I Am Here

There are marks left behind from everyone, everywhere, all the time and throughout the ages; an ancient drawing on a cave, a dusty journal hidden in a box, painted self portraits, books, writings, graffiti on a wall, a carving on a tree, “I was here,” …and sometimes its a misunderstood paranormal occurence, an obscure EVP, an unexplainable movement or sound in the middle of the night. The message is the same. I was here. I am here still.

I log everything about a case in files that include history and research, preliminary notes (a client’s interview or from anyone I’ve spoken to about the site), base readings before investigations which include several different kinds of log sheets, thoughts during the investigation and thoughts afterward. I download audio, video and photographs on CD’s to keep a good archived record of the case and include a hand typed transcript of the audio that highlights normal voices versus paranormal voices-audible/disembodied or EVP. When I review the transcripts it’s easier for me to see a clear picture of the interaction and a conversation that might have taken place. Easier to see if the answers truly correlate not only to the question but the entire conversation. I enjoy looking back at the transcripts and more often than not see fascinating stories unfold there.

I had a series of back to back investigations last year where I recorded a broad array of EVP’s in a short amount of time. All very diverse situations, history’s and stories when researched…but I began to see a recurring phrase or theme when I looked back through the EVP’s in the cases. I noted it in my journal…

“January 11th….I was sitting in my office alone reviewing a manuscript when my printer started acting as if it was prompted to print. I was not near my computer, the screen was closed and as I looked up straight at the printer I saw the most unusual thing. It took a moment for what I was seeing to really sink in. I stared a few seconds more, then rushed into action pulled my digital audio recorder out of my brief case, pressed record and clumsily placed it on my desk. Yeah. My printer was unplugged.

I stared at the plug laying on the ground. Stared at the printer. My computer. They weren’t connected.

In case something was trying to get my attention, I recorded the sounds, about 8 minutes total. I was alone in the house. At one point walked away from the digital recorder to inspect a strange sound in another room. When I reviewed the audio, at 22 seconds I heard someone say, “hello.” It was definitely not me. And a few phrases were spoken into the recorder while I was out of the room. When I returned from the other room I asked a few questions out loud. I cannot believe the responses I heard….!

Me: “Hello….is there someone here who would like to say something?”

EVP: “Can you hear me?”

Me: “My name is Michelle…..”

EVP: “HEAR ME….”

Me: “Do you need anything? Do you have a message for me?”

EVP: “She can hear us….”

Me: “I don’t know if I can help…but I’ll try.”

EVP: “You have work to do.”

I was pretty shaken by that encounter. And the ones that followed. A series actually of the printer making funny noises like someone was pushing buttons, different hours and times, not every day and with no pattern to it, me grabbing the recorder and hearing things like, “Help me. Help me please.” “Are you there?” “The clues are right there.” They answered my questions in an intelligent and logical fashion with little randomness at all. Eventually the “printer sessions” stopped. Mainly because I became so deeply emotional about them, what they meant and worried about what felt like a doorway that had opened in my office where spirits were coming in, taking a number and waiting for me to ask them what they wanted to talk about today. Being a paranormal counselor was NOT something I was ready for and as my work outside the house grew more intense I knew I needed to close that door and use my office as my personal space. Have a safe, quiet zone where I could reflect and take a break- instead of perpetuating the work seemingly non-stop. My final evp session at the house, one of my favorites, taught me an important lesson about not relying too much on instruments as much as my own instincts. At least until our instruments evolve into more accurate tools that truly measure what our gut sometimes tells us.

I don’t exactly know what the “printer sessions” meant. I know there were many different voices that came through; men, women, children. I could tell a difference in sex and age of who was speaking. Never got a lot of information. I was fascinated that they were walking in, getting my attention, asking for help, saying hello, telling me their name or something important they wanted me to know and then seemed to move on. I’d wondered if the death of a loved one made me more open so spirits and guides could console or reach out. Wondered if just my new found deeper seriousness on the subject opened the door. In the end, what they wanted and what I gave them seemed to be nothing more than acknowledgment. Yes I can hear you, yes I know you are there. Yes, I will tell others to pay attention, too. I hope I did not miss the lesson.

