Gratitude Monday - Crystal Clear Edition

Today I am grateful for a number of things, including the reminder to make offerings to the Wee Folk.

Here's what happened:

Last week on Facebook friend Virginia Lee shared a post from the Fae Propaganda Department. It made me smile and intrigued me to find out more on its page.

I did, and in the course of it read comments including one from a woman who said when things went missing in her former home she'd have to put an offering of chocolate on top of the refrigerator. The missing item was found about a half-hour later.

This nibbled at my mind. I'd been looking for a quartz crystal to put back on my computer desk. I'd swapped it out for another a few months earlier as it needed to be cleansed and recharged. I knew where I'd put it to recharge. It wasn't there.

This sent me on a hunt to all the likely places, then the unlikely places, and then the likely places again with a few stops at where it ought to be.

So when I read the comment I thought I'd try it. It's always good to provide a little something for the Wee Folk when they are about. Things going missing can be an indication of that.

I considered briefly what to offer, but chocolate was on my mind. I briefly considered not putting out my favourite, but that is wrong on every level. One must give one's best. The Wee Folk know when it isn't.

My favourite chocolate is Lindt Mint. It has gotten expensive so I am careful about how often I have it. There was no question in my mind. Lindt Mint or I shouldn't even bother.

I took a square of it, wrapped it in wax paper, and set it on top of the refrigerator.  I don't think the site is mandatory, but it was in my mind so that is what I did.

About two hours later I looked again at where the crystal ought to be. Then turned around and looked between the TV screen and sound bar.

There it was. And I even thought I remembered putting it there.

 I'd seen this location many times for a variety of reasons over the past month or two. My eyes had swept over this location many times during the search.

And that's not all.

The next day I reached into my sock drawer and drew out a lone black sock. I have two other  pair from a set of three pair I bought together. One sock of one pair had been missing for more than a year. But on this occasion I reached in again toward the back and pulled out a second single black sock of the same make and model.

The other two pair from the set were accounted for. This was the missing sock.

I said thank you and found myself quite tickled over the events.

A few other things have come about for us since I put out the offering. Another one specific to me was the other day in Sobeys as I was grocery shopping I found Lindt chocolate bars, including mint, on sale for $3 each,

I am grateful for all of these including to VL for putting me on to the Fae Propaganda Department. It is even helping me with a rewrite of an old manuscript.

It might be a good idea to offer a little something to the Wee Folk, whether anything is missing or not. It certainly can't hurt.

Gratitude Monday--What The Bunny Brought

Today is Easter Monday and I see by the calendar that it is not marked as a holiday any longer.
It may still be considered so by some business, but it will escape most notice as most things are closed anyway.
What it does do is give us a chance to quietly reflect, if we wish, on what's happened, how the world has changed, and which changes are likely to stick.
I have no idea what will last and what will revert. I'm open to waiting and seeing.

What I can say is the the Easter Bunny brought a quiet enough weekend that the birds seem louder and can be heard from farther away. Without constant traffic to muffle their song they pierce the silence in a manner that is so uncommon as to border the unsettling.
The chickadees sound happier and I have heard a merlin call twice now in the past few days. The other morning it seemed like it was several blocks to the north. In the past I doubt I would have heard it.
We see wildlife roaming in cities. We will probably seem more plants growing because we aren't walking on them. We're already seeing clearer air and water.
The Bunny brought a reminder that given the opportunity Nature will reclaim what it lost.
I hope we learn the lesson well.

Why We Do It

"Reality is what I say it is. Do you hear me?" The project boss looked down the bump slits on his face toward the subordinate. "Do you?"

"It's hard to define reality," A. argued. "There is no one reality. On that planet, like everyone on it, there are different versions of it."

"You know that, and I know that, and everyone else on board knows it, but," he swiveled around in his floor glider and fixed his amygdaline eyes somewhere past the subordinate's face. "But they don't know it. And it is best if they don't figure it out for several more generations."

"That's your story, boss. I think they are ready."

"Reality there is a group agreement they work with. It is best for them in their puny excuse for development. Anything else is more than the majority can handle. Now get back to work. There's a sample couple in the north quadrant who are asking uncomfortable questions. Deal with it."

"Deal with it, boss?"

"Shut them up. Or feed some confusing blather into their minds. Make it real enough to be almost believable."

"You mean set them up to fail?"

