fear being generated from the Middle East, as evil threatens to destroy everything that is good among us all, my thoughts took a leap even further into the future and way beyond any boundaries most of us can imagine. I pictured an airport in Syria. 

A young family had just landed from Gaza. They carried a tiny baby, with a head of spikey, silken, jet-black hair and green eyes that were barely opened, sparkling in a face of deep tan and rose colored skin. His mother had the grace and bearing of a Somalie princess with auburn hair. His father bore the dark good looks of his Jewish and Palestinian forebears from centuries ago. And when he spoke, to a grisly old man beside him, I heard the word, "Shalom," and the ancient Beduoin from the Saudie desert replied, "Salaam - Allah O Akbar." 

God is great indeed. 

I look forward to that brand new earth. It will come, and in the meantime, while the world waits and hopes, I can dream. And in my dream - I'm watching it all unfold, with you.

Peace on Earth and to all of us,

To My Village

There is a lantern in the corner of my mind. I would like it to be shining on a snowy field, lighting a stand of graceful Fir trees, and a horse with a jingle bell collar pulling a sleigh full of over-the-top happy people. (Off to Farmer Gray's birthday party for sure.) Trouble is, they're predicting 70 degrees for Christmas Day here in Virginia - which just isn't right! But we'll deal with it, and hold the dream of a White Christmas, letting the lantern shine on.

Shine on - throughout the village. The village full of my peeps, the family and friends who are all around me - some near and some too far away. All sorts of people live here. A rainbow connection with multicolored people of different faiths, shapes and sizes. Ours is a village full of differences. A village of happy and sad people and people who are just plain in-between any such extremes, which make up the majority, I suspect. The people who color our lives, and those who keep us all on track.

The Holidays, we can agree, are especially a time for children. (We've all been there once upon a time, and that's how we know). And this brings me to the part of my village who have lost children.
It brings me into a kindergarten class full of children, not my own, singing carols, or O'l McDonald or whatever, and the sound of the childish voices that always make me cry - long before my own child was lost. It's just a thing with me. I cry when I hear children singing. It's especially true now.

There is a time to cry. Sometimes alone, and sometimes surrounded by the village. And it's all okay. We'll stop crying when the time is right, and no one knows when that will be. But it will happen. And the village that has been there through the tears will be there to celebrate our new-found happiness in a new-found, and brave new world.

It will happen. It happened when I took the first step into that new world I hadn't asked for, and I realized that I was entering a changed reality that offered new paths to explore, and I had the rest of my life to contemplate and explore everything about that strange reality.

The landscape is different, to be sure. I am different. But I'm alive - with a whole new life ahead of me. And it will be good because, with the help of my village, I will make it so.

That's how it starts.

I've found that it's a decision to remember life as it was, and to seize life as it is now and join it. The black shroud I covered myself with in the beginning was calm, warm, nurturing, and I guess I could say, comfortable. And it was necessary for the healing to begin. It was a dark and sad place. For me, it was not a place I wanted to stay in. It was too sad. I wanted to be away from it, to shed it like a wet, wooley, too tight skin. So, I took the first step out of it, as so many others have done, leaving the depressing cocoon on the ground.

At first I felt nothing like a butterfly. And there were many times I wanted to crawl back in. But my village called me out.

Slowly I began to see beyond the emptiness I had imagined lay ahead, to the roads that lay ahead, gleaming in the weak sunlight that peeked through the branches of winter trees. I noticed that the asphalt on the road ahead was warm, and I took another step towards a new life I surely hadn't asked for, but it was the only one I had.

There were people waiting for me. My family was there and as I walked towards them I realized I loved them fiercely - my friends were there too, and I found I wanted to be with them. I wanted to join the world, to share all of their lives and be a part of them. My life expanded with the realization of how VALUABLE they all are. My love for them expanded as we reached out to each other, and I vowed I would protect and love them all like a ruffled mother hen! My kids have since eased me out of that thought, but not entirely.

Out of my loss has come the realization of how precious all life is. How tenuous. It must be cherished with the single-minded fervor of mother tiger, but just don't let the others know you'll pounce to protect it at any time. That can be scary.

Instead, I'll hike through a canyon, climb a mountain, swim across a river or write a book. I'll reach for all there is. Because life is precious. And if I want to dream of a white Christmas now or in July - I will. I will dance and I will sing anywhere I please. I will try things I've never done before - except sky-diving. And I expect my village to be there too! Skinny dipping anyone?

