Owls @ MindSay 
Savannah's costume is one I made last week. I was pretty busy!
There was a fabulous falconry show. The guy knew his stuff and was really down to earth. I was envious a bit. It has been a dream of mine since I was very little to be into falconry. This one was called "Fluffy".
A necklace I loaned Nomad.
Spotted her through the crowd.
This one is called "Jack" because he is blind in one eye.
A better view of her costume. I didn't add any boning to the corset though I probably should have.
Here is a view of my dress I made for this year's fair. It's not quite any time period but a medley of them. I wanted to create a "mourning gown". Like my Edward Gorey pose? Haha.
The whole time watching this beautiful fellow I was thinking of Myclette. I was lucky enough to capture him winking.
I do have quite a few other pictures that I would love to post but I wont because of keeping anonymity for certain family members. So unless I get permission I will have other pictures not from the Renn Faire for tomorrow.
While at the Renaissance Festival, went to a shop where you could look up your surname and see if you have a family crest. I found one for my dad's surname and his mother's maiden name. I bought a two sided key chain that displayed both of his family's coat of arms. I wanted to look for my mother's maiden name, but I didn't have time.
Yesterday, I went to the company's website to look up my mom's maiden name and I pulled up her family crest. One of the animals depicted at the bottom of the crest was an OWL! Those of you who read my blog regularly, know the significance of owls to me. Coincidence????
Here's the website. It is a lot of fun and it sells nice products at reasonable prices.
Just about anyone who has worked as a professional psychic has a tale or two to tell about participating in the investigation of a haunting. And just about anyone who has ever trained to be a priest has had to do their fair share of serving to calm the nerves of people who were forced to deal with the extraordinary. I'm not a scientist, but I have befriended some, and every once and a while I get invited to tag along on the occasional ghost hunt. In the car or van, we talk about our theories on whether there is an afterlife or argue how can God let spirits of the dead wander the world all lost and addle brained... I can't give you, or them, answers. All I know is what I sense and can only, as humanly possible, interpret from those sensations what I surmise to be true. It's still a guessing game for the living. The only way to find out the truth is to die.
My first time as a ghost hunter happened when I was still something of a freshman Witch and it was really just an excuse to party. I was in college, had joined a small group of entertaining aspiring parapsychologists who liked to annually walk through the Schmeekle Reserve to search for paranormal activity -- basically a spooky nature walk with an added benefit of a good ol' fashioned booze fest afterwards. This was in the days before digital cameras were of common use, and all we had to rely upon was an old tape recorder and 35mm cameras. It felt more like a chase after fairies than ghosts, really. Sometimes October is really cold, but that Hallow's Eve of 1990 was warm and bright.
I don't know about you, but I have discovered I have the uncanny ability to scare the beejeezus out of people, especially guys who normally aren't freaked out by things that giggle in the dark. That night was no exception. Now, mind you, we were all college students so ya gotta cut some of these guys some slack. I would've been more impressed if they had been professionals. I'll be freaking out professionals much, much later. But my first time ghost hunting in the woods was special. I don't know if it was normal protocol or what, but this night was to be what I understood to be an unconventional investigation; they were going to let the unseasoned psychic girl lead them. I was all game. Not because I wanted to show off, but curious about what I could get out of this experience and wondering if I really was psychic or not. I had already participated in some of those blind card thing tests and managed to average a 60% accuracy -- interesting but not enough for me to feel comfortable claiming that I was psychic. I was still under the impression that psychics were the types that KNEW the future, not just predicted it as part of some parlor game. Even at 19, I knew how to tease the best with the Tarot and it was getting easier and easier to pick up things on the willing stranger or two. How could being the least bit psychic prove to be a boon to student ghost hunters? We were soon to find out.
We stopped a few times around the man made Lake Joanis to take pictures and to record myself calling the spirits and asking, "Is anyone here who would like to speak to us?" I didn't sense anything out of the ordinary, just the usual sounds of nighttime woodsy activity. But what we all distinctively heard was the sound of very loud breathing... A distinct deep growl of breath, coming out in seemingly labored, short huffs. We all stood still and quiet. The breathing noise got louder. The voice activated tape recorder rolled. The breathing was getting closer. In the moonlit dark I saw the trio of guys' faces look to me to be the brave one to do something, maybe not just sniff it out, but get whatever it was out of its hiding place. They wanted photographic evidence of a haunting, dammitt! So I swayed as softly as I could toward the breathing noise. The noise grew quiet, but now I could tell what direction it was coming from. I leaned into the trees. Branches arched into my long hair like the fingernails of an old woman reaching for my attention. Leaves crunched underneath me. And then...
It happened.
Out from directly behind me flew a Great Horned Owl. The guy with the camera dropped to his feet and squealed in perfect falsetto. The camera fell somewhere into the leaves but flashed once. The bird of prey had literally been so close behind me that I felt the breezy brush of its wings over my head. It was a nice feeling. That I had come so close to such a beautiful and mysterious thing. The other guys ran off. I started to laugh. Camera guy, from that night forward, has always given me a sheepish grin, as if he felt that there was something about me a bit too... I dunno, creepy? And the creepy stuff didn't stop there, or so I was told. On our way back to the Village Apartments that lay across the road from the reserve, I stopped for a moment at the sensation that that there was a person in front of me. Now the guys thought I was pushing the envelope.
"No, seriously, someone's right next to me," I told them. I closed my eyes and concentrated a little on this sensation. I felt I needed to look down. Right at my toes was a very large fox snake. "Great," one of the student ghost hunters exclaimed at my discovery, "this is the very last time I go into the woods with you, Val." I nudged the snake with my toe and it crawled back into the bushes.
We didn't find ghosts, but I found out that night that I felt most at home in place filled with creatures other people may not have taken notice of.
Drunkenoso loves haikus. He has come up with some rather interesting ones. I decided to write this little ditty today.
Showing 1 - 5. [ Next ]