There are defining events in everyone’s life that do
more than simply outline the calendar of existence. These occasions are rare and often more
spiritual than temporal, helping the inner man to listen more closely to the ethereal
realm forgoing the five basic senses, forcing us all to rethink our solitary life,
helping us to believe in a greater dimension than the corporeal, finite time
defined from birth to death.
Experiencing the unexplained, the vision of the
unbelievable or the simple feeling of pure love as a granddaughter recognizes
your face after months of separation.
The human mind is not enough to grasp the understanding of why, leaving
only the possibility that a greater force is at work in creating these
overwhelming feelings.
Like a ghost wisping by, their tell-tale signs of eerie, waif-like impressions coalesce at the corners of our sight, just beyond clarity
but just within our consciousness, they appear and then quickly disappear, back
into the dream world of uncertainty. Unexplained visions of beauty, the scary
realization of dread or even the clairvoyant understanding of things to come,
not yet realized they are all real to some extent, at some level the truth of
the unknown is known to all of us.
As a child I lived in a large home of Mediterranean
design, it was a Spanish Stucco built around the 1920’s and was originally the
center of an orange grove empire. As a
small child the house was an amazing playground and I in precociousness
explored and discovered every inch of this great home. From basement to attic I knew each hiding
place, every cubby-hole and spying view and relentlessly pursued my efforts to
find that secret passage and the lost chest of treasure that I was sure was
hidden deep within its secret walls.
The home breathed and exhaled, especially when the
weather changed. It moved and danced as the lights changed and in its walls
lived a variety of ghouls and demons fairies and spirits, creatures of all
kinds that were nothing more than figments of my overactive imagination or
projections of a recently read sci-fi story, but as a child they were real, not
frighteningly so but mildly fearful, just enough to keep my eyes wide late at night
while watching Bella Lugosi hypnotize a young maiden with his venturous eyes
and fanged teeth. The 10” black and
white TV hidden under my covers, flickering its lights in warning, telling me
in some psychic manner that my mother was coming but I never listened, I couldn’t
listen the show was too good.
Perhaps it was these experiences that softened my skepticism
and opened my mind to the possibilities of life beyond life, existence beyond
understanding or the feelings far beyond what our mindset can comprehend. It’s these feelings that we all get from time
to time that really do define who we are.
If we try to remember, try not to forget, these memories will return and
with each remembering perhaps the visions of what cannot be explained will
reveal a momentary glimpse of the uncertain reality that should never be but
most assuredly is.
The intuition of a mother saving the life of her
child, the feelings of doubt regarding a decision to be made or even the
connection of two strangers meeting for the first time, each knowing of a prior
relationship with no possibility of past association. The combined prayers or thoughts for the
benefit of a single purpose coalesced for good, the hope of a father worried
over the safe return of a child. These and
millions more surround our lives, envelope our souls and encompass the deep recesses
of our minds and hearts like a hidden truth an alternate reality, giving us the
hope of goodness and the possibility that if we try hard enough, think long
enough or pray fervently we will be rewarded with the desires of our hearts.
I have never seen a ghost, but I have seen the
evidence of others visions. I have never
been prophesied of great events to come but I have been inspired to choose
correctly. I have never been given a
direct apparition but I have had those fleeting, ghostly like feelings that
someone was there, someone was watching.
What does it all mean? It means to me that there is more to life
than life itself. More to life than science
or temporal understanding, more than what we can see, hear, touch or even feel,
there is an unexplained, often hidden level of existence that we all share,
revealed enough to let us all believe, let us all suspect, keeping us
searching, hoping and praying for more. So
next time your long dead uncle bill or aunt ruby comes to visit, see what they
have to say, it might be what you need to hear…
