Admittedly this is not really "psychic phenomena" OR "weird stuff", but it doesn't fall under the horse banner either. And the Masters all say that if you meditate long enough your psychic abilities increase and weird stuff eventually happens. In the spirit of experimentation I will let you in on the beginning of my spiritual journey in hopes that it leads somewhere interesting... Ok, that was my ego talking! My EGO wants it to be something worth talking about. Of course, EGO is writing this blog, too, because the non-EGO part of me doesn't do stuff like this just to get attention. Now that EGO has cleared that up, She would like to tell you all about her adventures!
I have been practicing a twice daily meditation ever since Monday. This is the first time I have ever meditated twice a day, but for now it is something I look forward to. It's not easy. Some days you sit there and all this physical pain becomes obvious (it's been there all along, but when you sit still and pay attention it suddenly screams out at you - augh!) However it pays off because I am calmer and more able to think clearly. Sometimes a moment of clarity breaks through, a pause in the thoughts that stream into the mind like rush hour cars.
I was able to get a copy of "Sacred Earth - Places of Peace and Power" by Martin Gray at the library. I want to own it! Just reading it makes me feel at peace. Looking through it I realized that we have been to almost every place in North America and Hawaii; Devil's Tower, Sedona, Shiprock, Chaco Canyon, White Sands, Mauna Kea and Haleakala Crater. My only regret is that at the time we visited I didn't understand the significance of these places and so didn't look at them in a spiritual way. It is my intention to conduct a spiritual pilgrimage to places here in America and then overseas someday.
In talking to my mother the other day, she said that she felt this valley we live in has good energy. It is in a triangular valley, sort of a Fung Shui good luck thing, I think. She says it is a "spiritual place" and I think it is. However it's not of the caliber of the other places, but this is where I am and this is where it starts!
Spiritual Practice
Hearing God...hopefully!
Right now my husband and I are struggling. He has been struggling with finding a job for two years now. I began the same struggle in November when I was laid off too. At first I didn't worry because I thought I had a job, a job I really wanted. Then it fell through and other jobs fell through. My husband has had the worst challenge of his life it seems, and since it is his challenge I won't go into detail as that is for him to share if he chooses. Needless to say, we are both in the same boat. Time is running out. We are out of savings, we are looking at having to move in with relatives and sell the horses. I can hardly contemplate that! For some people, horses are a luxury, an extra. They love to see them in the yard. To me, they are like my children. I could let some of them go, but it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to let all of them go. I don't think there would be a way, since Bella is getting old and has illnesses to deal with on top of it. You can't sell a horse like that, you have to "place" them.
So far our family has helped us immensely; financially emotionally and however else. At least those who were willing and able. We are getting down to the wire, however, and I feel desperate. One night my husband said, "What are we doing wrong? Why are we in this position?" Yes, indeed, WHY? I thought about this, and about karma and everything else. I know that challenges are given to us to make us grow, etc, and I should be welcoming this but the fear takes over. I needed to see a way out. One day I was watching Oprah's 25th thing on her new network, a program about her life and how she got where she is today. One thing about Oprah is that she is one person that I think is truly genuine and who she says she is. So many others have disappointed, but she never does.
So, on this program she talks about how things in her life flowed, how one thing led to another and another and here she is. Then she said that the degree to which you are in flow is directly related to how far you are from your spiritual center. If you are not flowing, then you are not spiritually centered. I am paraphrasing from memory, so cut me some slack if it's not exactly what she said. In any case, this really resonated with me. My husband also watched it and agreed with me. We felt that we weren't in tune with our spiritual selves. I think that means different things to each of us (he and I), but we understood that we needed to reconnect with that somehow.
So, what do you do to find your spiritual center? As a Buddhist and generally a spiritual person, I tend to look at what's closest to me and what makes me feel connected to the "Universe", or whatever you would like to call it. I think of it as "the thing larger than myself which is known as God, the Universe, Divinity, the Goddess, etc". What it's called is immaterial. What it does is not.
First I pulled out my copy of Sonia Choquette's book Your Heart's Desire. I have read this book many times and each time it is like a new experience depending on why I decide to read it. Usually some crisis is looming but the book reads differently each time. In any case, it is an instruction book for what is now known as "the Secret", or "The Law of Attraction". If you have seen the movie, although it's very inspiring, it left a lot of things out. I believe that fundamentally it is correct to some extent, but it also takes some work to turn your thoughts into things. Your Heart's Desire, however, gives you the instructions and when things look bleak, just "thinking positively" isn't always helpful.