"I mean set them up with a nonsense version of the truth. We're not ready to be known."

"I don't see what purpose that serves."

"If you want something, you think about it. Or they do. What they don't understand is the corollary; if you don't want something, you think about how much you don't want it. The Universe makes no distinction. You get what you think about."

"I understand that, but, oh, I see. They'll think about us. It's preparatory. Sneaky, but it will work."

"That's why we do it."

A Light Bulb Moment

The lounge quickly became the meeting area not just for the subordinates, but for actual meetings. The boss said it was easier that way. Less formal.

"I've heard the questions and I comprehend why you are worried. It's the whole forgetting thing you have to do. What happens if I forget too well?

"Nothing, that's what. Both meanings, too. Either enough of you forget so well that the wake up encoding is ignored and then nothing happens this round. Or you go along in your lives, wake up as designed, and the world changes. That means, nothing is wrong. Nothing bad happened. "

B. piped up from the middle of the lounge chairs. "So no matter how much we 'go local' it's all right? We're going in to disarm them in the good way. Change up the mess they made and get  them back on the path that fear lured them away from yet no matter if we fail or succeed it's all right? You can see why this might be confusing."

"I can and it is. The point is the world you're entering must be entirely your world until you, that is, it, is ready. The way down there must be your second nature. You need to live among them in their way, like I've told you, before you can see why it has to change. It takes one to change one, as it might be said."

More murmuring from the crowd. The boss relaxed a little. "Like the joke down there goes, how many people does it take to change a light bulb?"

They waited. No one asked.

"Only one, but the light has to want to change."

Polite nodding followed by laughter followed by lost looks of confusion.

"Be the light that wants to change."

Courage

"Come child, let me take you out and away for a while. It'll remind you what you're doing this for. And it will give you courage."

"Courage, grandma? Don't I have it already?

"Of course you do, child. This will remind you of it, and of the truth. That tends to be forgotten later on. This way, when you think of the things you'll be thinking about, you'll see what you're thinking about."

"Grandma, you're confusing me. Can't we stay here? I like it next to you. I want to hear more about my triggers and what I'm to do with them when they're pulled."

"We'll be back, love. This is what you've asked me to do. You've forgotten that you arranged this."

I didn't remember that at all. What I did remember was how warm and safe it was next to her and I sure didn't want anything to stop that. "Maybe we could just have a summer scene?"

The thin creature beside me laughed a gently, almost tinkling laugh. I hardly ever heard her laugh. When I did it made me feel so happy like a warm cover over me keeping away the plans I'd made, the experiences I'd selected, and the very possible ostracizing I'd face.

"We'll use any scene you wish, child. After we get back."

We whooshed away. Out of the cocoon and past the sky out to the cosmos and beyond. We kept going, kept whooshing until all the stars and planets melted into one great light. We rolled and soared and rolled some more as great wells of energy rose up through us and around us until eventually if we'd been breathing, we'd have been breathless.

The scene around me was astounding. Familiar in one sense and completely foreign in another. I felt like a five year old and an adult as the two consciousness inside me fought for supremacy. Fought to see who was the most moved.

I relaxed. Child me, in her wonder, won. "Grandma, what is this place? It's so beautiful."

Lights burst and twinkled in a deep blue while lights in orange and yellow and purple and the other colours, the ones beyond the spectrum that earth eyes can't see, danced around us to the music that surrounded them.

"Can you hear it, child? Use your inner ear."

The knowing, the contact, the long golden cord that connects everything with everyone at every time. Where was it? Did I still have it? Adult me worried while child me took over again.
"I hear it. I hear it. The high hum. Oh, it's so beautiful. I don't want to ever leave."

"This is what you keep inside you, child. This is what connects you. It is what gives you courage when the darkness of youth and ignorance try to shut you down and force you to live within its comfortable limitations."

Lights streaked by. A great well of energy and love flowed through me, illuminating my body and beside me, grandma's body became incandescent.

"Look, child," and she pointed finger toward a small dot of light so far away. "Remember that. In the great scope of infinity, remember that. It will reinforce your courage. You know what courage is?"

"Tell me, grandma."

"It's the thing you do when your mind tells you not to, but you know it's right so you do it anyway. Will you remember that, child? It'll be the message in your heart that says do it anyway."

"Will I hear this when I do? I want to."

She didn't say anything. Instead she reached for my hand and we were back in the cozy place and it was raining outside. A glorious downpour with rivers cascading off the ends of the roof.

