Just a wonderfully weird story - fits into my world-view rather nicely and told by a man who claims to be a police officer.. something I can believe, look at the detail.

The picture of the tree and swirly thing is from Christmas 2 years ago. I noticed it didn't transfer from its old home. The old house is a wonderful ghost picture from the web. I really suggest googling "ghost " someday. There are a lot of sights, discussion of not only legends and folklore, but, also, modern paranormal and many everyday experiences of the paranormal .  The swirly thing is considered a fast moving orb or a spirit tunnel among those who study the paranormal. If it was a ghost I have no idea who was paying us a call. More than likely a family member.

 Multiply is new to me and I am still learning how to make it do what I want it to do, so I beg patience. I brought over most of old articles from Yahoo 360 because I am just egotistical enough to like what I write and wish to preserve it. I am going to keep my old blog and convert it into a place to post recipes and needlework, even posting my own patterns up there if it lasts. I don't know if Yahoo is going to survive, though and I hate wasting my time and effort.
More Ghost Stories :
Nearly a ghost story, first : My husband and I were camping. I had begged to go. Leon had bought all the gear and prepared us for the trip. I was laying in my sleeping bag and couldn't sleep. I had been terrified walking in the dark to our camp site Friday night. I saw monsters and gigantic creatures, heard owls.. and, well - you know what a city girl can become when she is actually in the country for the first time -- I mean, really, really, in the country. .. no ghosts, just total hysterical fear and I wasn't about to tell Leon, either. About half way through a sleepless night I decided to try soul travel, hadn't done it in a while but what the heck anything would be better than the terror I felt. I concentrated (and there is a way to do it, trust me.) and started to rise from my body when I saw a form standing over me. It was a guardian I had seen several times before. "YOU KNOW THAT THIS ISN'T GOOD FOR YOU !!!!!! Stay ! " his hand pressed down on my chest and I went back down to my uncomfortable and sleepless body.  "But... But... but, well.what right have you...?" I stammered. Bossy people even in eternity. Here is the freaky part of the story: my chest hurt the next day where his hand had pressed.

One of the most fantastic sighting of ghosts I ever had was on a trip down to St. Augustine Fl. in the summer of 1970. (I was 18/19) I was with my whole family and was pretty much trapped into whatever itinerary they wanted but  I did enjoy the fort in St. Augustine, Fl. - well, most of it.