A good friend who is a medium told me that we all have a psychic beacon over our heads that we have the power to turn up or down. She said, “girl, yours is all the way up right now and they can see you from a mile away! They’re coming in droves to speak especially since you are listening. Turn it down a notch. Draw some boundaries.” I don’t know if that was truly the case, but that’s exactly what I did.

The following weekend I went with my team to an old site to try out some equipment and test a theory. There was a great civil war burial ground tucked away in a small section of the site. At one point I was drawn to that area, walked from my group and ventured there alone. I could still see them in the distance but I can remember feeling a bit like Nemo swimming away from his friends to the edge of the abyss…the darkness of the ocean. It was quiet, ominious…felt so far removed even though in the scheme of things it really wasn’t. My ears popped, my skin tingled and my heart raced….signs I would learn to interpret as indications an energy was very near. I asked a few questions and suddenly had the bizarre sensation that I was being rushed and surrounded by something massive…so strong. I could barely breathe and my heart was beating so quickly it felt as if it had stopped. I remember feeling as if a man on a horse was circling me fast and out of the blue, remembering the recent lecture on boundaries said, “I need you to give me some space! Back off a little, ok? We can talk, I will listen…but just back out of my space a bit, please.”

On my recorder, he responds as clearly and strongly as the energy I felt surround me. ” SEE ME!”

Hear me. See me. Know that I was here and I am here still. This is the message we need to be taking to everyone at the end of the day. We want to know if there is life after death…if we endure. They seem to need us to know just as desperately that yes indeed there is and yes, we do.

-M

Click link to review evp audio file, “The clues are right there.”

Follow Me

Alice on the edge of an adventure....

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I have never been satisfied watching a magician perform illusion with awe alone…willing to simply walk away after the show. I, like so many others, want to know the how, what and why. Some enjoy the show and leave. I’m the one in trouble for stealing away behind the curtains digging through the magician’s box, studying props, trying desperately to piece the puzzle together logically so it makes sense.

Does that mean I enjoy it any less? That somehow I ruin it, miss out on the pleasure in the mystery? No. The intense fascination drives the desire to understand it. The understanding of it makes it that more beautiful. To truly know the intricacies and complexity of matters stirs a deeper appreciation and awe within me…making it more magical than ever, weaving it tangibly into my reality.

Tearing things apart to see how they work then trying to piece them back together makes me value whatever the object is a bit more.

I have never been one to sit back and say “OK” when someone tells me I should believe or think a certain way simply because they said so, or someone more important than me has said so. I want to read, look, search, research, touch, explore, experience and see it for myself.

I’ve applied this to most everything I do and have done in life. From being a child, to studying religion, to my own ever winding trails of a spiritual journey, to being a mother, to investigating paranormal phenomenon.

Which brings me to a day last fall when my life was flipped inside out.

The journal writings I wish to share begin shortly after this day as, during that time, I was in no way able to process, to think. It was the worst day of my life. And in a twist that often stings painfully when I allow myself to think of it, the same moment was a catalyst to the most amazing journey and adventure I could ever imagine.

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December 10, 2008

I can’t believe he is gone.

The day of October 17th, 2009 I was with my daughter in Sacramento at a Mik Veh….participating in a 5000 year old ritual at a sacred bath house, saying prayers and asking the Universe to protect me on a new journey. “Baruch atai Adonai, Eloheinu melech haOlam…asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav….”  Blessed are you God, Sovereign of the Universe who gives us responsibility to immerse ourselves in the water of life…

In the afternoon, my daughter drove to Skydive Lodi where our family has jumped for years to meet with my sons Karl and Dakota so they could make a dive together. It was a beautiful crisp, blue day and the dive went well. On video looking back, they seemed happy. Full of love and light.

Later in the evening, Karl, 22, was distraught in a fight with his girlfriend….and took his own life.