"I'll remember, grandma."

"I know you will, child."

The Parallel

"Grandmother, why don't I feel?"

"Child, it is because you feel too much."

"But grandmother, I want to be like them."

"No, child. You can't. You are you and they are they. Never the twain."

"Why not, grandmother? Why won't the twains meet?"

"They are parallels child, and parallels do not meet. The lines you see meeting in the distance is illusion. Like all things."

"But why am I on this parallel, grandmother?

"This was the choice you made before the lines were lain down, love. All had their choices. Many chose the other parallel."

"Are there more on my parallel, grandmother? Am I alone?

"You are never alone, child. There are others on your parallel."

"How will I know them, grandmother?"

"By their hands reaching back to support you, child, and by those who grasp the hand you reach back to guide."

"Will I feel then, grandmother?"

"Will you let yourself, child?"

Gratitude Monday --Thyme For Everything Edition

Yesterday I put a pot of stew on the stove over the noon hour to give it plenty of time to simmer and gather before our dinner.
As the black tea steeped its 20 minutes so it would properly tenderize the meat, and the cubed meat itself sizzled in its mission to brown, I mixed my spices.
There are a few that go in it notably paprika, garlic, salt, pepper, and the thyme we grew ourselves in a patch in the front yard that has been going strong for more than 20 years.
As I mixed them  together I threw in a generous amount of thyme. It goes well with meat, I discovered, and it is difficult to have too much thyme. As I thought about it, I realized I use thyme in almost every savoury dish I prepare.
"There's thyme for everything, " I said to myself as I stirred in the tea and then added a frozen tomato to the pot.

This made me think and what I though about was the spice's homophone, time.
Is there really time for everything?
Yes, I believe there is.
Granted, life gets in the way all the time. Matters rear up and have to be dealt with before we can get to the things we want to and eventually those some of those wanted things get shifted to the back burner to simmer like the stew or are relegated to a back cupboard in the mind. There they rest and bide their time until we find them when we're looking for something else. But we don't forget them, because they are things we want to do and we always think there will be time.

I have managed to do most of the things I have wanted to and for that I am grateful. But I know not everyone can, because most of us let life get in the way and then use lack of time as an excuse.
I recall once a few years ago a friend came to town for a few days, but did not find the time to contact me.
The reason offered later was there was there had been no time, and I accepted this. It had been a busy time and being busy takes energy, but time was not the reason.

We can feel overwhelmed, and often do, and we hide behind that as an excuse to not live as we choose, play as we choose, rest as we choose.

There is time for everything if we really want it, because time is all we have.

Bring Back Romantic Friendship

Whatever happened to romantic friendship? It used to be, until about a hundred years ago that friends could show their affection, profess undying love, and look after one another emotionally without anyone so much as twitching a whisker.

Wiki explains romantic friendship this way. In short it's a passionate and usually non-sexual friendship with a physical closeness not seen in western society.

This is missing today. Men can shake hands with one another, but not hold them. Any touching they get is done under the cover of sports and often involves fighting.

It's a  bit better for women, but even them too much physical closeness gets questioned. Consequently they have all but disappeared.

Not entirely, of course. But they have gone underground.

Years ago I did a story for Women's History Month. My subject had been a nurse who had been quite a character. Among other things she was known for physically hauling in people off the street to make sure they got their shots.  She'd died about five years earlier so I couldn't interview her, but I did speak to her friend.

The two women were companions. Close friends, never married, and they'd shared a house until death parted them.  Work took one away from town for long periods of time. When the other retired she would often go up and stay with her friend.

When the one died the other continued going to go each year where they'd wintered and took a large framed photo of her friend along.

I wrote the story not quite sure what to make of their relationship other than knowing it really wasn't my business.  Any local person I discussed it with left a great deal unsaid.

Not long afterward I found the book,  Surpassing The Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women From the Renaissance to the Present, by Lillian Faderman  (Quill, William Morrow, 1981).

This opened a fascinating world for me. I had no idea such relationships existed and it made me look at the Women's History feature I'd written in a new light. I don't know the degree and details of their relationship and neither does it matter. What these two women had together worked for them, met their needs, and harmed no one.

Same sex marriage is legal and we see same sex couples in shows and movies and it is wonderful.  But we also need the middle ground. Friendship as we commonly see it is great, friends hug, occasionally have a passing touch in a conversation or will comfort one another, but that's about it.

