ARTICLE: Close Encounters Of The Paranormal Kind: Part Three

Originally published June 22, 2013 on the Bubblews website which no longer exists. I've update this articles and also give additions to this original article

Image~©Melanie Neer~Personal image of my "Samhain" altar

This is the third in a series of articles I'm writing about my past "paranormal" experiences. I invite you to read the first two of which I give a link at the end of this article.

As I previously explained in both prior articles, the mystical, metaphysical and paranormal realms were never strange to me as I grew up in such beliefs due to my way ahead. with it great grandmother. Whenever I had experienced my own paranormal occurrences to me they were normal; they never frightened nor scared me in the least. There was one experience however that was, well, a bit strange even to me. I have to confess I rarely talk about this incident since I can't help thinking that if I did, I could expect a truck with men in white coats coming after me and fitting me in a jacket….But here goes…going to reveal it now.

It was something that took place four years ago and on Halloween night…uh, perfect setting, no? What people don't realize about Halloween is that it's actually based on old Celtic pagan and wicca beliefs and is called Samhain. It is one of the known festivals celebrated by neo-pagans and wiccans of today and is considered our New Year. I say "our" since yes folks, I follow the pagan/wicca path myself.

With Samhain is the belief that the veil between worlds is the thinnest and that the spirits of the dead can visit the living. Such a concept is not only a belief among neo-pagans or wiccans but is also observed and celebrated in other cultures, particularly among people of Hispanic origins, especially in Mexico. In this case the day is known as El Dia De Los Muertos (Day Of The Dead), which by the way has its origins from pre-Columbian times. Many people may be familiar with how the image of the skull predominates El Dia De Los Muertos. Is it no wonder then with our "modern" Halloween that ghosts, ghouls, goblins and skeletons are associated with the holiday itself?

In either case, whether it's a celebration of Samhain, El Dia De Los Muertos or Halloween, it is by no means a "morbid" celebration, but a fond remembrance of those who passed on before us. Since I am of the pagan/wicca path, I too celebrate Halloween/Samhain in my own special way and have a special ritual that I do and have done so ever since I first started following the pagan/wiccan path some twelve years ago.

On this particular Halloween/Samhain in 2009, some nine years ago, I became very reflective, not so much with wanting to honor family members who had passed on, but for some reason I had become rather melancholy with my cats of my past who had left my life. So on Halloween night, I set up my altar that I have in my bedroom, which consists of three candles, my statue of the Ancient Egyptian feline goddess Bast (rather appropriate), my Egyptian type incense holder, and a variety of other items that had special meaning to me. I also decorated my altar with a bouquet of Chrysanthemums, and also with Halloween themed items, such as small pumpkins, fall leaves, and Halloween type candy. Then I went one step further, I opened up a can of cat food and placed it on a plate and placed the plate on my altar.

After my little ceremony, I left the bedroom with the incense still burning and the candles lit and went into the living room area and decided to get some work done in front of my computer. My computer desk is right next to my sofa and I noticed that both my cats that I had at that time, Pyewacket and Kissy were sound, sound asleep on the sofa; they were clearly in full view all the time that I was in front of the computer. At one point while sitting in front of the computer I remembered a book I had in my bedroom that I wanted and decided to get it. Once in the bedroom, I passed by my altar to retrieve the book. As I passed the altar again to go back into the living room, I looked down at the altar and that's when I noticed something. Something was missing. Can you guess? Yes, the plate of cat food was completely empty, not a morsel was on it. Since I can see the living room from my bedroom I still noticed both cats sound asleep, so there was no way either of them could have come into the bedroom and eaten the food.

Perhaps when I think of it, that experience really isn't so odd. I've talked with other pet owners who have had their own "encounters" of pets who had passed on and who have "visited" them; such as seeing a shadowy movement in their peripheral vision, hearing sounds, to even feeling the presence of a former pet hopping on their bed and snuggling up with them as they sleep.

There have been documented cases of people experiencing "encounters" with the spirits of pets, especially with cats. One such good read and of which I highly recommend is Dusty Rainbolt's "Ghost Cats: Human Encounters With Feline Spirits"

Have any of you experienced the presence of a former pet?

Update:

In this article I had mentioned about having two cats at that time, Pyewacket and Kissy. Sadly and very unexpectedly, Pyewacket passed on April 19, 2010. Then on September 1, 2015, my 15 year old Kissy passed on. Not long after Kissy passed on you might say I was given a "sign". I've read countless accounts that often when a "loved" one has passed on, be it a human or pet, they will give a "sign" and sometimes this can be in the form of a feather…yes a feather. Only a week had passed with Kissy's death and I was cleaning my floor, when I noticed something. Yes a small light grey bird's wing feather. The color of the feather was in itself very significant since my Kissy was a grey-stripped tiger cat. Also, there was no reasonable explanation how that feather could have gotten into my place as I have window screens on all my windows.