Without going through the whole process, basically I got to a certain point in the book and realized that I needed to ask for help from the Divine Spirit. And I needed to wait for an answer. I needed to meditate and listen, listen for the inspiration and the guidance that would help us through this time. I opened my email and had my weekly message from "Stumble Upon", a service that gives you the best websites by topic. The spiritual one happened to be a site I knew well and had already been thinking of - "Spiritual Earth - Places of Peace and Power". I clicked on it, and up came a map of the States with little red dots signifying spiritual places. I hadn't visited the site in a long time. I clicked on the magnifier to zoom in, and kept zooming in until only one red dot showed. There were no divisions of states, so I had no idea what I was looking at. To my surprise, the red dot was for Chaco Canyon, a place that I had been with my husband. We had had a terrible time leaving there because the road was bad and it wrecked our trailer. He was very upset about it. I found this auspicious, but couldn't say what it means.
The more I searched the web and opened myself to spiritual advice from different places (I get daily "Wisdom Horse" messages, and "Napoleon Hill" inspirational advice daily) they all said the same thing: "it looks scary now, but you will come out of it. Be patient and be still. Meditate and listen for divine inspiration and guidance." This advice led me to want to go on a pilgrimage, and we did, but that is for another day. I wanted to record this now, so that I can report what happens later. The pilgrimage is interesting for its own sake, and the effects of that have yet to be discerned. I think sometimes things happen very subtly, not in a huge flash of lightening. A change came over us on our pilgrimage, a kind of strength to face our situation without fear so that we could talk about it and make decisions rationally. It happened during a storm, by the way, and there was lightening in the background...
Links mentioned in this blog:
Wisdom Horse daily message - www.touchedbyahorse.com
Napoleon Hill daily message - http://www.naphill.org
Places of Peace and Power - http://sacredsites.com/
Free tarot readings, so far right on - http://free-tarot-reading.net/
Sonia Choquette's website - http://soniachoquette.com/
This is a shortcut from the Pioneer Woman's blog RSS feed about storms, which was one of the first things that inspired me. Not sure if this link will work... If so, she is worth checking out for other reasons, but this one was special...http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thepioneerwoman/~3/XyVXz65SSwQ/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
Heart-shaped rocks
Heart shaped rocks, you say? What is psychic about THAT? Well, in fact it is in my experience a psychic phenomena for me. Let me explain... many years ago, perhaps 20 years or more, I once found a heart-shaped rock. It was well-defined and definitely shaped like a heart. I picked it up and kept it and it was one of my most precious possessions because it could not be purchased anywhere. It was totally unique and unusual, which I loved.
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| Part of my collection |
Then I took a job at Hala Ranch about 4 years ago. They had rather large rocks laid in on all the walkways around the barn and in going back and forth with the horses I found hundreds - yes, hundreds of heart-shaped rocks. You might think this is impossible, or that I am stretching the truth. No. I have shown my collection to those who visited the barn and initially they too were skeptical, but there they were, piles of heart-shaped rocks! Our farrier, Tom, thought I was a crack-pot at first. He thought my heart-shaped rocks were...kinda silly. Tom is a man's man, you see. Then one day at this ranch which is high up in mountains, the deep winter snow began to melt and caused quite a bit of flooding on his place. He said that huge rocks were actually floating on to his front yard. He said to me, "And Cari, wouldn't you know, this huge rock lands on my front lawn and I'll be damned if it wasn't shaped like a HEART!"
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| A small part of my collection |
I also found them while on vacation and at home and other places there are rocks. Sometimes I forget to look, because you must look in order to find them. And sometimes it's good to take a rest from looking. I left part of my collection at the ranch and I don't know what will happen to them, but that's OK. It's good to let go sometimes and return what we have been given. The joy comes in finding them in the first place. For me they symbolize several things: love and wishing things in to your life and creating the impossible.