I think we need more physical contact. I believe we'd be healthier and happier and feel less alone if we could have friendship where we weren’t concerned with what everyone thinks or feel the need to question our sexuality.

Bring back romantic friendship for all our sakes.

Gratitude Monday - Eyes On The Skies Edition

I'm sorry I haven't been around lately, blogwise. I haven't forgotten about it. I needed a wee break.  I hope to post a bit more regularly in the future, but who knows?
For now I am grateful that I have a blog to write in.

If you've been reading my posts, then you know I've had a few interesting experiences in my life and that I attribute them to extraterrestrials. Give that history you will not be surprised to learn that I have taken the next logical step.
I am a field investigator for MUFON. That is, I investigate UFO sighting reports.

I joined MUFON Canada about a year ago and wondered about becoming an investigator. I got great support from its director emeritus Andre Morin. He answered my questions and gave me unflagging support as I read the manual and wondered if it was for me.
I am grateful to Andre for this.

There's a test to take. It is open book and you can take all the time you need. Open book tests are the hardest, but I passed. There has been additional training and there will be more.

This is volunteer work. We do it in our spare time and I am grateful that I have the time to spare.
It is eye-opening and it is fulfilling. I am grateful that I get to do this.

Eyes on the skies, my friends.

The Appendix Dreams

For most of my life I've dreamt about having my appendix out. I'd be in the hospital prior to the surgery and then it was a day or two later. Sometimes I was still in the hospital, other times I was walking outside of it in the dark of night, and never did I recall what had happened during those days.

Those I got used to. I haven't had one in years and in an odd way I miss them.

But one time when I was 10 the dream changed. Instead of waking up afterward  I woke up on the operating table. I'd only ever been in hospital treatment room once and that was to have a cast put on my leg. That room was tone blue with dark at the bottom half of the walls and lighter blue above this mark. I was awake for that and I recall it fairly well. I remember some lowered lights above me and I tried to sit up to watch the pasted strips being wound around my leg.

In the dream I woke up surrounded by a team of doctors. Their faces were covered from the nose down with surgical masks. They wore dull aquamarine surgical gowns with matching caps that covered most of their foreheads. And I have it in my mind they all wore glasses. I don't recall the exactly what those glasses look like. It's about the only think that I'm not sure of. In my mind they are plain eyeglasses with thick heavy black square frames that cover their eyes  and reach from the surgical mask to the caps. Their eyes are dark. I can see a bit of skin on them. I think it's flat, yellowy brown. I don't recall noticing any hands. There are at least six of them staring down at me on the table. I am surrounded.

The other thing remember is the dullness of the light. Not subdued or dimmed, but dull. The light above me is a dingy, faded yellow such as you might get out of a 30 watt bulb. The room is also dingy, almost dirty, looking.

They all seem tall and thin though I am only 10 and barely five feet tall at the time. Everyone is tall to me. I can't say if they are male or female though I have the sense that the one at the foot of the table is male. That's all I know about the dream because that's all I saw. I went right back to sleep on that table and then it was morning in my own bed.

This stayed with me right from the time I had it. However, I didn't think too much about it other than it was a really odd dream, It wasn't until I read Whitley Strieber's  book Communion in the late 80s which contained a similar description on a ship that I associated it with anything beyond a dream.

Is it a dream? A memory? I honestly can't say for a fact. It is one more item on the list of odd things in my life. Separately, they may not mean much. Together, I believe they are  evidence of ETs in my life.

The Other Side of the Story

 So far I've talked about aliens/ETs, the ones I call my people. Wrapped up in the UFO phenomenon is paranormal activity. Are they related? I can only speak for my life. In that respect, they sure are.

Paranormal can't be explained by conventional means and that means it can't be explained by acceptable means. It's well past time to enlarge what acceptable means can mean.

But that's an argument for later and for better qualified folk to answer. All I've got right now is me and so that's all I can talk about. 

Here's some of my other stuff.

There was this one day in the eighties. I'm in my early 20s living in a high-rise apartment. I've got a job, search clerk in a government office. This is where liens and chattels are registered as well as limited companies. It's boring, but it's work. I'm really a journalist, you see, but the one reporting job I had I hated. It was in the buckle town of the province Bible belt. I lasted less than four months. It didn't help that I didn't have a driver's license.