As you can and might guess, I continue my special "Samhain" ritual in remembrance of former cats that have passed on. I include the urns and a photo of both Pyewacket and Kissy on my altar. It's not unusual to observe something. I include a photo I had taken at one such ritual. See anything? One can clearly see a sort of purple mist in the photo that was by no means apparent by the naked eye, yet shows up in the photo. Coincidence?

To this day, not only I, but my present black cat Ouija "senses" a presence of former cats passed on, as there are times when Ouija stares and stares at one particular spot somewhere and there clearly is nothing that can be seen.

My first article about my "paranormal" experiences:

https://melneer.blogspot.com/2018/04/article-close-encounters-of-paranormal.html

https://melneer.blogspot.com/2018/04/article-close-encounters-of-paranormal.html

My second article about my "paranormal" experiences:

https://melneer.blogspot.com/2018/04/article-close-encounters-of-paranormal_27.html

https://melneer.blogspot.com/2018/04/article-close-encounters-of-paranormal_27.html

ARTICLE: Close Encounters Of The Paranormal Kind: Part Two

Originally published June 18, 2013 on the Bubblews website which no longer exists

Image ©Melanie Neer~Sunrise photo taken at Miami Beach Florida. I chose this image since it looked rather "mystical"

Sometime ago I had written about one of my paranormal experiences I had in my life and I include the link to it at the end of this article should you like to read it.

To me the "paranormal" realm was never a strange or foreign concept, since off and on throughout my life I've had such experiences; ironically to me they were "normal". Two experiences no doubt saved my life.

The one "occurrence" took place during the summer of 1980 when I was 24 years old. I was one of those women who would be plagued by painful cysts every month when I got my period. They would come and go, come and go. Well this one time, a cyst wasn't going away as it usually did, yet I still didn't exactly race to the doctor's to get it checked out. Finally, I gave in and decided to go to the doctor. My doctor was the type where you didn't need to set up an appointment, you just walked in and waited your turn. Upon arriving at my doctor's office though a sign was tacked up on his door indicating he was on vacation and wouldn't be back for a good two weeks or so. The sign also indicated that for any emergency to go to the hospital. I took note of which hospital and went home.

Once home I started to get into my daily yoga routine…I was laying on the floor doing my yoga breathing, my eyes closed and I was nice and relaxed. All of a sudden this very loud booming voice in my mind said, "You need help NOW!" Well maybe to some people if they suddenly hear a loud voice in their heads would probably freak out thinking they were going, well, a bit daft, but as I mentioned since I've experienced "paranormal" type events all my life, it didn't phase me in the least, but I realized, yes, maybe I needed my health problem, my cyst taken care of.

I waited until both my mother and grandmother came home from work and told them that I needed to go to the hospital and told them why; I never had mentioned about my cyst problems before to them and certainly hadn't this time. We got a cab and went over to the ER of the hospital and waited and waited. Once I had a doctor examine me, among other things I had so many blood tests taken it was a wonder I had any blood left at all. Some hours passed by I was admitted to a room and right away hooked up to IV antibiotics. I never exactly questioned my admittance to the hospital, I just kind of took it in stride.

A full week would pass by with my constantly being pumped up with IV antibiotics, and then I was scheduled for surgery to drain out the cyst. All went well and it took another week for my incision to continue to drain and heal and the nurses would change the bandage everyday. Finally I was ready to go home, but before I did one of the attending nurses asked me, "Do you know what your temperature was when you were admitted?" I said no, and never even had thought to ask. She said 106.8. I think my eyes nearly popped out. You see I had absolutely no symptom of a high fever, no dizziness, no fatigue, nada, and it was due to that cyst I had that turned out to be highly infected, thus the antibiotics. Heck, I've felt worse when having a temperature of only 101.

Now we zoom up to May of 1996. I was walking along this very busy area of the neighborhood doing some errands. Upon reaching one street to cross, the light was starting to change against me, but figured I had enough time to cross it. Instead, some "hot rodder" decided to zoom down the street even before the light changed green for him. All I can say is I understand why "roadkill" occurs. Here I was in the middle of the street crossing it, seeing this car coming at me at full speed ahead, and I froze…I just plain couldn't move for some reason. Any second, that car was about to hit me full impact, when suddenly I felt this tremendous push from behind me, pushing me to safety and out of harms way of that speeding car. I was notably shaken up and realized how close I had come to being a fatal statistic. However here was the weird part. When I looked behind me to see who had pushed me out of the way, guess what? No one one was there. Once again I could have been freaked out by such an experience but I wasn't…I realized that some guardian angel no doubt was watching over me and protecting me.

My first article about my "paranormal" experiences:

https://melneer.blogspot.com/2018/04/article-close-encounters-of-paranormal.html

https://melneer.blogspot.com/2018/04/article-close-encounters-of-paranormal.html