For me the heart-shaped rocks are something I brought into my life. I created them somehow (not literally) but in my mind. My desire to find them put them where I would find them. It proved to me that you can bring things into your life that you want to be there. I am also sure that we are destined not to get everything we have asked for, but many things we can influence. Of course you must wonder why I didn't wish other things in to my life, like oh, money? Or a dream job? Actually, that would be a good topic for another blog. I did get my dream job, and the man I desired, and a small quantity of money so far. I have gotten many things I wanted, they just didn't turn out quite like I thought they should. Our lessons to be learned in this life are more important than getting what you want. The things you "want" are attached to problems that you must resolve, unless it is something like a heart-shaped rock. God says, "oh of course you can have a heart-shaped rock, Cari. No charge!"
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| One of my favorite heart-shaped rocks |
Addendum: I wrote this a few months ago and had never posted it. In the meantime, my good friend
Leigh Ann came to visit from and mentioned to me that she has a collection of all things, heart shaped rocks! What a wonderful moment - sometimes the universe or God or the powers that be show us why our friends are our friends... Here is a photo of her collection:
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| Leigh Ann's collection |
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| Leigh Ann and I |
Astral Projection
Have you always wondered what Astral Projection is? Well, I sure did! When I found out I really didn't believe it. In case you don't know, astral projection is when part of you (your soul or ethereal body or some other filmy substance that is you) separates from your physical body while you are asleep and roams around the universe. It can meet other astral bodies and journey to the higher regions. It's completely true.
A while back the subject came up in an office I was working at. We were joking around about it when the one person who, in my opinion, I would never want to have dinner with much less meet in my astral body after dark, said that he and his wife did it all the time. 'Oh right', I thought, 'You, the most superficial and unrealistic person I know can do something like this?' I thought it was for the spiritually pure soul, not your everyday salesman that seems to only care about money.
So, for many many years, in spite of my interest, I ignored it because just thinking about it conjured up pictures of "Marty" and his wife floating by my bed. "Marty" bugged me enough during the day... In any case, I eventually decided not to let "Marty" ruin my life experience and delved into the subject.
First I read Robert Monroe's Journeys Out of Body" and skimmed through a few others. Monroe describes his experience very clearly and without prejudice. He is the consummate scientist and recorded his spontaneous journeys faithfully. It was easy reading and quite interesting. Since it happened to him spontaneously, however, he is somewhat unable to explain particular aspects of how to do it. I was able to affirm by later readings that what he experienced was the same as many others. In the end this is what convinced me that this actually did happen to him and was not something he asked to happen.
Next I checked out a rather hefty tome from the library called Astral Dynamics by Robert Bruce. It was one of those books that I figured I would check out and leaf through it and due to it's size would discard as being way too much information. The other books on astral projection are very short in comparison which is why this book intrigued me in the first place. What in the world did this guy have to say that no one else did?
As it turned out, he had a lot to say for good reason. It was by far the most complete book on how to do astral projection I had ever seen (OK, compared to the selection of books available at the Garfield county library system in rural, Western Colorado. So you know they just have tons of books on astral projection because we are really bored over here!). There were detailed instructions, exercises and preparations. Very weird and specific exercises. I had to try them immediately!
These exercises had to be done daily for something like a month or two before attempting to project oneself from the body. They involved moving energy through your limbs and practicing relaxation techniques. The whole thing about astral projection is that it happens at a certain point when you are falling asleep. When you are relaxed enough and just before you fall into a deep sleep is when your astral body separates from your physical body. If you want to experience what happens to your astral body, you simply need to get very deeply relaxed as if you were falling asleep, and be aware. There's a bit more technique than that, but without getting too detailed, that's what happens. You already do it, you just are asleep and don't know you are doing it. Apparently, you even wake up while doing it and can remember the experience as a dream.
So this is where I am supposed to report how I did the exercises religiously and then followed through and began to project myself into the universe nightly, but of course I couldn't keep up with the exercises. Someday, when I am retired and have nothing better to do and I am living in a cave in the Himalayas I will do the exercises and project myself. In the meantime something weird happened.
About a month ago I fell asleep and dreamed I was in our living room in the dark with the moon shining through the large picture window. I was floating above the ground somewhat and suddenly I felt an arm between my legs hoisting me quickly up in the air. It happened so fast my stomach was queasy. I felt a deep-seated fear of all this - whose arm was that and why were we going up in the air? I was free floating above the TV. Then right there, in the middle of my "dream" I realized what was happening: I was projecting! I also realized that this same thing had happened many times before and that I had always been afraid of it because you end up flying around. And also because sometimes the sensation of someone lifting you by unorthodox methods also is disconcerting. I think I assumed it was a ghost. Maybe it was Marty - lord I hope not!