It made for a dull life. I paid my bills, read, dreamt of being a writer and often wondered what to do with my life. Usual 20s stuff, but with a feeling of inertia.

Then one day in the shower I had this feeling. It came from nowhere. I hadn't been thinking of my future and probably not thinking much more than why did the three step hair shampoo I used had bottles for steps one and three but a small squeeze tube for step two.

The feeling washed over me like the shower was doing, only this feeling came from inside: Everything was going to be all right in my thirties. And I smiled inside. I wasn't a smiler then. I barely knew how to do it, but my mind grinned ear to ear.

The feeling didn't last very long, but the memory never left me. It didn't stay topmost in my mind, but I'd think of it from time to time. But at no point did I ever sit down to figure out how that was going to happen.

Instead I went to work until one day I went travelling with a new friend to Europe. Then I came home after a few months and decided to get back to journalism. I sent out resume after resume to every newpaper in the province I could find and wound up in the south end of the centre. I covered just about everything but sports and loved it. Oh, and I had my driver's license by this time. A few things happened here. In one, on the way back from the interview for that job one sunny Saturday in July as the canola bloomed and waved hot gold against the deep blue sky I saw a unicorn.

I can't prove it, but I know it happened. I was driving up the highway on the way back and out the corner of my eye a large white horse in a field stood out. Or rather, its single dynamic horn jutting skyward caught my eye. My parents were with me. I'd never driven on the big freeway before and only had my license a few months. I wanted the company and they wanted the scenic drive. It all worked out.

Anyway, I didn't mention the unicorn. I kind of regret that. My parents were pretty cool that way. Mom was a bit on the psychic side and read Fate Magazine. Dad always wanted to see aliens and go for a ride. In retrospect, that should have been an indicator.

The there was court. I loved covering Provincial Court.. One learns a great deal and it's passive newsgathering at its best. Anyone, one day a new Crown Prosecutor showed up to handle the day's files. She looked 32. I don't know where I got that, but it struck me as probably her age. She seemed to have it all together. I have no idea if she did or didn't, but she handled herself in the courtroom and certainly gave the appearance of having it together.

So I decided that 32 was going to be the best age for me, and then I remembered again about how things were going got be okay in my thirties.

I worked there 33 months and took another trip to Europe. That's for later. For this, I took the trip, came home to my parent's house,  read the Bible cover to cover, and then decided to get another reporting job.

That one took me to Ft. St.John B.C.

I spent six months there at a daily newspaper. That was fine, but I didn't feel right there. It wasn't for me.

Quit that mess after six months, hung around at my parents house and then realized I'd better get another job. That's how I ended up in the job I stayed at and the town I live in and found the man I married.

By the time I was 32 I was living with my going to be someday husband, had a job I liked in a town I liked and everything felt pretty good.

One night I had one of those dreams. You know, the kind that really aren't dreams at all but you don't quite know the right word so you go with dream and hope for the best.

I was alone, fiancé was away working, it was during the dead hours of the night when I visited me. The me of the 80s high-rise apartment hesitated as she walked into the bedroom. I sat up in bed and made myself as open to younger me as I could. Young me was so shy, withdrawn, hesitant. Then me remembered those feelings so well.

We talked. I have forgotten about what. I remember the red pants and red and white striped shirt younger me wore to the visit. Younger me even had makeup on.

Then me made some comforting reassuring noises to younger me and said everything would be all right as the visit ended. Then me stretched out her arms for a hug that younger me was reluctant to accept. I wasn't a hugger then. I wanted to be, but I didn't know how to do it. Then me understood and hugged younger me while younger me accepted it but did not respond, her arms lifeless at her side.

She left, and then me fell back to sleep immediately, knowing after all these years I'd seen the other side of the story.

Content To Wait?

All my life I've had the feeling I was to do something important. Not so much world-changing, but important nonetheless. I'm just a gearwheel, but what I do matters. 

Accompanying this is the feeling, knowledge really, that the thing I do is after some big world change. I'm not going to speculate on any world changes here. Perhaps it's Edgar Cayces' predicted physical upheaval, it may be restricted to the social landscape. Whatever it is, it will be big and I am here to help afterward.

That's all fine and good, but I also think I need to be doing something until those changes occur. It frustrates me to feel this and have no way to determine what it is.

