In This Space

I was walking down the street, hunting and gathering (shopping for groceries), contemplating what it meant to be in the space: why am I here? The eternal question dogs man from generation to generation and the answers vary from person to person. It was something I needed to answer for myself.
I was in a few accidents as a child, one of which knocked me unconscious. I awoke to find paramedics, my parents, and a few neighbors hovering over me. I tried to sit up but hurt all over. The paramedics held me down so I didn't further injure myself but, honestly, they needn't have. I couldn't have even sat all the way up on my own. While recuperating in the local hospital, I had the thought, even at that age, that I had died and another me had entered the body to finish living out the life I should have. I noticed a change in my luck, a change in the way I was treated, and a change in the way I approached things. It would be glib to say the changes stemmed from my own fears after the accident. I can actually accept that, to a degree. We all change based on our experiences. I can only assert that there was a core change in me that appears to happen in life-or-death circumstances, the effects of which changed me beyond just the physical realm.
At that young age and into adulthood, I wondered I had experienced a realm-shift. That there was a Me who avoided the accident and lived a healthy and lucky life that I should have had. Instead, the accident shifted me to a less-lucky and less-healthy life. My Own Hell.
So, walking down the street, contemplating My Own Hell, I had the thought: everything here is mine. It's my Hell, after all? The words sprung to my lips without bidding: I am Thee and Thou art Me. Everyone here is me.
I had to stop my walk and look at the world again. Everything seemed to fluctuate between two-and three-dimensions. Something grounded my heart chakra in that moment, and the world seemed like its old self once again. But I had glimpsed, briefly, the veil between worlds.

The Cat Who Walked Through Walls

I went with a group of people to an event a while back. Actually, I went early to help set up. We were renting space from another group that had a large room with several smaller rooms to the side. I was one of the first persons in the building and noticed a house cat sitting in the hallway. It was smokey gray and was watching the door as we came in. When it saw us, it stood up and walked towards the smaller rooms then turned and headed down the hallway away from us; I got the impression that we were not what it expected to see. As it got to the last door, I realized that I could see through the cat just as it turned and trotted through the door. This happened just as I was about to alert my group that there was a cat inside the locked and otherwise empty building.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
In the past week I've noticed a lot of activity close to ground level in my apartment. About the right size, shape, and speed of a house cat. There is no cat in the apartment building.

Ghost of Christmas Presents

It's happened at that intersection before.
Walking home from the train, I stopped at an intersection to wait for my light. A gentleman I had passed on the way didn't stop, but there was no traffic to speak of. I suppose I could have crossed, too? I was in no hurry and was content to wait the 30 seconds or so it would take for the lights to change.
I looked North to estimate how much time it would take then looked back towards the West. The man was gone. None of the shops were open across the street. I did not hear a car door open and close. There are no residential doors there. He was just gone.
It's happened before, same intersection, roughly the same time of day. I don't know if it was the same man or not. I really should pay more attention to things like that, at least at that intersection.

Butchering Trees for Our Amusement

One year, my sister decided that we needed to not only have a real tree but go and cut it down ourselves. As was the custom at the time, people would bring the corpse of a pine tree indoors then adorn it with baubles and lighted strands of gaily colored globes and drape the whole thing in strips of metals designed to further catch and reflect the lights of the slowly rotting conifer. But I digress.
We made our way to a Tree Farm wherein acres of land had been set aside for the sole purpose of raising, trimming, training, and then butchering trees for our amusement. I was young enough to require special attention but allowed, on this occasion, to be loosened and let run free in search of the perfect specimen. In reality, I believe I was allowed to simply roam and keep out of the way of the real work to be done.
As I went through the neatly ordered "woods", I quickly became to realize that there were no other humans around me. I wondered if I could become lost or forgotten? And I saw the Perfect Tree. It was perfectly formed and shaped and seemed to stand out a bit from its neighbors. I approached with a weird buzzing in my ears. Gently reaching out and barely touching its needles I said, "I'm sorry we (humans) and cutting you (trees) down." Instantly, the haze around me lifted and I became aware of my sister calling out for me. I left and got in the car, the sweet aroma of a fresh kill filling the car with it's woodsy scent.
We got an artificial tree the next year.