According to Bruce, the feeling of someone lifting you or touching you is not unusual. The fear that automatically happens when you realize where you are and that you are up in the air also prevents many people from staying with the experience as well.
Then two other realizations came to me. Bruce talks about the "higher dimensional levels" or "astral planes" and how you enter them by going through a layer of shapes. This sounded rather odd to me. What are the shapes made out of? Why shapes and not grass and land forms? Who knows? Then I remembered falling asleep a few nights earlier and seeing a plane of shapes (a la M.C. Escher) and they were so familiar to me and I went through them just as I fell more deeply asleep.
The second realization is that as a child I had most likely projected myself quite often. If you have read my earlier story about the ghost in my bedroom in Hawaii, you may remember how the ghost sat on my bed each night. I still think that there was a ghost but the sitting on the bed phenomena I think was my projected self, because of several things. One, it always happened just as I was falling asleep, waking me sometimes violently and then the sensation of someone being there would be gone, and two, it did scare me but over time I came to accept it while the rest of the events still scare me. I have even felt it more recently and seemed to be able to make it happen myself. I wasn't even in Hawaii when this happened! Do ghosts follow people? I don't think they do. In any case I suspect that it was my projected double sitting on the end of my bed each night.
I find astral projection fascinating and am still very curious to attempt it in a more serious way. Perhaps, in the interest of this blog, I will be inspired to keep up with my exercises. If anything unusual happens I will let you know!
But if I manage to do all these exercises and finally drag my butt out of my body at night and the first thing I see is Marty and his wife, I'm staying home!
The Tahitian He'eiau
When I was 16 the opportunity arose to join a student exchange program through Punahou Summer School that traveled to Tahiti to study French. There were about 10 of us on the trip which included staying with local families and excursions to art museums and local places of cultural significance. Ironically enough the family I stayed with was Chinese and spoke Chinese at home.
Early in the trip we travelled around the main island of Tahiti, stopping at a site where archaeologists were excavating a he'eiau. It looked very similar to the Hawaiian version, as the two cultures are very closely related. In fact, Tahitian and Hawaiian languages are nearly the same, the only difference being certain consonants that are switched. For example, in Tahitian the word for forbidden is "tabu" and in Hawaiian it is "kapu". In any case, a he'eiau is basically a low wall of a few feet high surrounding a square shaped enclosure. There are often several sections and levels with an particular spot designated as the altar.
We arrived at the dig site and were taken over to a deep pit that had been dug off to the side of the lower enclosure. I can't remember exactly why they had chosen this spot in particular to dig, if they had found artifacts or some clues that they might find something there. In any case, the archaeologists were French so we had a translator along to translate for us since our linguistic skills weren't up to the task. It took a very long time for the archaeologist to speak, then for the translation to us. It was warm, and after awhile I started to feel very sick. Assuming it was the heat and standing still, I told our chaperon I needed to go sit down. She told me to sit in the bus.
After a short time, feeling much better, I went back to the dig. I usually find these things very interesting and wanted to get back and hear more about it. I stood there again and within 5 minutes my stomach began to heave. I thought it strange, so this time I walked away to find the altar and look around. Once I had walked 20 feet from the dig the illness stopped almost immediately. I noticed this as being rather odd. If I were really ill then surely it would return no matter if I sat in the bus or walked around, but I felt fine. I decided to test a growing theory that the dig site was making me feel ill.
After a walk around the place I headed back to the dig site being very aware of how I felt. Once again the nausea welled up in me as soon as I got to the edge of the pit. Stepping back made it abate, coming closer it intensified. After we got on the bus I polled everyone else and learned that no one else had felt ill.
Later in our trip we visited a woman on another island that was considered a Tahitian spiritual woman who we should give much respect to. The house, as I remember it, was blue and much like every other house in Tahiti. There were many plants outside, and dogs and cats hanging around. The woman, whose name I don't remember, spoke to us about Tahitian spiritual practices in general and then the group moved on to refreshments outside. The woman remained inside and so I asked to speak with her. Through the translator I was able to relate the experience at the he'eiau, explaining how I had felt ill near the dig site and how this was not the spot thought to be the altar.