I stood by his body in the emergency room, hooked to wires and machines. Rubbed the soft skin on his face above his beautiful eyes-green with flecks of gold and long thick black eyelashes. I squeezed his had three times, just as we used to do when he was a little boy, for “I Love You.” I turned to leave the room knowing I would never see him again.

I’ve learned a lot in these last few months about what really matters….and what matters very little. The grief was so thick for weeks there was little breathing, speaking, eating, moving. The times, years, spent being at odds with his biological mother seems so trivial and pointless. There is so much to think, to do, to say. To question.

I’m surprised by who has stood beside me, been there for me. Some of the people who rose up and stepped forward were not who I expected. Those who chose to retreat and Not be there shocked me even more. An interesting test of friendship and love. I realized in those moments, too, that knowing what to do or what to say to someone you care about going through is can be as difficult a task and decision as any. I learned quite clearly what the answer was to that question…and exactly how I would be a friend to someone in the future who lost and grieved like this.

And among all that, as if it weren’t enough, I find myself once again at odds with my belief about life and death.

There have been some strange things happening here, too. We’ve all been experiencing moments that make us wonder if he’s trying to give us a message. I’m worried we’re just grieving and want it to be more than what it is, but, a few instances have been very unusual. Coincidence? I don’t know.

For example, three days after Karl died Dakota and I got into an argument. He wanted to get in his car and leave the house, I worried that he was grieving, angry at me and too emotional to drive away safely. We’d been standing in the dining room. A bottle of water was on the table beside us. I stormed away after asking him not to leave home. He stormed away in the other direction. But. He stopped halfway down the hall to his room and decided to turn back around, to find me and tell me more about why he WAS leaving and I couldn’t stop him. What DID stop him was tracking back through the dining room and running into the water bottle. Placed right side up. In the center of the floor of the hallway. He knew I hadn’t put it there. He hadn’t put it there. The who, what, why and how made him stop…breathe….and stay home. Just in case his brother was trying to get his attention.

There were 2 other incidences with other family members revolving around water that day. It meant something to us…because we all joked about how he had this thing about drinking water and giving everyone else a hard time about the need for us to drink lots of it, too.

There were bigger things that happened, too.

Like…..the book.

A year ago Karl walked through the house telling me animated stories about what he was learning in his physics class at SOU. He spoke of his professor, Dr. Starkey, who’d written an amazing manuscript called, “The Quantum Field and How it Affects Your Life.” We had intense conversations about the book, all the theories and ideas inside it and surrounding it. I will never forget his passion and excitement when speaking of it. It stuck with me, affected me on a deep level. He brought me the manuscript one day and I asked if I could read through it when I had time then give it back. I never got the chance to read it….or to give it back.

Now, I found myself being hit with references over and over about quantum physics…daily. An image of the book keeps hitting me square in the face, with the thought “go find it and read it!” But I kept stopping myself thinking the only reason I want to go find it and read it is out of guilt for having put it away and not going over it when he gave it to me, continuing the discussion. Out of an insistence that I not allow my grief to control what is happening around me in a potentially false manner…I refused to go looking for the book.

Until one night it was just too strong to ignore; the image, the coincedence of meeting people who off the cuff refer to the quantum field and even the quantum physicist, Andy Coppock, that I met on a recent investigation. He talks about physics often reminding me of Karl… eyes sparkling with excitement speaking of theory and ideas. That night all of this hit me hard. I sat at my desk processing paranormal evidence that seemed too good to be true, words from people that seem too coincidental to be real … and there it is again. The image of the book in my head. I stand from my desk and turn to my bookshelves-not certain it’s even over there-or what THAT book has to do with ghosts?

I went straight to the first set of shelves, slid my hands across the bindings of hundreds of books until I saw the rough purple edge of the manuscript. I rifled through the pages first in case there was a note stuck between them from Karl…or a bit of hand writing somewhere along the edge of a page. Nothing. I almost put it away thinking out loud, “I am NOT going to find the answer to why my son is dead in this book!” And just as I went to slip it back into its place on the shelf, I decided to open it to a random page and read what was there.