Bah. Humbug.

As the shopping season gets into full swing, I am reminded of one special experience I had at the local shopping plaza-megaplex. I had grown disillusioned with life in general and the Holidays had only amplified my sullen mood. What had been brewing since Aug/Sep was about to come to a boil.
Mom convinced me to buy gifts for my family, something I had been putting off. It was Dec23 and I drove towards the local mall. I parked near the cinema entrance (I always got great parking there, even when blockbusters were playing) and walked in. The corridor from the entrance to the mall proper was desolate. I saw a few people walking toward the Sears but otherwise I didn't see anyone. I thought I might have lucked out and avoided shoppers altogether.
I couldn't have been more wrong. As I rounded the corner and started towards the middle of the mall, all I could see was a swarm of people. There was no way to get through the sea of flesh without having to touch someone which, at the time, made me nauseous.
I dug deep into my angry psyche. I imagined a cloak of hate, despair, futility, and death draped over my shoulders. I began my journey to gather knickknacks for the familial units.
What happened was a bit of a blur. I went from store to store with the roar of Hell in my ears. But, through the miasma of shoppers, something amazing happened. I walked through a pocket of space. No one got within a foot of me. Everyone else was jostled and some were battered & bruised. I walked comfortably and without incident. In fact, I was heading out the door before I realized that I had finished my shopping and made the trip without a scratch.
It was the first time in ~4 months that I smiled.

Gravestomp?

When I went to visit my parents and kin over the recent Thanksgiving holiday, I got Mom to take me to some of the cemeteries down there. She took me to the sites of some of my deceased relatives and we got to walk around a bit and look at some other plots.
The ground at one place was soft, like fresh turned soil. But it was like there everywhere we walked, not just in one spot. The cemetery was terraced on the side of a gently sloping hill and all I could think was that the rain was going to wash it all away one day.
I found some relatives that Mom had forgotten about (but Dad had remembered and confirmed later). There were some places we just couldn't get to that day. I wish I could go back and try again but, alas, I won't get back for many months.
I did happen to glance over at a tombstone just as some orbs manifested. This isn't the first time I've seen them with the naked eye but this time, the sun was still up. I might not have seen them if they didn't pass in front of a dark stone. I attempted to snap some pictures but nothing showed up, at least as far as I can tell. It's possible that I was too slow in getting the camera turned on, focused, and the picture taken to have captured them. Still, it was a very cool experience.

Ch-Ch-Change

Growing up, my primary mode of transportation was my own two legs. Whether walking, running, or biking, I tended to rely upon myself to get from place to place. My friend and I took turns going back and forth to each others' house, about a mile or so apart. I ran errands to the grocery store. I walked to rehearsals. Unless it was raining (and sometimes even then), I was on foot.
I noticed that the traffic lights were not functioning properly one day. There was a police officer manually changing the lights while workers were repairing the malfunction. I got to see the inside of a control box for the automatic traffic light switch. I started paying more and more attention to those boxes; if I could control them, I could bring traffic to a stand-still. mwahahaha! Or, I could make sure we had all green lights when traveling by car. Nifty!
I starting trying to figure out if I could, somehow, control them with my mind. I imagined that I was sending out 'pulses' with my mind, similar to Aquaman on the SuperFriends cartoons. By coaxing or commanding, eventually the light would change. In my mind's eye, I could see the switch moving and hear the characteristic chinks as the mechanism caused the light to change.
At first, I knew it was just coincidence. But I kept at it. Eventually, I began to suspect that I was actually changing the light. Then I knew I was.
Mom was driving us on errands one day. The traffic light we approached had just changed and a timer was involved; it would take approximately 3 minutes for the light to change again (she had timed it; she read that turning the car off for long lights could save on gas so she had timed several lights to see what the cost savings might be). Having just missed the light and knowing we were somewhat pressed for time, I concentrated and the light changed. Not only did it change for us but the whole process of the other light changing from green to yellow to red and our light changing from red to green went much faster than usual -- some cars squeeled as they braked, caught off guard by the sudden change.
Mom was shocked at the light that day. I sat in the passenger seat and looked at the cars caught in the intersection. I made a vow to only use my evil powers for good. Mostly.