Howdy! I'm not a religious person. I was raised an Easter-Christmas Christian, but certain aspects of the faith didn't sit right with me. I can't wrap my head around an omnipotent, omniscient entity being emotionally invested in us as individuals, let alone jealous. In a very "the man who must say he is king is no king" way, I find such a deity juvenile. Then there is the idea that nonbelievers aren't allowed into heaven, and given there have existed entire societies who were never so much as introduced to Christianity, that strikes me as very unfair. Any ethical god would be fair by definition.

When I told a Catholic relative that I'm agnostic, they asked what's stopping me from hurting people? Which strikes me as an oddly sociopathic perception. It should go without saying that I wish to minimize harm because having experienced pain, I don't desire to cause another's suffering.

So, if I don't believe in the Christian god, what do I believe in? Honestly, spiritually, not much. I like the idea of reincarnation. The idea of learning and growing in lifecycles on a quest for wisdom and maturity comes off as less coercive and more fair, than the narrow promise of heaven and the wide threat of hell. There is some evidence for reincarnation, not enough to convince the masses, but enough for me to lean towards that as the likeliest afterlife. If this is something you're interested in, I suggest reading about Barbro Karlén, who claimed to be Anne Frank reincarnated, and about Jeffrey J. Keene, who claims to be the soul of a victim of 9/11. I'm sure every major religion has an incident or anecdote they can point to as proof, including Christianity despite the demands for faith without, but the Barbro Karlén story has stuck with me.

Anyway, the reason this is top of mind today, is that Saturday, while editing footage I'd taken earlier for TikTok, I found something odd. I'd filmed the garden, showcasing what I've grown, sharing my methods. Towards the end, I explained how there are critters living under the bricks I use to cover compost. After I mentioned the critters, there sounds like someone whispering an unintelligible phrase while I'm speaking, then a moment later, during a gap in my statement, it sounds like somebody whispered, "Look at me." I listened several times, then went through recent yard footage for similar sounds. Finding none, I returned outside, filmed the garden again, silently, then while asking questions, but there were no more strange noises. I brought the footage into an app for separating sounds, which identified the first whisper as a voice, but was unable to separate it from mine, and the second, as background noise. With more manipulation, I boosted both noises, which did nothing to help me identify them. My husband says they sound like white noise.

I am of three minds about the sounds. They're nothing, unidentifiable but meaningless nature noises. They're a ghost and my yard is haunted. They're one of the fae, who've taken an interest in me or my garden. Of the three, obviously the first is the most likely. I did, however, take a look online to see if anyone has died here or disappeared nearby. My yard was full of bullets when I moved in. Maintenance admitted the previous owner stole electricity from neighbors and my landlord flat-out stated this place was basically a "crack-den" before they bought and renovated it. That said, I found no evidence online of crimes having been committed here, deaths on property, nor missing persons. And, as I mentioned, I didn't find any new evidence of strangeness while seeking such. But, I'm obviously willing to entertain the possibilities of a haunting (not unusual for me. I've written before about my haunted dorm room in college) and fairyfolk paying a visit. That second is a bit farther from my usual interests in the paranormal, but the voices were weird.

I did have a brief phase as a Wiccan in my teens, once spent a Halloween night attempting to use a ouija board over a mass gravesite that's now a park in Philadelphia, I've done much reading up on folklore, both because it interests me and as research for my writing, ditto for cryptids, voodoo, and I've always believed in aliens. That the recent hearing before the U.S. Congress included mention that aliens could be trans-dimensional beings, relates to the fae, and cryptids, in that, perhaps some of them can be traced back to aliens. Meaning they are trans-dimentional beings we don't understand, and our interpretations vary between cultures and over time. This isn't a new idea, but one that has come up, for instance, when reading up on bigfoot sightings that coincide with UFO hotspots (not that I'm especially interested in Bigfoot). This idea has just been on my mind this weekend.

At the end of the day, I'm not a spiritual person. I entertain ideas but I don't invest in them. Should I experience any other yard oddities, I'll probably report back here. I wanted to post the video but I don't have unlimited data for this site. I'd like to have posted it privately on TikTok, then provided a link here, to it, for anyone interested, so it would be accessible but not broadcasted to all of my followers. The last time I posted a strange occurrence to TikTok (what appeared to be several lit objects in the night sky, moving in an organic sort of tandem but in such a manner as would be difficult for standard planes/helicopters), it was condensed to a potato and I felt very foolish. And, months later, I decided what I'd observed was a flock of birds reflecting the light of our city-suburb, illuminating them against the night sky. Eventually I'll probably look back at the video and only hear white noise, like my husband. But for now it sounds very much like a whisper and it freaks me out.

Thanks for stopping by! I drop a new blog post every Monday, and usually not about anything this outlandish. Toodles!

Newsletter

Howdy! This past week I mainly focused on editing Soul Walker, my paranormal women's fiction novel that I originally wrote in 2016. What began as a 110K word manuscript, that I eventually cut to 84K, is creeping past 100K again. Oops!

I went to April's First Friday event as a patron, rather than a vender for once, and got to see what everyone was up to. There was a line-dancing performance that included tossing ladies into the air, an acapella group singing Broadway tunes, and several different types of bands playing. I accepted a free bible for my household, as I already have a handful of books from other faiths, and my husband is Catholic so I figured he'd be glad to have one. I also chatted with a bunch of artists, talking shop.

This Saturday, I finally got around to harvesting and pickling the wild garlic/onions, as well as planting sunchokes, and peanuts. Ideally, I'd like to harvest as much as possible by late June, because the July heat and drought killed last year's garden.

I did manage to watch the eclipse today, despite the cloudy sky. There were enough gaps in the weather to catch the performance.

That's about it for the week. Thanks for stopping by! I drop a Newsletter every Monday. Toodles!