Typed around 75 times was this: PAY ATTENTION …followed by a page that said “there is no such thing as coincidence.”

Later that night I did my first official EVP session for Karl. I’d been too afraid to do one before. Not knowing what would happen. Not wanting the pain to resurface. Not wanting to keep him hanging on unnecessarily because of me. I gathered his high school letter jacket, random personal items, pictures…the quantum field book. The book which spoke often about how studying physics was like being Alice in Wonderland falling down the rabbit hole. I talked with another family member sitting with me during that EVP session about that and the joke Andy and I told each other back and forth about “who was going to follow who down the rabbit hole?”

The EVP answer on my audio recorder from that session in conjunction with the references to Alice in Wonderland and the rabbit hole?

“Follow ME.“

And so….I did.

(Click link to hear EVP: FOLLOW ME)

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” -Mother Teresa

Welcome to my parajournal…

I started writing about some of the experiences I’d encountered about this time last year after my paranormal journey suddenly took a strange and unexpected turn. A twist catalyzed by the death of a loved one, an investigation at a very interesting place, an obscure copy of a quantum physics manuscript and the not so coincidental meeting of people with whom we would all find ourselves tumbling down the rabbit hole together…each having a unique piece of the paranormal puzzle the other needed.

In the last year I have been all over the country chasing answers that sprang up quite suddenly in one crazy night in the dark of a dusty attic. Thousands of new friends and thousands of messages from the Other Side later…my entire world has been flipped inside out. I’ve had to reconsider every thought I’ve ever had, every answer I thought I knew and pause before naysaying anything, any story I hear or that another person, gratefully, chooses to share with me…usually prefaced by the phrase, “I hope you don’t think I’m crazy…but…” Crazy, for me it seems, is the new normal.

In sharing the journals, notes and EVP messages with you…I hope that perhaps you’ll find a piece of that puzzle that you need, too….and share your own stories, concerns, questions that my words spark-maybe igniting a new conversation that will push us all one step closer. Together.

I wouldn’t have been ready to publish this last year as it was happening. There were too many moments I was confused and didn’t understand which I have a little more clarity about now. Too many times I thought I knew what was going on but clearly didn’t. Even today….these last few weeks…having witnessed mind blowing evidence and experiences happening within the research – I’m not quite ready to discuss it. Still mulling it over. Trying to understand it all. Although, when the time is just right to talk about it, I’ll be excited and more than ready to share it.

I spent some time thinking about whether I really wanted to publish these thoughts, ideas and experiences. The decision was tough as all of this is deeply meaningful and personal. In the end, the main spirit of being involved in paranormal work lies not only in finding answers for ourselves but, for many of us, in helping others get the answers they need too. It’s an interesting side note that the entities we encounter need just as much help, often have just as many questions and we have found ourselves all tangled up together in this massive but intricate ball…connected…helping each other rather symbiotically. The foundation and key seems to all lay on this idea of Help.

So, I hope very much….this helps you. I must have asked myself a thousand times… “who would care enough to read this? And why?” I guess the very best answer that perpetually springs up is…Me. I will read it. When I am old and gray and, maybe, 90. Me when I can sit back with a cup of hot tea and decide I’m ready to look back again and be reminded of the journey from here to there. Me, hopefully still working out and doing yoga…not looking too bizarre with my shriveled up tattoos. Me getting ready for the next leg of the journey…..perhaps the greatest journey of them all. Hoping to be reminded of things that will help me on my way. Hopefully with far more answers than questions. Hopefully with children and family thriving. Hopefully still ridiculously in love with my soul mate. Hopefully…..smiling at these words and shaking my head at how much I thought I knew….and how far off I was from time to time…and how much more I learned.

Don’t mock me too much, old me. Tip a little something stronger in that tea…..and begin the journey back to where it all began…

-M

With Cristl Phillips, Head of SJVPR in the sound room going over investigations audio. 11/2009