Showing posts with label Haunted. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Haunted. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Ghost Hunting

UKRAINIAN CULTURAL VILLAGE Feb. 27/10

A dear friend of mine Kirsten suggested that we go check the ghosts out at Ukrainian Village. So Thursday last, Kirsten, Emmy (Kirsten’s 2 year old), Ranjit, Ranjit’s 17 year old sister, my granddaughter and I all met at Asian Village and then left in 2 cars to travel to Ukrainian Village. It was a beautiful sunny day and the snow in the fields we passed (as we headed out of town) was so bright, sunglasses were not an option. We chatted and discussed rumours that we had heard.

However, Ukrainian Cultural Village was closed. In the distance there were old houses, open fields, some yellow school buses, and a large parking lot. So we drove through and parked the cars. So Kirsten stayed in the car with Emmy while the rest of us checked out the very long red, two-storied building in front of us. The door was unlocked and a long dining room with tables set in an L pattern greeted us. Chairs were placed at the tables while eggs, candles and wax sat in front of each chair. We called out and no one appeared, so we walked through the dining room to the back end of the building. A sign pointing the way to a company on the second floor encouraged us to climb the stairs. Open cubicles with lots of sunlight brightened the casual office setting. A man and a woman appeared, answered my questions and pointed out the way to find the administration building. We thanked them and left.

Outside, we turned to our left and walked up the hill to more buildings. A sleigh pulled by 2 dark brown Clydesdale horses, driven by a sullen looking teenage boy in a peaked cap and dark period coat accompanied by a man sitting in the sleigh dressed in the same hat and coat, passed us. Two big yellow school buses stood at an entrance to some buildings. Again, I asked for directions and a bus driver sent me toward the alcove park entrance. I told the receptionist who came out from behind a wall we wanted to check out the rumours of ghosts. We were directed to see another man, Arnold. In Arnold’s office, I explained that I wanted to write a paper on the activities in the village. Arnold told us about the stories, gave us a site map and the circled the building which were the most active. He said the buildings might be locked, but we could take a look. We thanked him, then Ranjit called Kirsten to leave the car and join us.

Out first stop was Harwlick House. The doors were locked, so we stood on the porch and peered in the windows. Dark wood floors gleamed as I saw a woman standing in front of a far window inside the house, staring at me. She was thin in a dark brown dress with a high gathered collar. The dress seemed like a heavy material, like wool. Her hair was piled on her head and strands of her hair stuck out from her head. She was lonely and sad.
She had been married to someone she didn’t love, had been married off by her family. No one else saw her and there were no people actually living in this village.
Off we went to the next place. This was an old train station. Darjit, Ranjit’s sister checked out the doors and they were open, so we went in. A young man appeared wearing a cap, a white striped shirt, and a thin string tie (maybe). There was a living room and kitchen in the back with bedrooms upstairs. A family lived here. Upstairs, I saw a buxom older woman with pinned up hair come towards me and disappear. The energy was very light, not a bad place.

We moved on to other buildings which my friends would check to see if they were open. An old barn held horse stalls and I saw a man in old time clothes wearing a peaked cap, dressing two horses. It could be old energy or newer stuff that was here because the barn was always used.

A cluster of houses, mostly barns and out buildings yielded the passing view of a young girl. She was in the kitchen of a whitewashed mud built house. Blond, young, no more than eleven years of age, she smiled as she passed the stove, then disappeared. The girl was dressed in old clothes and had her hair held back. My granddaughter saw a cat winding its way through the kitchen.

Walking back to the beginning trail, we saw an old hotel. A man’s thin face, sporting a mustache, peered from the top floor of the hotel. It was as if he was secretly watching for someone. The hotel was open and we walked through the kitchen to the common room and the dining room which was in the midst of renovations. Up the stairs to the small bedrooms and no one greeted us.

We certainly did not need to wait until dark. If there are spirits, they are always there not just at night. Spirits are stuck due to a number of reasons. I have seen scenes over and over again of traumatic situations which replay again and again. The participants are not dead but the negative energy sticks around.

