A Year Has Come and Gone...

Has it really been a YEAR since my last blog post?! Holy cow! That's a little disturbing, really. It means death is approaching ever more quickly than I had anticipated! LOL

I can say that I've actually been busy over this last year doing something incredibly cool. I went back to college at the age of 43. I'll be finished a nursing aide program by the end of summer to work with seniors privately in their homes. The eventual plan is to transition into death midwifery and team up with my funeral director daughter to create our own alternative funerary business which will encompass the entire process of dying and post mortem preparation in clients' homes instead of cold hospitals and overpriced funeral homes. Joining a new trend of returning to the old days before the charlatans took over the industry and started bankrupting the bereaved!

The farm is coming along nicely and we are planning to be moved up there by the time my program is finished. Planning...that's the operative word there...still have to find the time to finish the renovations on THIS house first so we can put it up for sale. Gonna a loooooooong summer!

Dying To Fit In

On February 14, 1979, my mother died suddenly from complications after a gastric bypass surgery at 29 years of age. She weighed approximately 275lbs and had tried every other conventional method of losing weight without success before her doctor suggested this pioneering procedure. When I say she tried every other way to lose weight, I'm not over exaggerating. I was very young, but I remember her endless attempts back then with and without friends or family to bring along for the journey...Weight Watchers, Ayds candies, Metracal shakes, The Stillman's Diet...I could go on and on. Nothing worked because, looking back at her baby pictures now, it was blatantly obvious that she was never supposed to be skinny.

Mom's first birthday, 1950

Driven by a culture that pressures girls to look a certain way, act a certain way, dress a certain way, eat a certain way... I don't think she ever stood a chance at being normal...at being happy with what she saw in the mirror. Despite her size she was a healthy and vibrant young woman...and an avid sports enthusiast. She never sat on the sidelines...ever. She played softball, hockey, football, basketball, volleyball...you name it...for all of her junior high and high school teams.

Mom and her older sister, 1951

The fondest of memories comes back to me now of her playing football. We were on a family vacation with a few other families my parents were friends with. We went to Yellowknife that summer and for those who aren't aware of this, there is 24hrs of sunlight in the NWT over the summer months. After we kids were put to bed, the adults all played tackle football next to the campers until well after midnight. Peeking out the windows, we sure admired her. Mom was a force to be reckoned with out on that field! :D I also remember her showing me many times how the caps over her knees were smashed so badly to bits from all the times she'd slid home playing softball. LOL It used to give me the willies pushing those cartilage pieces around under her skin!

It has always saddened me to know that it was peer pressure and our own culture that took this beautiful woman away from my little sister and me when we were so young...and for what? Corporate sales? That's all it really comes down to, right? Money and corporate greed. Now...34 years later...has anything really gotten any better?

Practicing Magic is Simply Harnessing the Power of Prayer!

Dispelling the fear and ridicule of those practicing witchcraft is so damn hard and I can't understand why. To say that the practice is evil would be like saying that praying in any other faith is evil as well. I don't get it. When you pray, your harnessing energy and directing it towards a common goal that you and/or others in your faith would like to achieve. That's EXACTLY what we do when we practice the Craft. The only difference is that we believe WE are responsible for what we've created through our 'prayers' instead of 'God'. How is that different, tell me? For those who take joy in ridiculing witches, isn't harnessing mental energy like this based in science? The whole power of affirmation kind of thing? Would you ridicule other faiths out in the open because they believe in 'imaginary beings'? I'm not talking about ridiculing them online, everyone's self confident enough online to ridicule anyone else, but in real life, too? Every time the topic comes up in real life, I hesitate to mention my Pagan path because of all the Harry Potter jokes and crap. I'm sick of it.

While we're on the topic of magic, I'd also like to point out that there is NO SUCH THING as 'white magic' and 'black magic' it's MAGIC...or PRAYER...plain and simple!! Everything in life has positive aspects and negative aspects, yin and yang, light and dark. Black and white magic are nothing more than marketing gimics...like Christmas and Halloween! So...anyone who tells you they are a 'White Witch' is full of SHIT and doesn't know enough about the path itself to even be representing it! Ok, end rant! lol :P

Returning Home...

This lady has been pretty excited lately, and now quite nostalgic sitting here reminiscing. My stepmother just officially moved off of our family farm as of last Friday. The travel into town and the regular yard work was beginning to be too much for her, so she decided to buy a little house in town. This means that...until my husband and I are able to move up permanently...this will become a 'vacation' home of sorts for my sister, myself and our families.

It's been 10yrs, on May 31, since Dad's been gone and we've been patiently waiting for our stepmother to make the decision to move off to reclaim our birthright...as he always called it.

My grandparents building their first home
on this land they broke themselves by hand.

We've always known it was coming and we looked so forward to it all of these years, but I have to admit that I am now truly understanding the meaning of the word bittersweet. As I fantasize about renovating our childhood farmhouse for us to eventually move into, faint memories drift back into my conscious mind. Will I be able to sit at the kitchen table, like I did so many times before, and gaze longingly out the window...waiting for the image of my father to stroll into the yard from the hay field?

