Dinner, drinks, endless poker.
Collections, brass knuckles, mort-
adella.
https://www.amazon.com/Jan-Olandese/e/B071FK9L75
Author: janowrite
About Ghosts: Have You Seen One?
If so, here are some questions you might pose about what you’ve observed. These queries may help you make some sense of your experience.
Did you notice:
*A drop in room temperature? Did it feel cold?
*Did the ghost seem sentient, was it aware of your presence?
*Did the ghost appear to have a message for you, or was it something unconnected with you that you simply witnessed?
*Did the ghost look like a regular, three-dimensional person, or was it translucent? White, or Technicolor?
*Did the ghost walk through a wall, or appear unaware of current surroundings?
*Did the ghost communicate with you, either verbally or mentally?
*Did the ghost express emotion: angry, sad, happy?
*How long was the ghost visible? If not visible, how long did you hear or otherwise sense its presence?
*Did you recognize the ghost?
*How did you feel? Frightened? Calm? Intrigued?
*Was anyone with you, and did they see/hear/sense anything? I once saw and heard something ghostly – the person in the next room heard it but saw nothing – still, it was corroborative and helpful to know I wasn’t the only one.
Perhaps this list will help you clarify and better understand what you’ve seen (and maybe not – it’s worth a shot!). Good luck (and happy interpreting!).
https://www.amazon.com/Jan-Olandese/e/B071FK9L75
Photo: Public Domain. By Анонимный художник. Illustration from Walter Woodbury’s Photographic Amusements, 1896 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Mob Haiku: Day at the Races
Pinstriped guys peruse new scratch
sheets. Which horse? Crossing pinky
ringed fingers.
https://www.amazon.com/Jan-Olandese/e/B071FK9L75
Photo: By Paul Kehrer (Flickr: Win, Place, Show) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
About Ghosts: Things to Observe
When you read a ghost story (true or fiction), you’re tapping into an ancient thread of universal myth, legend and folklore. Presumably, ghosts have something to tell us. Next time you come across a ghostly tale, ask yourself:
What is the relationship between the ghost and the haunted (or the haunter)?
What are the emotional/spiritual issues presented by the characters?
What appear to be the ghost’s issues – what is it doing? Is there a goal you can discern, or not? How do you think the ghost or its issues are related to those of the character(s) who view the ghost?
In other words, what does the purpose of the ghost seem to be – merely a literary device, or is it more?
What is the “moral of the story” or any take-away lessons? Is it a “curiosity killed the cat?” story? Or perhaps a “sorcerer’s apprentice” yarn, in which a character messes with something over his head and later pays the price? Or something else?
How does the ghost/the experience of the ghost or paranormal manifestation in the story reveal ideas about spirituality? And what ideas are those?
How might the ghost reflect the subconscious mind of the viewer?
Does the ghost seem to be an archetype or common symbol? If so, of what?
Pay attention to the affect, or nonverbal presentation/appearance of both the ghost and the character who interacts with it. What does the affect tell you? Is the character fidgety? Calm? Is the ghost focused on anything? Is it sentient? Is it aware of the viewer or generally irrelevant to the viewer?
There are more questions you might pose – see what comes to mind! Think about these queries when you read or hear a ghost story – you’ll get a much bigger picture!
( © Jan Olandese 8/17/17)
Mob Haiku: Sabbath
Sunday dinner at Big John’s:
Baked ziti with cheese. Plan the
heist to come.
Mob Haiku: Charity
After Paulie disappeared,
we took his clothes to Salva-
tion Army.
Ghosts: A True Story of a Haunted House
(from About Ghosts: A Useful Handbook by Jan Olandese https://www.amazon.com/About-Ghosts-Handbook-Jan-Olandese/dp/1521535531/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
I once lived in a house which contained ghosts. There was no clap of thunder or enormous event, but a series of small ones, gradually building up.
It was a two story colonial house, about two hundred years old. It had fourteen rooms which led into each other rather than opening off of a hallway. The house had original wallpaper and in some of the windows, original glass. At the time it was quite beautiful and had been tastefully semi-restored. It was on a hillside in a rural area overlooking an inlet of the Atlantic.
The first thing we noticed happened in the downstairs room we’d elected to use as the master bedroom. It had a fireplace, a bay window and a water view.
It also had a ghost view. We felt watched in there. At night it was hard to sleep, the sense of someone’s eyes boring into one was overwhelming. Our dog, a Newfoundland, would follow us through the house but refused to enter that room. She would get to the threshold and then lean backwards, and shiver a little. After a few nights and without really talking about it, we mutually agreed to move upstairs. The new bedroom was without incident – until much later.
Funny small things started to occur. Things started to disappear from one place, then appear in a completely unlikely one. For example, a book would vanish from a room upstairs and be found in the refrigerator.
There was one other room in the house that made us uneasy. It was an upstairs room, off the back staircase, that we used as a storage place for extra belongings and books. It had a creepy atmosphere and we never went there unless necessary. We’d leave as soon as we’d got what we come for. Others who had stayed at the house commented about this room: it wasn’t just us.
An odd thing about that room was that it was located directly over the Franklin stove, and there were open vents from the floor below for the heat to rise. It should have been the warmest room in the house, but it was always very cold, and colder than rooms next to it.
One night we had guests for dinner. While we were chatting downstairs, we heard doors opening and closing, deadbolts being slid and footsteps walking from one end of the house to the other (starting from the cold upstairs room). We looked at one another – it was funny because had anyone been upstairs, these would be quite normal sounds. But we all knew that all the people in the house were sitting round the table. We all went on with dinner.
We lived there for nine months. Things remained static but we had increasingly uneasy moments of feeling observed. It came to a climax one night. My then spouse, who was not the type to make this kind of thing up (and who could hardly believe it himself) said he tried to wake me and couldn’t (I am a very light sleeper, so that was odd, too).
He saw a series of small lights floating around the doorway. They then coalesced into a form, that of a woman in very old fashioned garb. She approached. He said she felt neutral, not against us but not necessarily for us. She spoke to his mind somehow, telepathically, and relayed that there were other entities in the house and that one was angry and would be dangerous to us if we didn’t leave soon.
After sharing this, the ghost disappeared. My husband was convinced it was real, and given the atmosphere in the house, we decided to move a little sooner rather than later. There were no further incidents except this:
In the cold room, the one where we kept extra things, my ex had his pilot logbook. This was essential for him in terms of employment. It disappeared from there. We looked everywhere but it didn’t turn up. We moved to an apartment in town while waiting for our next home to be built. We moved there.
I was unpacking boxes (yes, two moves later) when I found the log book. I hadn’t packed it. This was strange enough on its own: but on the day that log book appeared, my husband was notified that he had been selected for a competitive aviation slot.
***
Mob Haiku: I Hair Ya
Carla’s big hair: teased updo
Frosting-kitted, feathered bangs,
Aqua Net.
Mob Haiku: Nailing It
Annette’s manicure: curved, Sea
Green. Sparkling Hello Kittys
grace the tips.
https://www.amazon.com/Jan-Olandese/e/B071FK9L75
Photo: Steve Jurvetson on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/4735523367)
Haiku: A-Wake
My wake: I lay, faking sleep,
made up, lacquered hair. Speechless
for a change.
