Anyone who reads my books knows I’m fascinated by the paranormal. Those who know me ‘off the page,’ are aware that I believe in ghosts. Maybe even that, many years ago, two like-minded friends and I would make annual ghosthunting trips to the UK.
If a place was said to be haunted, offered a chance to encounter a resident ghost, we were in.
Medieval battlefield, pub, hotel, manor home, castle or palace, an eerie mews or windswept moor. Didn’t matter, we were on our way. Maybe we’d meet a fallen soldier, a slain lover, a phantom coach, a green or gray lady, or a beautiful see-through maid…
So I like the spooky.
Ghosts fascinate rather than scare me.
Yet much as I believe, years of actual ghosthunting abroad and stateside taught me this…
Always look for a logical explanation.
There usually is one. Not always, though, and that’s when things get real. That’s when the fine hairs on your nape stand up, when chills ripple up and down your spine.
During the holidays, I posted about mysterious footsteps in my home. (see Christmas Visitors? if you’re curious) Something similar happened today. I was in my office, pecking away at my computer keyboard, trying to finish a new book, when I heard a clatter behind me.
Something fell.
Yet there wasn’t a reason.
I was alone in the house. My cat was asleep on my bed in my bedroom down the hall. A glance around my office failed to give me a clue. Until I looked at a little bookcase with a lamp on it…
Look close beneath the lamp, just to the left of the lowest white cat on my scarf. You’ll see one of the crystals fell down. That’s what I’d heard. But why ~ and how? ~ did it fall?
The crystal dangle is like an earring, hooked in place into a hole in the lamp’s ‘leaf.’ Just as an earring is secured in an earlobe.
Here it is…
I can’t fathom how the crystal fell. The crystals have to be lifted off the lamp’s leaves to be washed. They stay put otherwise.
Not so this afternoon.
Nor is there a tear in the lamp’s leaf. You can see the little hole to attach the crystal here…
So for whatever reason, the crystal mysteriously dislodged itself today and dropped down onto the little bookcase.
And I can’t find an explanation.
Three things come to mind…
*The lamp is an antique. I like old things. So I do not know its history. It’s believed inanimate objects can retain energy, and/or that spirits can be attached to them. But nothing odd has ever happened with the lamp before, so I’m discounting this.
*On Jan. 31st, Eve of Imbolc, I set out my blue cat scarf to be blessed overnight. The old Celts (and today’s pagans, still) celebrate Imbolc, Feb. 1st, as the start of spring. It’s said that Brigid, goddess of poetry and healing, visits on this night. If you leave a scarf or other piece of cloth outside, she’ll bless it for you, imbuing the scarf/cloth with healing powers and protection.
So I left out my favorite blue cat scarf for her blessing.
As she’s goddess of poetry, maybe the crystal dropping was a nod of goodwill for my book? I’m in the last 1/4 now, so need a blessing, that’s certain.
*This morning I found an old ceramic wall hanging of two angels. I’ve had it for years, but thought I’d lost it in a move. Delighted to find it so unexpectedly, I quickly hung it on a wall, giving it pride of place to watch over my household.
The angels were a gift from a well-loved neighbor who has since passed. Maybe he looked in today, the falling crystal his way of letting me know he’s pleased I found his long-missing gift and once again have it displayed in my home?
That was the intention when he gave it to me so many years ago. This explanation strikes me as the most fitting.
But, again, who knows?
I just know something ‘odd’ happened today and I can’t find a logical explanation.
Either way, I’m smiling.
Anything ever go bump in the night in your house? Or, as happened to me, in the daytime?
Sue-Ellen Welfonder 