The farm, as we knew it. This photo was taken from the spot
where Grandma & Grandpa's original log home was built.

Will I be able to walk around the corner of the house and not tear up to the memory of the beautiful yellow and pink rose bushes, long since removed, that my mother so lovingly tended to until her death in 1979? That will definitely take some getting used to....seeing the ghosts from our past everywhere we look.

Our little family, beside one of
Mom's rose bushes. 1977 

Dad wished to be scattered over the 'home half' section of land, but our stepmother preferred that he be interred in the small country cemetery about 3 miles up the road. Because he often said in life "What happens at funerals and cemeteries should be up to those left behind, not the dead....they shouldn't really care what happens to them after they're dead!", we compromised. My sister and I, with our kids in tow, scattered half of his ashes in the 4 corners of the 'home half'', at the foot of the Saskatoon bushes he'd planted with our stepmother alongside the fence line between the 2 quarter sections, and among his herd of purebred Red Angus cattle. *smiles* During his final two weeks on this plane, his dying wish was that we pick him up out of his hospital bed and drive him in the gator among his herd...one last time. Since it was a wish made while he was very high on morphine, the hospital thought it best that he stay where he was at. So, my sister and I felt it was quite fitting to spread some of his ashes among the herd after he'd finally passed. As we stood back and admired the scene, we couldn't help but laugh when we realized the cattle were grazing the grass we'd scattered him on! LOL So, at least we can say he has lived on through his herd! ;D

Some of Dad's herd, taken the year he passed away. April 2003

Yes, bittersweet is a good word to describe these feelings, but at least I know that whenever I want to talk to Dad...or my Mom or grandparents for that matter...I just have to walk over to the treeline and pick Saskatoons with him. Maybe I'll also try my hand at growing some roses myself this summer. :D

Ghost Story #4 - "Mediums Among Us"

This story is one I recently related to a young woman (my friend's daughter in law) who was asking about reliable psychics in a local Facebook group we belong to. She lost her mom when she was young, like I did, so I hoped to help ease her mind about the afterlife with my experience. I'm sharing it here as well for anyone else who might be interested. Enjoy...

I honestly don't think you'll ever find a real, practising medium who goes into trance to communicate in real life, Mel. They are EXTREMELY rare and seldom charge for their services. Most 'gifted' psychics just sense, hear or see fleeting information from 'the other side' and try to interpret it to you as best they can...mind you, the vast majority in this arena are frauds. I've ever only met one true psychic who charged for her services in my lifetime, and she's been gone now for about 15yrs. 

I'd like to tell you about a profound experience I had and I hope it can help ease your mind a little about the after life in some way. I don't tell this story often, and usually only to close friends and relatives, but I feel moved to share it with you. I personally know one authentic medium, she's a lifelong friend of mine, but she doesn't like to practise because the process terrifies her. 

When I was 16, a small group of friends and I had a seance in my basement for fun, trying to contact my Mom...who'd been gone for 8yrs at that time. We were all staring into the candle flame and I was asking her to make her presence known by tapping on the wall beside me. After about 20 min of nothing happening, one friend noticed that whenever I'd ask for a knock, my best friend, Sarah (not her real name ;D) who was sitting to his left, would tap her right thumb on his hand. We started teasing her and asking what she was doing...she just completely ignored us and kept staring into the flame. We broke the circle, laughing and thinking it was all BS, but she was genuinely confused, she thought we hadn't started the seance yet. Once we realized that she wasn't joking around, we became very curious and wanted to see what was happening to her, so we convinced her to let us try again. 

We started communicating with my Mom right away through Sarah's thumb-tapping. After about 45 min of answering random yes/no questions, one tap for yes- twice for no, we were shocked when she started to whisper the answers instead. As time went on, her voice grew louder until we were having a normal conversation with her. I was physically talking to my dead mother...in REAL time....it was absolutely INSANE!! 

For the next couple of hours, she told me so many interesting things. Things I didn't know about my great grandmother, about my grandfather who'd died in 1966, about my great uncle...all information that I was able to later verify with my Grandma. There is no way, whatsoever, that Sarah could ever have even guessed about these things. We'd only known each other for a year at that time and she'd seen a picture of my Mom maybe a few times, let alone had ever known anything about her or her family, things I didn't even know! 