The woman told me that something bad had probably happened in that spot where they were digging. Sometimes there were sacrifices and possibly human ones at one point in time. I couldn't believe that she was telling me this so matter-of-factly. Instinctively I sensed that she didn't approve of sacrificing any living thing. But she gave complete credibility to my experience. She never doubted that I felt this odd nausea and that it only happened near this spot. She told me that I was merely sensitive to these things and that the world was telling me something, that's all. I felt better for having been validated.
What really happened? In my heart I felt that something was communicated to me. Something happened - I wasn't sick before or after we went to the dig. Strange things seem to happen in Hawaii and alsoTahiti. These places hold on to the spiritual thread that the ancient cultures brought to the land. You can almost feel it in the air, a kind of different energy. It's the kind of energy that I think people hope to find by visiting Indian sites or events. They hope to find this powerful, primeval kind of energy that lingers just below the surface, but oddly enough I never feel that either at Indian sites or from Indians themselves. It makes me feel sad.
Sometimes, in places like Shiprock or Devil's Tower, there seems to be a very faint energy, but it's not like Hawaii. In Hawaii, things happen. You get the feeling that nothing you do leaves you any control over what happens there.
Pele's Revenge
Please note: it is helpful to read the post "Hawaiian Ghost Stories" first for background).
As a child growing up in Hawaii I was constantly told stories about not removing rocks from a) an active volcano, b) a Hawaiian temple called a He'eiau or c) other sites which are deemed sacred to the Hawaiians and/or the volcano goddess Pele. I love rocks. To this day I have a large collection of rocks from all over the place (ok, mainly Utah and Wyoming, but just about every place I've been is represented). Not only do I love rocks but my grandmother had taken a liking to a semi-precious stone found near the volcano called "olivine". It is an olive-colored glassy stone that is created when the right combination of heat and minerals combine. There is a beach on Kauai that is made of olivine and it is often found embedded in volcanic rock. My grandmother had some jewelry made from it and I thought it was so beautiful.
In any case, my fourth grade class went on a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. The purpose was to see Volcano National Park, and various He'eiaus and petroglyphs and other things of educational interest. In preparation for the trip my mother allowed me to use her special bag and a pair of her stylish slip-on wedges which were a bit large for me. My grandpa gave me fifty dollars as spending money. I was so excited! I had never been on a trip without my parents and I felt very grown-up.
On arrival at the hotel, the teachers gathered us into the lobby for a stern lecture from the hotel manager. He warned us to keep the noise down and to not run in the hall. We were to stay away from certain areas of the hotel but we could purchase candy from the lobby store. Most of all, he warned, we were not to lock our keys in the rooms as this caused many problems for the hotel staff! He mentioned this twice at least. Then we had an hour to put our bags in our rooms and of course, buy some candy. I held off, not wanted to appear desperate for candy right away.
The first stop on our tour was the volcano, looking very flat compared to all the movie volcanoes. Even the extinct craters on my home island were steeper, having been eroded away. In their original state they look like a shield and are called "shield volcanoes" due to the way they erupt. They don't explode so much as fountain. There are hundreds of pictures of the fountains of lava erupting from Kilauea or the other active vents in Hawaii. In some pictures of lava the face of a woman can be seen and it is said that this is Pele.
In any case, we arrived at the volcano and peered into the vast crater of Kilauea, which was slightly smoking. There were men in special white suits walking around in it. They said it was more than a mile down to where the men were walking. It is an unforgettable sight once you have seen it. After the crater we drove along the road making stops at various spots. At one spot, to my great delight, was an entire field littered with - you guessed it - black volcanic rocks studded with olivine! They were so beautiful and there were so many of them! Yes, it is against the law to remove rocks from a national park. Not only that, the legend was hanging over me too. She would surely have vengeance on me for taking her rocks.
But it was simply not enough to stop me from taking several rocks. My grandmother would be so happy that I had managed to bring home semi-precious stones for her. Perhaps jewelry could be made from them... And those legends, come on! How could they possibly be true? Would the park service prosecute a child? And the people who made the olivine jewelry, they must have gotten it from the volcano too... I could justify anything!
As the day wore on, things began to change. The group of girls I considered my friends sat with me on the bus as we made plans for spending the evening at the hotel. All day we sat together, giggling and laughing in between stops at the volcano park. So far so good. When we arrived back at the hotel that night, everyone crowded around the kiosk in the lobby that sold candy, myself included. We took our stash up to the room and proceeded to do all the things the hotel manager told us not to. We screamed, high on way too much sugar, teased the boys, tried to break in to their room. I got emotional for some reason and....locked our keys in the room. Yes, me. And when my roomies found out it was me, I was out of the club.
