Spooky, Creepy, Witchy
Part 29
Happy Anniversary! Today marks the day that I met my house for the first time. I remember driving the road to Port Clyde that has now become familiar but no less beautiful. Still, I am in huge gratitude every time I drive by Ernie Ryer’s cows, the ever changing landscape, flowers, colours. When I come over the one lane bridge by Trish and Shaun’s house, my heart still skips a beat, because around the curve and up the rise, I can spot my garden fence with the white ribbons blowing to confuse the deer (It actually helped to get them to NOT eat the beans that happened to make their way through the chicken wire).
The first time I walked into the house, it was so, so quiet. Now that I know a little more of the history, I know that this house has seen tragedy and neglect, and an endless flow of tenants, just as much as it has seen happy family times and children growing up.
It was Halloween when I first arrived. What a day to be entering an empty old house and staying overnight with no heat or furniture, just one small, grey, very nervous cat, and a blowup mattress. I did a cleansing of the house that evening. Ringing bells into the corners, burning incense and talking to the walls (which thank goodness did not talk back!) I let the house know that I was here now and whatever traumas we had both faced in the past were now behind us and we would move forward together, each taking care of the other. Not one room in this house had an eerie feeling. Not even the attic, full of other people’s things and the vague smell of sweat, felt spooky in the least. Not even the basement felt creepy, so full of cobwebs I walked out of there with a new hairpiece. The cat did not agree, hiding under the covers for a good two weeks before he would emerge during the day.
Many moons ago, my daughter’s father and I were living in a basement apartment in Jerome, looking to buy a house. As I worked in my studio, the view was of the lower yard of the house next door. A super old rose bush the was overburdened with fragrant red-pink roses, and the house, sat just beyond, the back yard sloping down about 45 degrees as do all of the yards in this mountain town. So when looking at houses at street level, on one side of the road they appeared to be quaint little bungalows, but if you took the road below the house and looked up, they were towering three level homes. And the opposite on the other side. Towering homes, often separated into separate apartments, from the back were little a-frame roof spaces.
I lived in one of these. On School Street. After me, there were a couple of tenants, and then Kate’s Books moved in. So happy she is there. The last time I went back to visit, I could not believe we lived in that space, two artists, one dog, named Zazu and an African Grey parrot named Lhasa.
It was a tiny space. One room, under the rafters, one side a kitchen, a bathroom and an entry. Probably 300 sq ft.The front window faced out down three stories to the street on the tall side of the house, through town past the old high school (then art studios), over the hogbacks to the valley below and Sedona on the other side. The red rocks were constantly changing colour and shape with the light. I could watch pockets of storms moving across the valley floor and along the Mogollon (pronounced Mug-i-on) Rim. I loved watching the openings to canyons appear and disappear in a moment and flash of light as clouds moved past. There is such magic there.
In my little attic-but-street-level apartment, I could open my front door, on the short back of the house (got your bearings yet?!) and my window on the tall front of the house and when there was fog, it would sweep through the house like many spirits moving determinedly as one in one direction. I remember seeing the fog through the window and bracing myself as I opened it and the front door on the other side of the room. I stood back as the fog found this new path of no resistance, and let it invade, inhabit and move on. Freaking exhilarating!
Back to the house beside where Maggie’s dad and I were then living. I dreamed of the house next door. It felt the same as perhaps my Grandma’s house on Washington Avenue in Victoria, BC. It wasn’t so much the way it looked, though they were both white stucco houses of a similar era. It had more to do with the feel of the place. Old fashioned, well-built, comfortable, needing someone to take care of it. It was empty. No one had lived there for a couple of years. I urged him to inquire about the house, and well… we ended up buying it. Or should I say, HE ended up buying it. When we moved in we were certain we would need to do a cleansing. We wrote our intentions and we went through the house, room by room, with incense, candles and bells to stir up the old energy that had been left stagnant.
We opened windows to let it out. If there were not two of us, there would be no witnesses to know the sensations that passed through us and the sounds, of howling and resistance. It came from another place and we heard it faintly without ears but more strongly in the ether. We went from the upstairs apartment, to the downstairs apartment. Downstairs the energy was heavy. There was always someone watching. Despite the bell ringing, the vocalizing and the incense, we were never able to completely rid the downstairs of that heavy energy. I have a feeling that now, having been lived in by Maggie’s aunt for many years, the energy would have lightened considerably given the lighthearted, fun-loving person she is.
You may scoff at the bell ringing. You may roll your eyes at the incense-burning. Here’s something to consider: One of the simplest laws of physics is that everything is matter, vibrating at different frequencies. Including us. We are matter, cells, molecules, atoms, all vibrating at a particular frequency. That vibration creates energy (or is it energy that creates vibration? Anyways, we’re still not sure of the source. I’ll let you know when it’s figured out :))
I’m sure we all know the feeling of opening the door to a closet or attic or cabin that hasn’t been opened for a while. There is whoosh as the door is opened, creating an airflow and movement in a space that has been still, or untouched for a period of time. And would you agree with me that the air in those spaces feels heavy and sluggish?
When you ring a bell, or a singing bowl, you can hear the beats of the vibration, a specific frequency to the note that is played. When you ring a bell in a space that has had no movement, the frequency, the energy gets moved around by the sound waves. Sound healing. Look it up, I bet there’s someone in your area that does this work. Emotions are connected to energy in that they create the vibrational frequency at which we operate. Who has heard, “I’m really feeling low.”? Always associated with depression, illness, fatigue. How about, “She has so much energy!”? Those high energy people aren’t mopey, they move quickly, generally more joyfully, sometimes manically. Low vibration, low mood. Higher vibration, higher state of being.
Houses and spaces can retain low or negative energy. That’s why it is a good idea to not have clutter, which sits and stagnates the energy around it. That’s why it’s recommended to move things around, sweep away the cobwebs sort of thing. Move the energy. Keep it flowing. A house where the air and light are allowed to flow are brighter, lighter feeling houses. Stagnant energy stagnates a space. Brings the vibrational frequency down. I wonder, and I’m sure it’s probably been done, if you were to measure the vibrational frequency of mold, would it be quite low? Just a thought.
It was Halloween last year when I moved into this house. The pink bedroom at the back (now my bedroom) was the only indiction of anything strange that may have taken place here. There was no heaviness, more of a void. An extreme quiet. It felt as though the house had taken a breath in and held it when I walked through the door, and as I moved from room to room.
I have to admit I wondered if my new neighbours had seen the candlelight flicker in each window as I went through the house, top to bottom, back to front. Or heard the bells ringing and the didgeridoo vibrating out its F note and all the sounds I could make with it. It vibrated through the corners and made the walls shiver to the rafters.
Today, I am insulating the ceiling of the basement. Tonight, I will be holding a Samhain candlelight ceremony, marking off my first year here and setting intentions for the next. If you see pink and green smoke coming out of my chimney, don’t worry, it’s nothing but a little spell for the wellbeing of our community. Open your windows and let the magic in!
Next: Will the Work Never End?
Notes from the Edge of the World 