She was also able to tell me things about the future, but she said she was only able to know information about 2-3yrs or so ahead. She told me that I would meet a boy with a D name...'Darren' or 'Darryl'...who will be driving a red car and will 'sweep you off your feet'. Then in true Mom-fashion, she gave me SHIT, very sternly saying that if we weren't careful, we were going to get pregnant way too YOUNG with her granddaughter! I remember laughing it off and telling her that it was crazy because I was still a virgin and hadn't even had a real boyfriend yet. LOL 

We talked for a little more, then she said “I'm going to go now to give your friend a rest. Rhonda, I love you and your sister...don't ever doubt that I'm always here.” I had a complete melt down...just burst into tears! Then we broke the circle off and when Sarah 'came back', she just sat there completely stunned and scared, looking at the mess I was in. When we told her that about 4hrs had passed and the spirit of my Mom had taken over her, she completely freaked out and never wanted to do it again. Though quite disappointed, I respected that. I seriously don't know if I'd ever be able to do it myself....that would be scary as hell! I'll tell you this though, it's been 25yrs and I'm still always searching for more evidence of the afterlife and have had contact with many spirits since, but absolutely NOTHING has ever come close to this in all those years. The mere fact that Sarah refused to ever try it again has stayed with me all this time...it tells me undeniably that she wasn't making it up...if she was looking for attention, she would have wanted to keep doing it more and more often. Instead it terrified her, and evidently made me keep searching for more! 

No one can tell you whether it's real or not until you experience it yourself. Everyone's a skeptic until it happens to them. I know just how fortunate I was to have had this experience and whenever doubt sinks into my mind, I always fall back to this memory that I have never been able to explain, but know with absolute certainty was REAL. We don't know what happens when we die, but with our scientific community, especially in quantum physics, on the brink of discovering the possible existence of things like multiverses, we just can't deny the probability of the survival of our spiritual consciousness as well, can we? Oh, and as a footnote, I met my husband Darren just before my 18th birthday. He drove a 1986 burgundy Firebird...and...we got pregnant with our daughter within a few months of meeting each other! LOL ;D

Pagan Blog Project - E is for Earth

Working with and admiring the earth is absolutely a pagan thing. Whether using it as a representation of the element itself in ritual or worshiping the Earth as a whole, these practices are undeniably pagan. I've come to refer to myself as a pantheist witch, as I don't follow a particular god or goddess and believe that we are all a working part of the divine, but if there was any that would even come close to swaying my religious conviction, it would be Gaia...our Mother Earth!

Ghost Story #3 - "Moving Into Our New Townhouse"

This was by far the most paranormally active home we've ever lived in. Even on the initial tour, we should have guessed that there was more to it than the all new, wall to wall carpeting, fresh paint and great rental incentives. The lady showing us the place even eluded to the fact that the last tenants hurriedly packed everything up and left without telling anyone they were leaving. We'd just assumed it was because they were bad tenants and skipped out on their rent. After our three years living there, we often wonder if there might have been other extenuating circumstances that made them flee instead.

For the first few weeks after we moved in, in the summer of 1997, I was unemployed and spent most of my time at home alone when I wasn't at interviews and such. There were a few incidents I experienced back then that started to make me wonder if I was really alone or not. We were lucky enough to have a recreation complex in our little community that I quickly made a habit of visiting every morning after everyone was off for the day. I loved being able to swim every morning and having grown up on a small farm, I was quite naive and would simply leave the door to our home unlocked for the hour I was gone. The first couple of days were uneventful, but on the third day I was surprised to discover that I was locked out! A little flustered, I turned around and sat down on the front step to think about my situation...had I actually locked it this time, by accident? How was I going to get in? After a few minutes, I got up and tried the doorknob again out of instinct...and it opened! I was quite surprised, it didn't feel stiff to me...was I imagining the whole thing? I just went on with my day unpacking and didn't think much of it....until the next morning when I came back to a locked door AGAIN!!

This time it was really locked, I wasn't mistaking it as I tried several times and it was definitely locked. So, panicking about being locked out for the day, I went across the street to the convenience store and called my husband at work. Of course, being the voice of reason, he told me it would make more sense for me to go to the admin office to ask someone to help me than it would for him to drive all the way across the city to unlock it for me! LOL I was calmed down now and as I walked back I decided to drop my swim bag off on our porch step before making my way back to the rec centre. Something told me to give the door one last try before I went to get help...and the fricken thing opened right up!! I was STUNNED!!!

As morning turned into afternoon, my sense of thankfulness of not being locked out anymore gradually turned into uneasiness. I began to feel like someone...or something...was watching my every move. No matter what room I was in, I found myself frequently looking around to see if someone had walked in on me.   After a while I decided to take a break and watch a talk show in the living room with a coffee. While I was intently watching the show, I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye coming from the front hall. As I turned my head to see what it was, my heart stopped dead in my chest as I saw the telephone cord swinging rather quickly hanging down from the stand. I had been sitting there for at least 20 minutes, I know it wasn't because I would have brushed past it.  We didn't have any pets and I looked around to see that the windows in the living room and dining room were both still closed. Nothing could have made the cord swing like that and it's movement didn't start to slow down until I got up to walk over to it. There was no doubt in my mind afterwards that I definitely wasn't alone!

This was just the beginning of our paranormal adventure in this house and until I was called to go to work, I found many reasons to be out of the house during the day from that moment on! :S