To end the day, I drove the wrong way back to Edmonton for half an hour. We were so busy talking that I paid no attention to my direction of travel. We laughed about it, for we understand that everything happens for a reason even if we never know the why.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Haunted

In September of 1985, my three boys and I moved into a house in Edmonton. The day we moved in, I had a lecture to give in Drayton Valley just outside Edmonton. My oldest son, Lance was 17, so I left him in charge. I told him I would not be coming home until the following evening. Lance said it was no problem, so off I went. Tuesday night, I returned home to discover an agitated teenager. Lance told me that there was banging in the house and footsteps in the night. He awoke in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, grabbed a machete in his closet and raced down the stairs to the main floor and then to the basement following the steps. Lance realized that if something or someone was there, he really did not know what he would to do. So he went back to bed and stayed awake listening to all the sounds of the house.
My younger boys would not play in the basement recreation room and when I went downstairs to do laundry, I would race down , throw the laundry in and race back upstairs. There was a very heavy feeling in the house.
Cupboard doors would bang, footsteps continued and sometimes I would hear things being tossed around in the upstairs bathroom. Whenever I checked, there was never anything amiss. I brought in a psychic friend to banish the ghosts. I saw spirits on several occasions, but the noises continued. The house was about fifty years old, so I went downtown to the Edmonton office to check on previous tenants complaining of strange activities in our house. There was nothing.
For some reason, I kept getting the last tenant’s mail. Gloria would come over to pick the mail up, but was perplexed because she had put in a change of address. Eventually, Gloria and I realized that we needed to meet. Her own son refused to be in the house alone when they lived in the black and white house. Gloria had some unsettling experiences, but told no one about them.
One night, I had just begun to fall asleep and I felt a presence in my room. It did not feel good at all, however I could not shake myself awake or open my eyes. Then, I felt something on my face, restricting my breathing. I felt like I was getting smothered. That’s when I called on the angels and God to help me. I was finally able to open my eyes and I saw a bent outline of something at the foot of my bed. To go back to sleep was hard, so I whitelighted myself and asked for protection.
When I told Gloria about this, she admitted that the same thing had happened to her. Gloria’s dog was in the bedroom at the time and began barking and barking until Gloria was able to break the weird hold the presence had on her. Gloria stated that she heard that the houses were built on a grave site years ago.
When my sister Ruth moved in with her son Daniel shortly after this, Ruth said she felt as though there was some sort of vortex in the house. The presence which was fond of smothering was an old lady who had lived in the house years ago and she wanted us out.
We looked for another house. Gloria (who became a great friend), Ruth and I walked through all the choices until we found one which had no unwanted visitors. My children were much more relaxed in the new house. Whew!

Since then I learned how to clear a house. About five years ago, one of my daughters had a friend whose stepdad had a heart attack. Tamara called in a panic and wanted to know if I could help. I did an angel reading for Tamara’s mother. The stepdad showed up wearing a blue jean shirt and talked about how he was blocked with his feelings but how he loved Tamara’s mother. Tamara’s mother was shocked because her husband wore a blue jean shirt a lot. After the funeral, I was invited to the house. There were about ten other people there all waiting to hear something. The stepdad Jim, stood behind Tamara’s mother and spoke. It’s always telepathic with those who leave this earth. It was great to see how love is always what comes through. No one ever says, they should have worked more. The departed (really still very much alive) wish they could have loved more, been more expressive with love and less demanding with petty material things.
Anyway Maria, Tamara’s mother asked that I check the house over. The house was probably built sometime around WWII. So I wandered through the house, inspecting every room. When I came to the basement, there were two carved masks on the recreation room wall. The negative energy oozed from them. One mask was a happy grimace and the other a sad one. These are the type of masks that represent the theatre, tragedy and comedy. However, there was nothing pleasant or happy about these masks. When the masks were made, the creator put bad, bad energy into his creation. Tamara said she hated coming downstairs, she didn’t like the feeling. I told Tamara and her mother Maria to get rid of the masks, burying them would be a good idea. The masks were taken off the wall and the energy changed in the house.