On the other hand, maybe I should just be content to wait. Maybe I've got some deep-seated suggestion that is triggered by an event. Maybe I wake up to the knowledge I need. Maybe my ET family swings by and activates my memory.

All I can swear to is I've had continuous conscious recollection of this my entire life. Along with it since I was 17 years old I have seen myself on a stage, in front of a closed curtain, speaking publicly. About what I do not know.

For now all I can do is wait and watch and speak publicly via this blog about what I recall, what I've known through feelings, and maybe start a conversation about ETs and world changes, and all the other things we don't talk about.

Taking Stock

I am of extraterrestrial stock.

My parents were human. I'm human, but also alien as near as I can figure it. I've written about it here from time to time, but at no point have I actually said it. That stops today.

I've written about the clown in the barn and how it started as a being who visited me and drew it on the wall in grease pencil. That's how I remember it, and I have continuous conscious recollection of it. That said, it was for my eyes only as the reminder was for me alone. 

She used to visit me often and during those times I was no child. A full- grown adult consciousness took over as we spoke.

We talked of what I am to do here in this life. I don't know what that is, but I do know if I am not open about who and what I am, the heritage I share, then I may never know it.

Are you wondering what my parents would think of this?

My mom would be cool about it as she had some moderate psychic ability and read all the Edgar Cayce materials she could get her hands on. Past lives were her interest.

My dad always wanted to be abducted by aliens and taken for a ride. He was clear he wanted them to bring him back, but a quick trip around the cosmos was on his list.

I asked him once, "Aren't you scared?"

He replied, "What's to be scared of?"

Back to me. I am sure that full-grown adult consciousness is still in here somewhere. I wish it would come back out. I want to know what it knows. It is possible it is simply adult me that through some process of time and space and reality was available to me there.

I have no idea what is going to happen next. For now, it is important to get the matter out on the public record. I am of alien heritage and I look forward to what is next.

Gratitude Monday -- The Magic Cupboard

This morning when I opened the cupboard to get some cooking oil I saw lurking at the back a large container of olives. This was a wonderful vision, and for it I am grateful, but it was an unexpected one. I'd opened the 3L container of Kalamata olives a few weeks ago.
We love these olives. The nearest source for these containers ( 231-260 large olives in each) is Edmonton so we buy three at a time usually and they last us perhaps a year. We stocked up last April so opening the last remaining container recently was no surprise, but I took a second look afterward to make sure.
I moved several containers around to make sure it was the last of its kind and realized, with a pang, that when it was gone we'd have to find a reason to go to the city.
This morning's discovery was the very happiest of surprises, but similar things have happened in the past.

We used to have a magic freezer. I'd think I'd be out of something and then one day, there's be one more of it in with the other frozen foods.
It started about 25 years ago when we got some sauerkraut from Mike's dad in the fall. It was so good that we went through it quickly, probably less than two months.
I craved it and looked several times in the freezer in a case a container had fallen way down to the bottom and gotten covered. I emptied the freezer. I rearranged the contents. Nothing.
Then one day in the following March I went in to get something and there was a container of it, sitting almost on top of the rest of the food.
Oh yes, I was grateful.
Over the next few years similar things happened with that freezer . I dubbed it "The Magic Freezer" and often wondered if I was ever really out of anything.

We had to get a new freezer last spring. I am not sure if the magic has transferred to the new one or not, but if not, then at least it found a new home in the cupboard.

A Walk, A Dream, And An Answer

I've danced around this subject in various posts, trying to make sense of the events of my life. I've known what they are, but I could never find the hook I needed to write about them publicly.

I'd been looking for the big splash event, the kind of encounter one remembers and can hang a post, or talk, or a book on. The book I am working on. I've found a way to tell the stories of odd events and past life memories together as a roman à clef rather than memoir.

This is different. This is coming out publicly as one who has had contact with extraterrestrials, and none who believes she shares a consciousness with them. Here is a bit of my story.

#

I felt compelled to take a walk south of the barn, and there was no bargaining with me about it.

It was March when I was in grade six. That makes me 11 years old. It was Friday and I was riding the school bus when I saw myself in my mind walking south from the barn to the windrows. A few years earlier after we got rid of the cows dad ploughed up the pasture south of the barn and knocked down several acres of trees in an east- west orientation  to make more fields. The pasture used to go south out to those trees. Now it was all crop though not in March of course.