The next day I had to sit next to some nerdy boy on the bus who also ignored me. I tripped in my mom's shoes several times, finally tearing them. Someone told me I looked stupid in them anyway and they were too big. My cool bag that my mom let me use suddenly seemed too big, too touristy. Was it my imagination or was everyone looking at me like I was a complete dork loser? No one wanted to sit with me at lunch. The guy that I thought liked me was holding hands with some other girl. My friends barely spoke to me. The trip went downhill fast.
That night in the hotel room I decided to go through all the things I'd bought on the trip. It was our last night and my friends left me alone in the room to go have fun. At the bottom of my bag sat those olivine rocks, glinting and dangerous. I made a decision right then because it had become clear to me that Pele had indeed punished me and I didn't like it! I found my teacher, a great lady who I knew would understand. Gathering all my courage I knocked on the door to her room and silently handed her the rocks. I told her how sorry I was and how wrong it had been to take them. She solemnly received them from me, understanding my situation. She said she would do something with them.
After that a weight lifted off me and I headed down to dinner happy. Low and behold, my friends smiled and invited me to eat with them... we had fun, and I spent the rest of grandpa's money (much to his surprise - "what in the world did you spend that money on?") on more candy and nick-knacks. We had a great night.
In the morning we piled on the bus to go home, and I happened to look down at the planter on the sidewalk of the hotel. There were my three rocks, glinting in the morning sun. I smiled and said goodbye.
In case you think this is a bit "out there", here is a website you can go to to read similar stories and it also tells you how to return rocks taken from the volcano.
http://www.volcanogallery.com/lavarock.htm
If anyone has stories they would like to share, please leave a comment and share your story. I love to hear about things that have happened to others!
Next post: what happened when my Dad took a rock from the volcano.
Hawaiian ghost stories
My family moved to Hawaii in 1974 when I was 8 years old and quickly learned that we were in a whole new world. Clouds obscured the top of the Pali (vertical, green cliffs) that loomed over the town of Kailua where we lived. It rained seemingly every hour and the sun peeked out only briefly. Hawaii was a dark place compared to the bright, sunny openness of my birthplace, Colorado. Instead of carefully cultivating plants and trees and hoping they would grow, in Hawaii they had to be hacked down in a constant battle. It felt like the landscape moved in on you, concealing and closing in.
In this environment ghosts seemed only natural. The stories local children told us were strange. The first one we heard about had to do with the god Kamapua'a. Kamapua'a was a pig, literally, and often at odds with Pele, the goddess of the volcano. On Oahu, the island we lived on, it was said that Pele would not allow Kamapua'a to cross over her (now extinct) volcano. In a practical sense this meant that those travelling over the Pali using one of the two (now three) highways carrying pork would have car trouble. My family actually debated the reality of this, as we had planned to go shopping on the other side of the island. In later years when I really thought about this legend, I realized that grocery trucks and restaurant supply trucks must cross the Pali daily, and you never saw them by the side of the road. In any case, the legend goes on...
Another legend tells about the Night Marchers. The night marchers, as it was told to me, are the ghostly Hawaiian soldiers that fought in various battles throughout the islands. They continue marching to the battle in ghostly formation. If you happen to run in to them at night, you should avert your eyes and strip naked, lying down face up. This way they won't hurt you. I never learned what it was they would do to you, but I was sufficiently afraid to take heed. The night marchers have sometimes appeared in photos as a line of vertical white smudges or flames. They can be seen holding torches and wearing Hawaiian warrior helmets as well. I never saw the Night Marchers, thankfully, though some in my family think that the ghost that walked outside my room may have been a night marcher.
Another legend involves Pele, the volcano goddess. She is said to be very powerful and many chants and hulas are dedicated to her. Hawaiians often travel to the Big Island of Hawaii to make offerings of gin to the volcano in her honor. Pele is one of the more powerful of the Hawaiian goddesses and also seems very much alive when the volcano is erupting. It is said that if you take rocks from the volcano or from a Hawaiian temple, called He'eiau, you will have bad luck until the rock is returned. In my experience, this is very true! Pele is said to wander the highways as an elderly hitch-hiking woman. If you pick her up she disappears from your car but you have good luck. If not, of course misfortune rains down on you!