And when we've all recovered from that euphoria, you may rest assured that when, and if, you're ready to be pulled out of a cocoon, I will be there for you as you have been there for me.

I wish for my whole village, wherever you are, whatever your beliefs are, or are not, the love, peace and joy in my lantern light of Christmas, and join me in raising a glass for all of us when the clock chimes in the New Year!    





 

Premonitions

 We've all wondered about premonitions. I know you've had at least one of these. How did you explain it? Like most people, you probably didn't have what is known as a 'rational' explanation; which may have led you to believe you must be a little 'irrational'. Does that mean you're crazy? You wondered. I don't think so. I believe that to explore this premonition thing, we have to go beyond the physical and the obvious, and what we understand to be 'possible'.

Remember the time you were thinking of someone - perhaps it was someone you hadn't seen in ages, and guess what! The phone rings and it's him. Or her. Your first words might be, "I was just thinking of you!" Or, "We're on the same wavelength, I was just thinking of you!"  Or, as I have said many times, "You must be psychic! I was just thinking of you!" Often, it's someone you haven't seen or thought of in ages. It's not possible!

So, you explore all the possibilities of why that might have happened, and when you can't think of any earthbound explanation like, "I heard your name the other day, and I was wondering how you are." or "Someone mentioned your husband yesterday ..."  When none of this applies, and the only thing you know is that you thought of this person out of the blue, for no reason, right before the phone rang- you have to wonder, What was that about? And even if you had been thinking about that person because you'd heard the name mentioned yesterday or the day before, it still doesn't explain why that person thought of you and called you - right at the time you were thinking about him. When there's no physical explanation, we have to wonder, that whatever 'psychic' means, we might all be a little psychic.

 I believe that we have more than the five physical senses we are taught about on the first day of biology class. There is a sixth sense that is just as strong, and when cultivated, it's ten times more accurate. Some call it Intuition, or Second Sight. It is not physical, it is beyond the physical. Is it your mind playing tricks on you? No. You know of nothing that initiated this phone call, nothing that was conscious or subconscious ... which is the mind's domain, perhaps. Then, to my way of thinking, it must be the Spirit part of Body, Mind and Spirit.

It's not such a far fetched idea. A majority, if not all religions, folk lore and philosophies teach that we have a spirit. I believe that we are primarily spirit, living on earth in an earthly body to help us get around on this earthly plane.

So, it occurs to me that sometimes this spirit, yours or mine, may get tired of being ignored and does something to shake things up. Like that phone call. Spirits get around, you know. Without your knowledge, they may leave the earthbound vehicle they travel in, (you) and flit over to a friend's spirit and say something like, "Ginny would love to hear from you - give her a call." And flit back in! You may even have felt a little off-base or scattered while the spirit part of you was gone - but you never even knew it was out calling on friends and setting things up. Or observing a situation, or any number of excursions. Like the premonition I had when both my older kids were in a car accident. They were in America, I was in Singapore.

My mother remembers an especially strong premonition her mother (my grandmother) had one day. They were out shopping in the city, standing on the sidewalk waiting for the lights to change so they could cross the road. Cars were zipping by, (loud, 1940's exhaust spewing motor cars, I'm sure) and right at the time the red light changed to green, my mother stepped into the street, only to be grabbed back by my Grandmother who was yelling,"Don't go!" In the next moment, a high-tension cable from one of the overhead tram lines snapped and fell to the ground right where they would have been standing. My grandmother didn't see it happening. She wasn't looking up. The noise of the city would have covered up any snapping sound - and who would have known it was a cable snapping even if they had heard it? It was a premonition.

A teenage boy, on his his way home from football practice suddenly says, for no reason at all, "I don't think I'm going to live to be very old." Disconcerted, his mom says, "What makes you think that?" and he answers, "I just can't see myself at the age of forty or fifty . . ." And he was right.

You can think of lots more instances of premonition. I'd love to hear your thoughts and your stories that go beyond the realm of known possibility :)

All I have left to say, is pay attention to those tweaks from the spirit that is you. They know so much more than our limited minds and brains do. And you can ask your spirit, intuition or sixth sense, anything, and get an answer.  Isn't it wonderful to know that we have such a resource?
See you soon!