I reasoned with myself as the bus approached my home. It was cloudy and cold and already about 4 p.m. Dark wasn't for a while yet, but it would be along soon enough. A slight wind blew, and some thin snowflakes were falling. All in all a really lousy time to go for a walk.

I did as I usually did, went inside, put on some jeans and other home clothes all the while bargaining with myself. The drive to walk to the south end of the former pasture had me in a firm grip, but the major thinking portion of my mind thought there was some leeway.

"I'll just go to the barn," I told myself as I put on a coat and cowboy boots. Despite the cold I didn't put on winter boots and neither had I put on long underwear under my jeans. I didn't think I'd be out long. At the barn I decided to walk to the edge of barnyard.  I'm sure dad was in the barn cleaning a pig pen and I know there was no clown to greet meet this time. I simply walked thought it,  probably speaking with dad and then telling myself I'd go the fence at the edge of the barnyard.

So I did, and when I got there I told myself, "I'll go to the edge of the pasture." There was road beside it that led to a field to the west of the former pasture. This became my conscious goal. The unconscious goal remained going to the south end to where the windrows started.

But I kept on going. One foot in front of the other. Large clumps of ploughed- up dirt make difficult walking at the best of times. I remember wishing it had stayed a flat pasture. These were frozen clumps. They slowed my progress and I even thought about stopping and turning around and going back.

But I didn't.

How I felt escapes me other than what I was doing was right. This sureness rested past my conscious awareness. It existed as a thing I knew and the things one knows are not questioned.

Not every feeling escaped me. I felt cold. Denim alone doesn't protect all that well from a bitter March wind and cowboy boots aren't warm especially as I likely had on fairly thin socks. At no point had it occurred to me to dress properly for the trip. I'm commonly cold. For a few years, until about age 13, I wore an old winter coat in the house because of it.

 On this occasion I felt the cold and ignored it as a mere inconvenience. I noticed it and kept on, one foot in front of the other, eyes ahead to the charred trees in the windrows that we'd burned the previous fall.

It probably took 20 minutes from the time I left the house until I'd plunked myself down on a tree trunk.  Not all of them had burnt. I can see a trunk with a few spindly branches which still had green, if desiccated, leaves. I remember this. It has never left me.

This is the part I am not so clear on. I had a smoke, an American brand of cigarettes that I liked despite not inhaling the smoke then. That I learned a few months later.

I sat facing the farmyard enjoying the smoke. I looked at the thin brown filter end. I smoked it down. And then I tossed the nearly empty pack under a log assuming that I'd come back out again. This I recall clearly. What is as hazy as the smoke that came out of my mouth is where I got them. Having US smokes from time to time was hardly unusual. I got them from friends who could get them at a local store on occasion. Perfectly normal.

The non-normal part of this is I have it in my head that I got them from under a burnt log in the first place. And if I didn't, then it would be highly unusual to leave them half a mile from my house and therefore largely inaccessible. Yet this is exactly what happened.

We'd burnt the windrows in the fall. Smoke still trailed up in a few places, especially near where I hid the smokes. Then I climbed to the top of the windrow and looked down into the field. The land had a bit of a roll to it, a few shallow dips in an otherwise flat stretch. Water had pooled in the dip closest to me. I remember it rippling.

This is March in north central Alberta. Open water is rare. It's not unheard of, but neither is it all that likely. Yet there it was. Deep, dark blue against the grey-brown soil which itself should have been covered in snow. We had snow on the ground I am sure, it simply wasn't in those particular fields.

After climbing back down off the logs I walked back to the house, at one point wondering why I'd come all the way out there.  Along with that I felt a little odd, apprehensive maybe, and cold. The thin flakes swirled down in a stiff breeze that went right through me. I bent my head and trudged along occasionally slipping when I stepped on a larger clod of frozen dirt.

At home I put on long underwear under my jeans, and another layer under the thin shirt I'd been wearing. It snowed all weekend. I never did go back to get my smokes.

#

The cold spring walk stayed with me. I've never forgotten it, and neither did I understand it until a dream I had in the early 1990s. I'll call it a dream because it happened while I slept. It had no real dream quality to it.

In it, I am 11, it is March, and I am at the end of the field standing on top of the windrow. Instead of a pool of rippling water there is a small spaceship. Intuitively and without question I know this to be a scout ship.

Beside it is a small creature, a friend of sorts if somewhat businesslike. Slender, dark,  wearing some sort of uniform, also dark. He motions me toward the ship. I am not sure of the communication. I knew what he meant. It may have been telepathic, but I do not recall any words.

