Close Encounters

[Hariti]

So, this is a topic I've touched on before, to an extent, but never made a dedicated post about.

I have had close encounters with the supernatural before. Mostly through dreams, but sometimes when waking. Some of my dreams have been vivid, I believe I have even spoken with the divine while dreaming—but not all of them have necessarily been with the powers I work with. I have even been visited in dreams by beings I can only describe as malicious. Not sure what to call them, not sure if it matters—could call them demons.

Honestly though, it's the encounters that I've had when waking that I find most uncanny and thought-provoking. Usually they're just feelings;a presence that lingers around. Sometimes familiar, sometimes not. That's not always the case though. Sometimes I see things, for a moment; a flash of eyes in the darkness, a flutter of movement in the trees—blink and it's gone, but you know it was there. A ghost, a spirit, something Fey—whatever it was it's usually ephemeral.

Then... there are the times when it's very much not. There are times when I have seen things, clearly and certainly, that were not natural. Me and my parents came face-to-face with what I can only call a gnome, while driving on a Kentucky back-road one night when I was a kid. Two feet tall, pointy hat, the works; walking across the road as clear as day. He even stopped and scowled at our car for about 30 seconds before continuing on his way.

I know... a lot of people who have had expereinces like that. Some of which were even more strange. My paternal grandmother, who was a devout protestant her entire life, swore that she saw Moloch. In the flesh. Physically.

So... I guess my intent with this post is to share some of my thoughts and experiences, and to ask others what theirs might have been.

[EclecticWheel]

So, this is a topic I've touched on before, to an extent, but never made a dedicated post about.

I have had close encounters with the supernatural before. Mostly through dreams, but sometimes when waking. Some of my dreams have been vivid, I believe I have even spoken with the divine while dreaming—but not all of them have necessarily been with the powers I work with. I have even been visited in dreams by beings I can only describe as malicious. Not sure what to call them, not sure if it matters—could call them demons.

Honestly though, it's the encounters that I've had when waking that I find most uncanny and thought-provoking. Usually they're just feelings;a presence that lingers around. Sometimes familiar, sometimes not. That's not always the case though. Sometimes I see things, for a moment; a flash of eyes in the darkness, a flutter of movement in the trees—blink and it's gone, but you know it was there. A ghost, a spirit, something Fey—whatever it was it's usually ephemeral.

Then... there are the times when it's very much not. There are times when I have seen things, clearly and certainly, that were not natural. Me and my parents came face-to-face with what I can only call a gnome, while driving on a Kentucky back-road one night when I was a kid. Two feet tall, pointy hat, the works; walking across the road as clear as day. He even stopped and scowled at our car for about 30 seconds before continuing on his way.

I know... a lot of people who have had expereinces like that. Some of which were even more strange. My paternal grandmother, who was a devout protestant her entire life, swore that she saw Moloch. In the flesh. Physically.

So... I guess my intent with this post is to share some of my thoughts and experiences, and to ask others what theirs might have been.

Many of my experiences have been confined to my subjective state, so as transformative as they were, one could, if desired, always dismiss them as illusions.

But one I did share with another person.  I had continuously drawn a tarot card from a particular fairy deck, the name of which deck I do not recall.  At some point external reality began to mimic that card, and it was as though we had stepped into a living tarot card, and animals emerged from the woods we were gathered in, as in the image.

Then I switched "places" with one of my "good angels," and took repose within myself while he took command.  No one came to harm.  The animals seemed to respect my spirit Friend, and that Friend took charge with my body and led us out of the area, the animals following at a distance for a while.

I suppose all of this could be merely mundane and psychological.  But our sense was that the card had become a living, embodied reality.

Some years later, I still don't know what to think.  If it was somehow all coincidence brought on by stupidly going into the woods in the night and disturbing the creatures there, (and I was manic as hell, too) it still seemed like much more than coincidence.

The card was the Hermit with wild animals being drawn to the light.  I, too, had a lantern, which is what I believe attracted the attention.

Much of this experience was of course internal to myself.  But when comparing our sense of the experience, especially as it related to the tarot, my friend and I had very similar impressions.

From this encounter, which involved a certain level of trauma, my ritual devotions emerged to contain what I experienced, of which I have written here only briefly.  That night prior to retiring to bed, I drew a card from my own deck, and yet again, there was the Hermit.

I don't dwell on it too much.  I cannot prove this wasn't all somehow mundane.  But my sense of the matter has always been that my world that night was filled with spirits and that something special and intentional was happening.

[ehbowen]

So... I guess my intent with this post is to share some of my thoughts and experiences, and to ask others what theirs might have been.

I have nothing new to add at this point...but I also have nothing previously stated which I wish to withdraw.

[Aisling]

Honestly though, it's the encounters that I've had when waking that I find most uncanny and thought-provoking. Usually they're just feelings;a presence that lingers around. Sometimes familiar, sometimes not. That's not always the case though. Sometimes I see things, for a moment; a flash of eyes in the darkness, a flutter of movement in the trees—blink and it's gone, but you know it was there. A ghost, a spirit, something Fey—whatever it was it's usually ephemeral.

For me, these kinds of experiences are part and parcel of doing threshold work.  My 'normal' waking state is to have a low-level awareness of things usually unseen, so the flicker of a spirit or the flutter of a wing only gets about as much attention as any changes in my physical environment.  They get the same mirco-second assessment:  Do I know this being? Is it a threat? Is it trying to engage?  If it's the answer is no to all three, I tend to move on and forget it.   The only time things get my attention is when one of the above questions has a yes answer and then it's dealt with accordingly.

Then... there are the times when it's very much not. There are times when I have seen things, clearly and certainly, that were not natural.

I'd phrase it as 'not usual' rather than 'not natural', but yes, there are these.  I've had a few encounters where the only question I asked was "What the...."  Generally, for me, these are quick encounters because I tend to go with "Do not talk to the really strange strangers" and keep going on my merry way.

The most memorable of those encounters happened when I was taking photos at an older cemetery set on rolling hillsides.  I was standing on one of the roads getting ready to take a shot of a mausoleum set into the hillside when, in my peripheral vision, I caught a strange movement on the road that runs above the mausoleum. The closest thing in the natural world to the movement would be a murmuration of starlings flying - that strange fluid movement and shapeshifting as the flock appears to coalesce and break apart.  Nothing else that I see on a regular basis moves the way that this thing did. 

Looking at it head-on, it gave the appearance of a perfectly ordinary elderly man walking along the road.  It turned its head toward me and the eyes were completely black with no discernible pupil or iris.  To borrow a line from Good Omens, "big spooky fan, me" but this thing was terrifying.  There was such a sense of menace and strangeness about it that I had to fight the urge to run away (not at all my normal response to such things).  It never broke stride and after it passed over the mausoleum, it turned its attention back to whatever it had been intially focused on and slowly descended into the ground as if the road it was traveling sloped downhill.  Ugh, the hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end just recalling it.  Whatever it was, I sincerely hope I never cross its path again.

So yes, definitely some things out there that aren't the usual suspects.