I related the story of the Menehune in "Grandma says goodbye". These are the stories as they were related to me and of course there are many variants. There is even a movie out (fictional) about the night marchers.
There are other legends but these are the ones that came to mind first and had the most affect on my life.
If anyone has stories they would like to share, please leave a comment and share your story. I love to hear about things that have happened to others!
Grandma Says Goodbye
When I was about 7 years old my Mom (who had gotten divorced a few years prior), decided that we should go to live with her parents in Hawaii. They would help put her through college and help take care of my sister, brother and I. Being the oldest, I asked a lot of questions. Being at that age, I often wondered about death, God, and things of a spiritual nature. My grandmother became my sounding board during those years because she was handy and I considered her wise.
"Grandma, do you think people go somewhere when they die?" I asked. Grandpa kept silent, as always. He too was wise. "I don't really know, Cari," she said. "But since I will probably die before you, I will try to let you know- send a message or something." This reply satisfied me. Grandma wouldn't lie, and she had been terribly honest by admitting she didn't know about heaven or things like that. I could accept ambiguity.
In the meantime, we were living in Hawaii and there is a rich tradition of ghost stories and little people (menehunes). Grandma loved to tell us these stories and encouraged us to "get involved" so to speak. One story said that the menehunes were little people who only worked at night. They were kind of magical and could help you find things that you had lost. In the old days the Hawaiians would visit the menehune at night and bring an offering of chocolate pudding (no, I don't know where that came from!) in exchange for the finding of missing items. One particular day we realized that several things were missing - I couldn't find my bouncy ball, Grandma had lost her lighter and my sister was missing something else which I can't recall.
We decided to ask the menehunes for help, and Grandma thought this was wonderful, so we wrote them a note, made up a batch of chocolate pudding, and put it outside our house that night. The menehunes wrote back (in English, of course!), accepting the pudding and promising to find our lost items. Weeks went by and the items remained lost, however.
Then, the unthinkable happened. Grandma turned very ill and went into the hospital. After a few days (from what I remember) she passed away. I was 12 years old, and in my grief I forgot about her promise to send me a message from the "other side". I also forgot about the missing items. I was grief stricken, not understanding that she had actually been ill longer than I knew. Her death had happened quite suddenly to me.
I don't remember how long, but probably several days after Grandma's death, my Mom let me sleep in Grandma's bed. I don't remember why, just that I was in her bed. I woke up in the night, and it looked as if the bathroom light was on, but it wasn't. There was just a stream of light, and walking towards me was Grandma, smiling and holding out her hand. She looked like healthy grandma, happy. I smiled at her but didn't know what to do. Then she disappeared and I thought it was funny that the bathroom light had turned off at the same time. Now I know that she brought the light with her. That was her telling me that she had gone on and had returned to let me know.
Shortly after that, all of the missing items turned up, on the same day - the lighter, my ball and the third thing too.
Over the years she has sent me a few other messages. Let me explain first - she used to take me shopping with her when she lived in Colorado and her store was Safeway. We used to sing the Safeway song as we drove over there. When I was very little, perhaps 5 or 6? I would hear the song "59th Street Bridge Song" and sing along. I loved the part "I'm feeling groo-vy" and I would dance along. Grandma would laugh and clap her hands, she thought that was really funny. So it was "our song" - every now and then we'd both say, "I'm feeling groo-vy" and dance and laugh. I really associated that song with her.
One day I was in a Safeway and thinking about Grandma for some reason, and that song came on in the store - "I'm feeling groo-vy" and I just knew it was Grandma saying hello! Another time I was up late watching TV and thinking about Grandma and that song, thinking that you never hear it at all and within 5 minutes there was a commercial on with that song. I only saw the commercial once...
Perhaps there were other messages from her but I did not notice them, or did not know they were from her. Ten years ago a friend of mine died suddenly and I received many, many messages from him. At the same time I learned about how the dead communicate and began to notice more "messages" around me. Things like the lights blinking at certain times or in a particular way, street lights going out, etc.
There is no doubt in my mind that the dead are usually able to communicate with us and often try, especially when there is a close connection. For more information about ADC (after-death communication) visit the website: http://www.adcrf.org/index.html. I am also interested in hearing about your experiences and whether you believe in life after death. The events that occurred after the death of my friend have convinced me beyond a doubt.
