Anyone who knows me well or has traveled with me knows that I am one of those hopeless people who can get lost even in a familiar place.
By Rebecca Nidey
Everything I Need To Know I Learned In A Haunted House
That has improved a tiny bit with the help of apps like Google Earth and MapQuest but not enough to be too noticeable. Because I have had this problem since I learned to drive I have adapted by using landmarks to guide me to places I need to go.
My father was a truck driver and taught me this method of navigation. He was adept at reading maps but also liked to use familiar monuments to guide his way. I, on the other hand, have never been able to read maps enough to find where I am going. It’s as if I have some kind of mental block that prevents me from telling north from south and east from west when I try to use a map. Everyone has something they are good at, reading maps is not mine!
Dad always liked to take “shortcuts” that cut time off of a journey and they usually took us through the country. In Illinois, where I live, that can mean farms and large fields of crops and livestock or long expanses of plains with nothing in sight. What always made the journeys an adventure was that some of the landmarks would disappear or change between one trip and the next.
That huge red barn that was tilting slightly and marked the turn off the highway might be lying in jumbled piles of lumber because of the tornado that went through in the spring (another experience of living in Illinois). Where a lovely and ancient oak tree once stood, a Mini Mart might appear by the time we went through that area again. Landmarks seem to change fairly often and they further confused my already befuddled mind.
As a writer, I love words and like to use many variations as I write my columns. Recently, I had to replace my well-worn and much loved Thesaurus from over-use. Its tattered pages were falling apart and many words could no longer be read clearly. As I looked up the meaning of “landmark” in my new version I found that it had two meanings and both are relevant to this column. According to Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus, a landmark is:
- A historical or notable sight……
- A turning point, crisis, event, milepost, milestone…
Our lives (and deaths) are marked with many historical and notable sights and they are filled with just as many turning points. My grasp of timelines and dates is as blurry as my map reading skills so I have often used my “history” and turning points to navigate the memories of my life.
October of 2004 was notable for the birthday on which I turned 50, a milestone in any life. One of those turning points that bring back that memory is the death of my mother exactly 2 weeks to the day before that 50th birthday. That was a very personal event in my history but there are many others that have the same effect.
How many people around my age or older remember the death of JFK and the impact it had on our lives? In more recent times, the terrorist attacks that brought down the Twin Towers on 9/11/01 did the same. Both of these milestones affected the population of most of the world but still caused personal sorrows that have imprinted them on our memories.
For as many sorrows that have created turning points in my life, there have been joys. The years that I acquired “sisters” by marriage and their children came into my life (either by birth or that marriage) are wonderful milestones. Meeting new friends, purchasing a new car, taking a much wished for trip, these are all signposts to the past. Haven’t you also had these milestones?
In dealing with the paranormal, and most especially ghosts, I see a direct correlation between the landmarks of our hearts and many supposed hauntings. As I mentioned earlier in this column, death is a huge event that impacts the lives of those involved. The consequences of death can be as strong for the deceased as it is for those who care for him or her, or are in some way involved.
There are several distinct types of hauntings and most can be attributed to a notable event, crisis, or milestone.
An intelligent haunting, where the spirit interacts with those it comes in contact with, can be a cry for help or for attention. Their death may have been so sudden that they are confused as to what happened. The familiar landscape of their lives is no longer present for them and they feel unsettled.
Bewildered people act out or reach out, whether they have a body or not. We did an investigation of a home where an elderly woman had been murdered. Of course she was distressed because of her death by the hands of someone she knew and in an invasion and proposed robbery of her home to boot. She was not aware that her killer had been tried and sent to prison. Those on the team acknowledge her life and told her about the justice that had been done to punish the one who had ended her life. The home felt clearer and much more at peace when we left and hopefully she too was at peace.
A ghostly spirit may appear on the anniversary of the event that caused their death. This can be to commemorate the event, or to comfort those they left behind. Doesn’t everyone want to feel that their life counted for something and that they are remembered with love?
At the time they visit they may make themselves known by a sign such as the scent of their favorite aftershave/perfume, moving a possession that had belonged to them, a touch on the shoulder or a brush of the hair of someone present, etc. I have even heard of clocks and music boxes that have not worked for years suddenly “coming alive” for a short time on anniversaries. The ways spirits can make themselves known are numerous but the one thing that for certain is that it will be something that will remind those involved of the person who passed from life into spirit on that date.
Even a residual haunting can be tied to landmark events. Although I have never observed it, there have been reports of battles being re-enacted by those who died on the dates they occurred. In a previous column, I discussed the “everyday hauntings” that can occur. They are the ones that are created by the familiar activities and rituals we all have in our lives.
We have investigated hauntings where a woman has been seen walking up and down a staircase in an old farmhouse, seemingly oblivious to our presence. This more than likely was something she had done all the time she lived in that home and it imprinted energy on that area of the house.
The sounds of pots and pans can be heard in kitchens after the current residents of the home have retired for the night. Or the rattle of doorknobs being tested to make sure they are locked can startle those in the home. These are all the quiet rituals of a life that are still going on even though the spirit no longer owns the house.
Although we believe it to be an intelligent action, we have asked questions at the grave of Betsey Reed (the only woman tried and hung in Illinois) on the anniversary of her hanging. The reply, when we get one, is always a woman’s voice saying in the same tone “I’m innocent.”
Whether intelligent or residual, cataclysmic or comforting and joyful, these all were once landmarks of the hearts of those involved.
As we go through our lives it is important to acknowledge the landmarks we have in them. Those events that cause sorrow are as important as those that brought happier times. All are memories that have left dents and wounds. Instead of allowing them to be filled with anguish, look for those landmarks that illuminate our lives so we can find the way to continue on our journey called life.
“Not all those who wander are lost” J.R.R. Tolkien
About the Author:
Through her work on the investigative team for the Crawford County Illinois Ghost Hunters, Rebecca Nidey has an understanding of the paranormal, spiritual, and metaphysical worlds and how they work together.
Rebecca has trained in the Healing Touch technique (a form of energy healing). She is a certified Psychic Medium trained by Belle Salisbury, and she is a certified Paranormal Researcher.
Rebecca is the associate editor for Bellesprit Magazine and also writes a column titled Everything I Need To Know I Learned In A Haunted House. She has been a co-host of several radio programs for the Haunted Voices Radio Network and HeyZ Radio Network highlighting the Paranormal, metaphysical and literary fields.
To learn more about Rebecca or to schedule a reading you can contact her at https://www.facebook.com/rebecca.nidey.
