Tag Archives: United States

Your Relationship With Your House

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I just finished writing a story where the house is as much a character as the people. It is a snug little cottage that at first, welcomes the new owner but below the surface it hides its own mystery and pain. As I wrote, I thought about the way houses have a personality, a feeling about them good or bad and I wondered how this comes about.

I believe that in some cases it’s because of spirits that still linger. I’ve had enough first-hand experience not to question the possibility of ghosts and things that go bump in the night. But what about places that have no spectral visitors but still elicit an emotional response from visitors. What is it we are feeling?

At the most basic level we are all energy. Thoughts and emotions are no different, just another form of energy. So if a home is filled with loving people, where the events were positive can these energies become imprinted into the very walls and floors? And would the reverse be true, if a building has witnessed trauma, violence and deep unhappiness would that too become part of the fabric of the building.

So what allows a dwelling to record the lives of its previous owners or the events that occurred there? If most building materials are porous and can absorb sound, is it just an accumulation of these sound waves that contribute to the overall feel of a home; much like a sponge absorbing water. Or could it be something more? What if it is more like a relationship that over time becomes an indelible bond between house and homeowner?

I recently read The Bond, Connecting Through The Space Between Us by Lynne McTaggart. In her book she explores the nature of bonds not just between human beings but between our environment, the natural world, our solar system and even the universe. It is a fascinating read and a book I highly recommend.

In discussing Heisenberg’s “quantum field theory” she states the following;

He discovered that at our most fundamental layer of being, our subatomic particles not only aren’t really a definable anything, but also do not remain the same at any moment. . . . All subatomic particles are constantly trading information with their environment and being reshuffled in a dynamic pattern. The universe contains and indeterminate number of vibrating packets of energy that constantly pass energy back and forth as if in an endless game of basketball with the quantum sea of light.

Further she writes:

Nature’s most basic ingredients are bundles of energy that are indistinguishable from the field around it. According to quantum field theory, the individual entity is transient and insubstantial, and particles cannot be separated from the empty space around them. Although you appear the same at any given moment, you are an entirely new batch of subatomic energy with every breath you take.

Rather than a batch of separate things jostling around in empty space, it is more correct to say that fundamental matter is simply a relationship between two indeterminate things: particle energy traded with other particle energy and also with the background Field. It is in fact the Bond between these tiny particles and the background Field that creates everything that we refer to as “matter.

She concludes her description of the relationship between energy and the Zero-Point field with the following:

What this essentially boils down to is that everything we label an object, no matter how large or how heavy, is essentially a collection of electric charges interacting with other energy. The most basic property of matter, its sense of being a solid “something,” is only and entirely due to the Bond between subatomic particles and the background sea of energy.” A subatomic “particle” is simply the seeking of a connection in the space between a big web of energy and a little knot of energy. You and everything around you are simply a collection of charged energy having a relationship.

I know that the above quotes deal with a purely scientific description of an energetic relationship but I’m a fiction writer so I’m allowed to make the next supposition if only as an exercise in creativity.

So if we are energy having a relationship with other energy and the Zero-point Field by constantly exchanging subatomic particles and our environment includes our home what if what was going on was that over time the energy that was once house is now you and vice versa. And in that back and forth relationship would the memories and emotions be part of that exchange?

And what about the house? Over time do we take on the history of the trees that the framing is constructed from, or the feeling of a mountain from which the stone was quarried. And what about the people who built the house, the land that it is situated on or the furniture inside it?

My mind fizzes with the possibilities.

What kind of relationship are you having with your home? Do you have a blissful union or do you require couples counselling? Or maybe it’s time to find a new house mate.

Something to ponder isn’t it?

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The Grey Lady

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Grey Lady

In the United Kingdom, the Grey Lady refers to female ghosts who have died because of the heartless actions of family members or violently by a love that has gone horribly wrong. She is the stuff of legends haunting castles and estates.

Since the 2008 economic downturn, paranormal investigators have discovered an increase in the reports of the Grey Lady phenomenon in North America. In Canada and the United States these Grey Ladies do not haunt the halls of ancient manor homes, like their British counterparts, but have been reported to haunt shopping malls, grocery stores, restaurants, hotels and the occasional gas station. For the average person, her presence is detected by the slightest change in air pressure as she passes by or the sound of footsteps where no earthy presence is seen.

These phantoms have been known to move objects but unlike poltergeists instead of creating disarray they seem to be putting things back in their proper place. Shoppers have experienced this eerie occurrence when they have messed up displays in their hunt for bargains only to turn around and find the items put back neatly on the shelf. Also when customers stand at the till to purchase their items their money disappears and their purchases placed in a bag for their convenience as if by magic. Hotel guest have reported leaving their rooms in a mess only to return hours later to a tidy room, the bed made and the bathroom sparkling.

Who are these grey ladies, these ghosts that haunt these places? After several months of investigation using the latest technology, ghost hunters have discovered these Grey Ladies are not the disembodied spirits of women that have passed on but living breathing individuals who because they no longer matter to society have slowly become invisible. They are not young, beautiful, famous or rich. The majority of these Grey Ladies are of a certain age, most exist on limited means and are single or divorced.

Over time, being overlooked and dismissed by society, these women have come to accept that they are merely the unseen workforce there to serve the entitled, rude public in their frenzied grasping need to purchase and possess more stuff.

But all is not lost for these women of the in between. They can be saved from their immaterial existence by some simple intervention. The next time you are out shopping put down your cell phone, make eye contact with the woman behind the counter, who serves your meal or cleans your hotel room. Say a sincere hello, put back things you’ve picked up but no longer want to purchase, don’t bark out what you are looking for instead ask politely and most importantly say thank you.

If you do these simple things you can watch as these women who were once invisible take solid form again. Let them know that they are seen and appreciated. That they exist. That they matter.

Note: If you’d like to check out the story of a ghostly Grey Lady there is a famous American one said to haunt the Willard Library in Evansville Indiana. You can check out Louise Willard’s story here.