Ghost crash
The ghost, that's what I believe it was, terrorized me as a young girl in Hawaii by walking outside my bedroom window and sitting on the end of my bed a few times a week. These events happened regularly and often, but what happened one night only happened once or I might have died of a heart attack.
One moonless night the footsteps woke me. With my stuffed animals arranged carefully and the covers well-tucked under head, I listened intently. They began outside as usual, but then they changed direction, coming from the doorway of our bedroom. Unusually for me, I lay on my back that night. As the steps came closer fear paralysed me and prevented me from turning over. My entire body became clammy, breaths came quick and shallow. The footsteps stopped and I suddenly became aware that the "man" was standing next to my bed!
The next thing that happened still makes me profoundly afraid to this day. Unthinkably, the ghost fell on top of me! I felt his warm breath on my neck, the weight of his body on top of me. Once he had fallen neither of us moved. I couldn't! And then the feeling dissipated. He did not get up again, he simply disintegrated. For the rest of the night I lay there wide awake until dawn.
Shortly after that our living arrangements changed enough so that I could be moved to another bedroom in the house and the haunting stopped. No one sat on my bed in the other bedroom and it became apparent to me, anyway, that the ghost was associated with that place. Who was it and why did they haunt that place? I feel that it was a man who lived in the house and had contemplated suicide for months. The walking and sitting sounded pensive, as if someone were trying to decide what to do. When the ghost came to my bedside and fell, I think that he was "reliving" his suicide. It is said that those who commit suicide are locked in a kind of limbo between earth and heaven and I believe that this could be true.
Later, as a grown woman, my Mom and I talked about the haunting incident of my youth. Through that whole scary time my Mother had tried to calm my fears to make it seem like everything had a rational explanation. It did help for her to say those things and she also gave me the tools to think about it rationally at the time (though I just couldn't). But now that I was all grown up she said something that shocked me. I asked her what she thought it was that had happened to me, and this time she said, "I don't know, Cari, but you sure scared the hell out of me!"
Ghost walking
The most chilling and strange thing that has ever happened to me occurred when I was a child of about 10 or 11 growing up in Hawaii. My bedroom was part of a converted garage and since it was rather large, it had been divided up into three "rooms" using bookshelves as walls so that my siblings and I could each have a space. My room was at the back next to the backyard, looking out at a patio (called a lana'i). I am not sure exactly when, but soon after we moved in I began to hear footsteps at night outside my room. It sounded as if someone was walking in circles on the patio.
I could hear the scuff of their hard-soled shoes on concrete, the tap of regular steps and then the turn as the "person" circled around on the patio. The steps were sharp and very clear as they got closer and then moved further away. I slept with twenty stuffed animals and the covers over my head at all times. A small hole in the covers near my head allowed for breathing air while sweat formed everywhere else. When the steps woke me in the night, the fear paralyzed me for hours while I wondered about the man (I was sure it was a man!) who marched and marched outside my window.
The walking was bad enough, but then something else happened that frightened me even more. Just as I was about to fall asleep, someone would sit on the end of my bed! The creak of the mattress, the depression, the weight of a body.... Oh lord, it scared the living crap out of me! They would sit there for awhile and finally get up. Somehow, once the person had left, I managed to fall asleep.
I can only attribute this to the complex "protection" which I thought would guard me from the ghost, the kind of protection only a child imagines will work. My piles of stuffed animals guarded me closely, making a wall between me and the thing out there. When they had been placed just so each night and the covers were pulled over my head and a small breathing hole allowed air to get in, I would read books by the light of a flashlight until sleep took over. My mother did not know what to do. She told me it must be a dream, that since the "bed sitter" only came just as I fell asleep, then I probably had fallen asleep and was dreaming. She had given me the flashlight so that I could shine the light on whatever it was and so prove to myself that nothing was there. No way could I leave the protection of the covers to reveal myself to the thing. Not only that, no matter what shining a light at the "sitter" could only make it worse! Either way, if nothing were there or something was there, it would be awful!
At one time I nearly convinced myself that the footsteps were simply water dripping after the very common downpours that happen in Hawaii. But no, the steps sounded different than the water, very crisp and definite.
If the haunting weren't bad enough, one more thing happened to me regarding this ghost. I will never forget it and to this day I can still feel the sensations from that night.
About Me
- Cari Zancanelli
- Rifle, Colorado, United States
- Horseman, student of life, avid researcher and questioner with a deep love of the mysterious and spiritual.
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