 

Imagine

* This morning I stood beside the cove, looking down the channel as far as I could see, to where it disappears though the early morning mists and into a tunnel of wild willows. 

The rising sun is blinding from here, and if this is the only vantage point I choose, I might assume that that's where the waterway ends. But we who live here, have paddled down the creek many times over the years know that it goes on; through the willows, over shallow rocks, towards the sycamore grove, to the fallen tree where the Great Blue Heron nests. 

Standing on the dock, looking down at the surface of the water, all is not as it seems. The cove covers the secrets of its depths with surface ripples, reflecting the sun, the shape-shifting boats and the trees that overhang its waters, hiding what is underneath.

It's the same with people. If you're only seeing the surface, you'll never know what depths there might be beyond the ripples, below the shoals.
  
To uncover more of the cove's secrets, you would have to climb the bank to another, higher vantage point from where you would see the changing colors of the waters; the pale browns that hide the sand banks that protect the deep green depths of the channel.You can see the cove's sandy bottom from here, the shadows of fishes that graze here, and the wide expanses of pale yellows and grays of the shallow water. They are flecked with goose down this morning from the flock of a hundred or more wild birds that shelter here on their way to the flyways of Texas and beyond.

It's the same with people. To uncover the secrets we hold, the joys and sadness, triumphs and mistakes that make us who we are, we have to climb to a higher vantage point, to get a better view. Beyond the flecks of make up, beyond the colors and way beyond the languages we speak. 

And what you see from there is surprising. It's amazing, but what you'll see is that underneath the surface, we are all the same. We love, we cry, we rejoice we grieve. You are me, and I am you. What you can do, so can I. What you can feel, so can I. 

(There's one difference - if you love buttermilk, you are not like me! And its possible you can't stand chicken livers which make me different from you. But those are just the ripples.)

We are actually all one, all the same. But consider this for a minute: What if one of us does something really incomprehensibly terrible - something unimaginably dreadful, as happened in Paris last week. Are you still just like me? Am I you? Could I have done what you did when some evil made you slaughtered hundreds of innocents? Are we still all the same? Never!

But here's what I'm wondering. Is it possible that given the same set of circumstances, the same parents or lack of parents, the same nurturing or lack of it, the same beliefs or lack of them, the same disappointments and prejudices or lack of them, would I have acted as you did? 

Think so?  

How can that be, I'm so different! My generation preferred to make love not war! How is it possible I would do those things?

Free will. But obviously my free will is more evolved than the free will they brandished in Paris. In Oklahoma. In Newport and Colorado . . .  

When I peel back the next lay of my thinking, I realize all I don't know about how your free will was tooled, shaped by life and other people. I may never know, but all l I can think is: What If. What if my freewill had been subjected to the same tides, the same storms, teachers and circumstances as yours was? 

I don't know the answer. But I do know this: If I'm ever tempted to judge you (which, in my weird humaness, could happen) I hope I'll look deeper, beyond the storms and the ripples. And even reach out if you'll let me.

I'm not advocating any of us packs up and hops the next plane to Syria to save the unfortunates. We know that doesn't end well! So, maybe I'll just start with the neighbors. Like one I know of whose side door on the garage bangs all night in the wind because he hasn't closed it. Seriously? Was he born in a barn? I'll have to look deeper before I start bleating and picking up the phone at 3:00 a.m. Maybe he really was born in a barn? That would explain it. Now I understand! Perhaps I'll bake a buttermilk pie and deliver it - with a padlock dangling off the plate.

Whatever. Tolerance, right? I'll think about that some more -  right after I grab Miss Kitty, who's just made a puddle on the door mat because she's feeling disenfranchised and ignored because I'm taking too much time on this blog. So, I grab the dish cloth and wave it around like a machete yelling, Scat Cat! OUT!  Sounds like Shakespeare, doesn't it? Out damn spot! Bomb the hell out of . . .
no, not you Miss Kitty, I'm just repeating something I heard! Sorry! Too late. Forgiveness is not her strong point. That cat can hold a grudge like no one I've ever known! 

Forgive me, I digress. It's Thanksgiving, and one of the things I'm truly thankful for is having friends like you who let me express my thoughts and free will in blogs like this. 

I hope you have a wonderful, good-eating Thanksgiving, surrounded with friends and people you love. As I will. 
And I hope you'll never stop Imagining how good things are, how good people are, and how lucky we are to be alive and living free.
Take care!