Ghost Story I: 1795

There is a house to the right of Henry Park in Vernon with a plate that reads ‘1795.’ I am enamored of it now that I know how old it is. Usually I travel to see historic homes. I don’t expect to see them in ordinary places in Connecticut.

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I was thinking about the house as I dozed during a television commercial. Suddenly, I see a woman walking across grass towards me. This wakes me up.

I see an intent look on her face but what does she look like? What is she wearing? I realize that I can see a whitish face whose eyes consume me. I have no details, only the impression that she is wearing a long dress.

What am I seeing and Why?

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Waking up one morning, I see the woman again walking across the grass towards me. She has an old style dress but I just see her face at a distance. I wonder why I don’t see the old garage that is there now. It should be in the way.

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Walking the dog by the house, I see that the side of the house with the peak from which I have seen the woman emerge, faces the road. Thinking too hard, I had assumed that she walked across what could be grass but is actually the driveway. Maybe this is why I didn’t see the garage… I have seen her walking across grass… which is now paved over as South Street.

I am now obsessing over the woman. Who is she? What does she look like?

Her light brown hair is pulled back towards the back of her neck. She wears a long light blue-grey dress with a round neck. It has a narrow waist and a full skirt. She looks like what I have seen from Civil War era pictures, assuming they were historically accurate.

As I think about her again, I see her ghost. She walks towards me from the high side of the house. She walks towards me…. Thinking,.. that I am a man. Surprise. She is seeking the return of a man. This is not an unusual plot line for a ghost story. This woman stops before me trying to see behind me. She does not see me as she looks for someone. I hope that he was worth waiting for.

I wonder who she was and what happened to her. I am not a person who normally sees ghosts.

3 Crows

Tuesday 2/15

Saw three crows land on my side of road while driving down RT 85. Three crows are a scary sign to anyone Irish.

Tuesday 2/23

Saw three crows swirl over the parking lot of the apartment complex across the street. Their motion and large size caught my attention. They then flew to an old tree in the graveyard. What do they mean?

Wednesday February 24,

Went to the accountant in Hartford. Three crows landed on the roof of the building as I parked. I really liked him so maybe they are a good sign.

Individually, crows mean magic and creation.

Transformation

Snow reminds me of the possibilities for transformation. The beautiful white cover changes the landscape into something new.

Transformation requires change. Some changes are looked forward to, some seen as part of a process, others are dreaded and never made.

Our snow totals this winter have landed us in the fifth worst winter of the century. Unlike most winters, the snow has not had a chance to melt in between storms.

Turns out snow is heavy. It exerts pressure.

The fluffy white stuff packs a punch. It can be unforgiving.

The weight of the snow is causing roofs to cave in and collapse. According to one sad Hartford Courant article, this year’s snow has destroyed many old barns and historical structures. Things we count on may not always last.

Gutters need to be cleaned out or they overflow during rain storms. They also back up and freeze over into ice dams during bad winters. Many of us now have leaking roofs in our homes due to the back up of ice on the gutters. In fact, I can hear the ‘tink’-‘tink,’ “tink’ of water hitting buckets on the deck now.

The pressure exerted by the snow reminds me of changes we avoid. Denial can continue for a while but not forever.

Things we refuse to deal with have a way of coming back to haunt us. Deferred maintenance, routine tasks ignored (cleaning gutters, shoveling snow after every storm), have a way of coming back to bite us later (ice dams, iced over sidewalks and driveways).

For purposes of personal growth, we are meant to embrace change. Convention presents us with only stable images (fifty year marriages, retiring from same job after 40 years) that are hard to resist. We want to expect continuity when in truth it is a roller coaster ride that we are on. We must find a way to embrace change or The Tower will wipe the continuity clean as it is for our highest good.

While we may desire change, we might not fully embrace the cost or work required to change. Sometimes, I just don’t want to see a relationship end. The friend has not been around for years, the corpse is dead yet I am reluctant to bury it. Or while happy for us and proclaiming to be wanting our best, friends and family will still resist changes that we make.

Some relationships are like rubber bands. They allow some change in the short term, but require you to go back to the way things were to maintain peace over the long term. If you suffer through how things were rather than moving towards how things could be, pressure builds, resentment can mount and tears will appear at the foundation no matter how hard we try to maintain the peace.

In shamanic terms, the snake sheds its old skin as it moves towards its future. The snow reminds us of now pretty the future can be when we get there.

February 8

Snow again. This morning, it covers the neighborhood roads, trees and dirty snow. The neighborhood has been transformed into an Ansel Adams photo for the day.

Walking the dog, I was pondering snow. Does it have a spiritual purpose?

Snow has piled up by the foot with the last few storms. It occurred to me that the beautiful fresh blanket of snow signifies that possibilities for transformation always exist. No matter how bleak the circumstances, transformation to something better and brighter (contribution of my intuition) is always possible.