I get in. There is a round dome surrounding me. It is transparent. I see my friend ahead of me and off to the side, waiting. There are levers on the floor. I have been instructed to fly it.

Momentarily, I panic. How?

Then I remember. It is done by mental control.

I take the small ship up about 10 feet. I am thrilled I recall how to fly it.

I land and get out. My friend is pleased.

The dream ends there with a sharp knock on my head.

I wake up and look over at Mike initially blaming him for head-butting me awake.

He is sleep soundly.

The knocking came from inside my head. 

#

I know this to be the truth. I felt compelled to take the walk to the end of the field that day.
Now I know what happened. I am not sure I know why it happened.

Gratitude Monday - Solid Gratitude Edition

Back in the early 90s I'd had a dream that started in the house I spent my teen years in on the farm. In it I am in my parent's bedroom and there's a white cat on the window sill.

Then I am in my bedroom in my bed in my apartment and this same white cat rushes up from the foot of the bed to the head. A great waving of rising energy went through me keeping pace with the cat.

It is near impossible for me to describe this feeling properly. Rising, almost tingly, awake, fully alive, energy, and maybe not quite solid.

I rose up. It felt like my body, but I think I may have felt my body on the bed. I can't be sure because I so felt so filled with energy. I turned a bit went toward the open bedroom door. Instead of going through the door I went through the wall beside it.

It felt so wonderful. I was whole and yet in particles and so free and so filled with joy. I knew exactly what to do and how to do it, how to get through solid matter. It came to easily to me.

It made me happy to do this. Overwhelmingly happy. I went back to bed, back to my body in my bed and the cat walked back to the foot of the bed.

I know I fell back to sleep because I woke up remembering what had happened and knowing how, but not believing in, my ability to walk through the wall.

What stayed with me was an overwhelming feeling of love and the sense of belonging, of wanting to be with people, listen to them, love them, join in with them. That was entirely new.

That day at work I did join in more conversations and casual discussions and I know I was smiling that day. Maybe not on my face, but inside I grinned from ear to ear and I felt joy and happiness and wonder and such gratitude for life.

The joyous desire to be with others and socialize didn't last very long. Within a day or so I was back to my usual leave-me-alone-please self, but I remember how it felt to not just want to belong, but to know how to do it, and to do it and to feel I belonged. I remember the internal smile.

I remember the feeling I had of knowing I could get through solid matter by simply opening spaces in my body at the subatomic level. It's easy and simple and everyone can do it, I remember.

But I no longer remember how to do it, and the core sureness of it is gone.

#

I've had a lifetime of interesting occurrences and I've been writing about them. From time to time I will post about them.
They cover a fairly wide variety of experiences and some are difficult to speak about. That tells me it is important to do so.  I am convinced more people have these sort of off-normal experiences than are willing to say so publicly. In fact, I expect there are so many that they should be considered normal.

Gratitude Monday -Cornography Edition

Husband grew some Hopi corn this season. When frost threatened yesterday he had to bring it in even though it belonged in the field a bit longer.

However, we got corn out of it and that included a cob that was mature, and for it I am grateful.

With its field mates.

A closer look.

The Cornfather.

Gratitude Monday - It Never Ends Edition

I am grateful all the time. Every day brings something for which one can be thankful for even if it is the simple act of waking up to another day of being alive.

With that I am calling an end to the weekly gratitude posts. I will still write about gratitude, but it won't necessarily be on Mondays.
It may not be every week.
It could be any day of the week.

I've enjoyed sharing my gratitude with you.
I am grateful to you for reading them.
I am grateful I have always found things to be grateful for.

It's been great.

Thanks.

Gratitude Monday -- Picture This Edition

I am so grateful I was able to capture this photo:

Gratitude Monday - The State of the Butt Edition

It's all good and for it I am grateful.

In specific, I had a colonoscopy last Tuesday and nothing was found that wasn't supposed to be there.

It's been four years since I was diagnosed with colon cancer. This was my second follow up scoping and am good for another five years.

I am pleased to report all is well.

You'll recall what I asked of you four years ago and I am going to ask it again, this time in celebration.
If you've a mind to and a moment to do it either pour a glass of your favourite libation and raise it or simply pump a clenched fist in the air and say, "Cancer, my ass!"

Thank you.