A few years ago, my oldest son Lance flew me to visit him in England. Right out of the airport, we drove to Stonehenge. I saw monks from another age walking around with torches. One monk wore a light coloured robe and hood while the others were all in brown. Stonehenge was not always used for the good of mankind.
Then my son, daughter-in-law and grandchild drove to Woodhenge. I know, I had never heard of it either. There was a large tree stump set in the middle of large elipical circles. Originally there were short tree stumps in these circles. Each circle had larger stumps than the last one. The wood eventually rotted, so the farmer who owned the field replaced each wooden stump with metal ones. I sat on the middle stump and was overcome with grief. I saw people being dragged to the inner stump, Some sort of sentence was pronounced by the individual on the stump. There were beatings and even death. My son, Lance was taking pictures and asked what was wrong as I began to sob. I left Woodhenge behind pretty quickly.
Next, we went to Avebury a few miles away. Avebury is still a small village surrounded by extremely large stones, similar to Stonehenge. The aerial photo resembles a face with eyes, nose and a mouth. Many of the stones have been chipped away and used for building houses and fences, but it is still easy to see and feel the effect of the village surrounded by stones. My impression was that Avebury was built to offset the negative effects of Stonehenge and Woodhenge, a protection for the villagers. Someone was very clever in building the stone circle, for the stones still feel good, have a good energy.

My son’s hobby in England is belonging to a re-enactment group. The group was playing beside a castle, surrounded by an empty moat. There was sword fighting, dancing, archery, juggling and a play along the lines of a country fair a la 13/14th century. We (me too!) slept in pavilion like tents next to the castle and wore the clothes of that medieval period. We could wear no watches, glasses, jewellery or anything modern. Even the food we ate had to be roughly the same, hunks of bread, cheese, fruit etc.

Just before the show began, one of the young maidens from the group and I went into the castle. We climbed long stone steps which ascended to the third floor. The second floor had held the great hall, had long ago collapsed and was cordoned off. Once we reached the third floor, there was a flagstone walk past long windows. At the end of the walk, I could see a woman dresses in a teal green dress, wool, it appeared. She wore a headpiece, fitting the head, but flaring out at the sides. The sides of the hat matched her dress, but the centre of her hat was white. This woman walked back and forth staring out the window. My assumption was that she was worried about her husband who was off fighting. Then I got a really strong sense that she was worried that her husband was off somewhere with other women. My companion and I rushed through the rest of the castle, but on the bottom floor, I saw lots of people busily carrying sacks. These people were mostly men dressed in varying shades of brown. These were ghosts for there actually no living person there other than us.
At the end of all the play battles, I sat with a few young squires (knights in waiting) and mentioned the female spirit I had seen. Mark looked at me and said, ”You are giving me shivers. Do you know the history of the castle?”
I admitted that I didn’t. There were no signs or legends anywhere. Mark proceeded to tell me that King Edward II of England had built the castle in 1100 A.D. Edward had married some Spanish or Portuguese princess. Edward’s wife had basically had Edward tortured and killed for being unfaithful. I could not listen to those details. Anyway, her son imprisoned her in the castle for 30 years for killing his father. I did not see her when she was imprisoned for 30 years, only when she was worried. Spirits often get stuck in traumatic events as did she. I saw and heard a lot of spirits in England.

When I came back to Canada, My living window had a green plastic garbage bag taped to it. There was a huge hole where someone had smashed my window in the middle of the night. My two daughters living at home did not really know who had done this. Since this was now the beginning of September, I needed to get my window fixed. It took almost two months and the weather was getting chilly.
One day in November, I sat with my back to the tv set and heard that a young boy had been stabbed to death at a house party not too far from where I lived. I made a mental note to ask my daughters if they knew him. Within 10 minutes, my youngest daughter came flying down the stairs, crying. As I asked her what was wrong, I could see a young teenager building up a few feet away. My daughter told me that a boy she knew had been killed. I asked if he matched the description I could now see in my family room. Then this young kid told me he was sorry he had broken my living room window. I told my daughter and she blurted out. ‘I always wondered if he did it.” This was not the end of this boy whom I had never met, nor was it the last apology I had received from the departed.
Life is stranger than fiction, but fiction often comes from life.