Imagine the best possible outcome and a transformation is always possible.

Animal Signs

Mid January

It is three degrees outside this morning. I pass through the quiet neighborhood streets listening to a bird with a seven syllable call. It sounds like, ‘tweedle, deedle, tweedle, deedle, tweedle, deedle----deet.’

‘Tweedle, deedle, tweedle, deedle, tweedle, deedle----deet’

‘Tweedle, deedle, tweedle, deedle, tweedle, deedle----deet’

‘Tweedle, deedle, tweedle, deedle, tweedle, deedle----deet’

I realize that I have not heard a single bird since December. He is the one and only I have heard all winter. I realize that I noticed the stillness of winter before this interruption.

I hear him on one of the coldest mornings we’ve had. Did he just return? Where did he come from? Is he here because he is expecting better weather than we’ve had?

I cannot help expecting cause and effect behavior though this may be wrong. Does he know something about the weather that I would not expect in three degree cold?

Is he a sign that winter will end sooner rather than later?

PS. There is about 28 inches of snow on ground now and we are expecting 5-10 more inches as we are in the middle of a three day storm. One can only hope for better weather soon.

Squirrels IV

January 15, 2011

One of the first things I noticed after getting my dog in August was the scurrying of the squirrels. They seemed to be frantically collecting. They were working very hard which I always admire but it seemed too early for such frantic activity. I was sweating in the August heat standing in place while they scurried to and fro.

Someone once told me that early food collection on the part of squirrels and other creatures is a sign of a long, tough winter. Forget the Farmer’s Almanac, watch the squirrels. Even ferrel cats grow thicker coats in colder winters. It seems that animals and the weather are all in sync. Somehow they know to prepare more.

Being able to drive to the grocery store in all kinds of weather reduces our need to be in sync with nature. We forget to see, acknowledge or follow the natural rhythms of nature, which other creatures intuitively know and understand.

My rescued dog was found wandering in August with a leash and collar. When I walk him now, he dives at food like he is starving. The vet says this is normal when dogs have been on the streets for a period of time.

This dog was outside during the hottest summer in recent memory. Despite this fact, his fur coat kept thickening in September (another hot month) to the point that he has almost a second coat of fur. It is thicker than I ever noticed on my other dog, an American Eskimo, a dog with a thick coat of hair. It was like was getting ready for life in Antarctica. Right now, he is happy walking in this freezing cold, loves rolling in the snow, and has such thick paw pads that the road salt is not bothering him. He is like a feral cat with his thick fur...

I thought about writing about the squirrels back in August, but thought it was a little crazy. My ego is still tied up in not looking crazy.

When I wanted to write about the squirrels, it was because the neighborhood ones had attacked someone’s fall decorations. Real women have clean, beautiful and well-decorated homes. Sometimes, they decorate with the colorful ears of dried corn and corn stalks. On one hot September day, three ears of dried corn were strewn about the open grassy plain. They had been mercilessly attacked and stripped of their corn. I assumed it was a squirrel attack but I have no evidence for my malicious comment. I walked past the dried corn cob remains several times wondering why they would want the dried corn when fresh food supplies were also nearby. I am not an expert on squirrel behavior but what I observed seemed to be too early, a little too frantic and sort of lacking discernment.

We had a hot summer, a hot September and a warm October. There were even days in the fifties in November and December. We all kept waiting for winter to close in with each additional warm day. In August, it seemed to hard to imagine a tough winter since last years was so mild. Despite this, the squirrels worked hard for some reason.

Despite my fear of looking crazy, I wanted to test my theory about the squirrels and weather. I mentioned it to a customer. Thankfully, he agreed with me. He said he saw squirrels in Maine collecting nuts the first week of August.

Since December 25^th, we have a few significant snowfalls. I am sure that there is 20 inches of snow in our yard. I can’t help notice that the squirrels may be right about the winter and it has only just begun. I think that I am supposed to write about the fact that the natural world is on the same wave length which we share but do not tune into. There is a rhythm and reason for all seasons.

Blue Jay update

I saw the Blue Jay Tuesday and I cowered. I was assuming more power over rather than dabbling, I got both.

At 1:30 pm, my intuition told me to go to a certain store. Getting there and back before Hartford rush hour traffic started was then an issue for me. I headed out the door with a mission.

My neighbor was out there shoveling around my car. It is not his job, it is the landlord’s but he was doing it. He began to talk as soon as I saw him.

He was upset. I heard badgering, coercion and threatening. Someone was sitting on him like a sumo wrestler and loving it.

I had been in a hurry but I had to let him talk. As I stressed about time, I began to realize that listening might have been the reason my intuition sent me out on my errand. Sure enough, when I got to the store, it was closed (!!!!!) probably due to the snow.