I wasn't thinking of ghosts that moment but got a shock when I walked into one of the rooms. On the walls were men manacled and starving - their clothes hanging off their emaciated bodies, torn and even bloodied. I felt that they had been tortured. I think I saw 4 or 5 men. I was so stunned I could not but stare in horror. Was anyone else seeing this?   I was not in the formal tour so I just had walked into the room, alone. I didn't see them with my mortal eyes... but with my spiritual. I felt pity but knew I was seeing what had been a very long time ago. I didn't run. I just walked out of the room to begin breathing again. The formal tour was out there and the park ranger was explaining how prisoners had been walled up and left to die in that room. I knew that already so I walked up to the allure to see the sun and breath fresh air. I could have sworn I smelled the foul odors of men dying in their own wastes.
In Halloween 1979 we moved into our present house after moving to the Northwest in the year before. When we toured the house I didn't feel anything so I did not think it was haunted in any fashion. I was careful about that sort of thing because while ghosts can been the spice in the sauce they can also be damn annoying and even dangerous. The next spring I was laying in bed around 8 AM (always being a late raiser!) I saw in my mind the ghost of the woman we bought the house from walk through the front door... didn't hear any material world sounds - just saw her do it. I didn't get up to greet her. I had known she was dying and I realized she must have done so recently. I don't see ghosts, I perceive them and even 'hear' them most of the time.
"Hello Fay, you must have died of your illness. I'm sorry."
"I couldn't leave.." she said "Are you happy with the house.?"
"Oh, yes, Fay, very happy... we love it. Our first home. Thank you... Go to God, now and rest. You don't belong here. Don't worry about earth, the house is fine, you don't belong here any more."
 She just stood in the door way and nodded, turned and walked out the front door as if she was still in material body.
Poor lady! worried about the house? I didn't hear this through my ears but in my mind. The front door was not open, by the way. I checked. I saw her in February, later I saw her son. She had died in December of brain cancer. I wanted to tell him but I knew he was a Protestant Christian and would be upset so I didn't. (Chicken!) I would have been comforted if someone said my mom was doing well in eternity... but a heavy-duty protestant? Wasn't so sure it would be belief, fear or hope he would feel.
Without the house being haunted most of my experiences back in the 1980's were outside of the home - until something arose out of the yard that I will talk about in a moment.  There is a corner in Seattle - I would pass it going to the main library for research on my novels and later on my foray into higher education. Its directly across the street from the main library on 4th & Madison (I think the new one is further north?) Well, every time I walked past that corner I would see and hear things from the 1800's. Some of them scandalous, others very violent and at least one murder. Pike Street market is also haunted. Noticed it immediately. I would call it the first basement floor. There used to be a bead store there. I am not sure quite who, my mother said she saw a woman. I have read it is the daughter of  the Indian chief Seattle is named for. We felt several spirits in the floors beneath the main market.
There was a haunting here, in the house, later in that decade. I think I caused it by giving a very ancient spirit, my energy. I was experimenting during that time with all kinds of spirituality & psychic disciplines : meditation, Tarot, candle watching, a little witchcraft, reading a tremendous amount of ancient and modern occult literature, I even studied other religions, looking for a Spiritual Path... something deep in the earth awoke and invaded the house. It was an evil Indian shaman whose body is partly buried in this very mundane yard of mine. I was honestly scared stiff. It is one thing to read about evil - another thing to encounter it. And totally terrifying to have to defend yourself.  I still don't like to talk about it because, well, I blamed myself... if I hadn't been dabbling in mystical or occult things he would not have gained as much power as he had. I was also researching the Christian Path, by the way and that irritated him more than anything else I was doing. I think He attacked me for that reason, alone. Some of the haunting were very mundane things ... His face in the bathroom window ... or in the wash room window that looks in the same direction - His hand would appear also and try to grasp mine when I was closing windows. He attacked me in my bedroom one night. I won't tell you how but I have always believed he meant me real spiritual harm, perhaps, even physical harm. It was like something out a really bad movie. I was way over my spiritual head and knew it. I asked for help and used everything I knew, everything my mom had told me,even asked a priest to come over for prayers and began to pray to Christ very sincerely for one of the first times in my adult life. There is an old saying about there being no atheists in fox holes, goes double when the battle field is a spiritual one.  My husband admitted to me that he was seeing the same things I was. Even a neighborhood friend saw him sitting under my cherry tree on a bear skin rug.  How do you lay a ghost ? - not a friend or a family member - but something nasty? I asked Christ for help and every time I did, He came through for me.
 ( Believe or not, I am only reporting to you my own experiences.Christ is a choice. )
  Slowly, the haunting faded. Every so often I feel something but its a shadow of a shadow... easily mistaken for a memory of a fear I once had. Sometimes knowledge comes to us easily. Sometimes, it comes the hard way. That haunting was definitely knowledge coming the hard way to your's truly! 
 I even grew herbs that were supposed chase evil spirits away. Most of all I learned how to keep my energy to myself - to block its use by others - building psychic walls is not easy but very necessary. I learned a mighty spiritual law - one of the major ones. Ghosts don't have a lot of power in and of themselves. They must feed off the living or from the environment. That is why there are so many reports of cold spots in haunted houses and drained batteries from paranormal investigators. Why there are so many reports of lights flickering, electrical appliances turning off and on, even telephone calls from the dead. I have even heard of several ghostly events on computers, though these are still very rare.

  Those who don't believe (atheists, materialists) , those who are ignorant of spiritual matters (undecided, neutral souls who mean no harm but have not dedicated themselves one way or other.This includes the curious seeker.) , the innocent young (babies & children) those who take drugs of all kinds including alcohol and therefore are naturally opened to all kinds of influences (they aren't strong enough to face life how can they be expected to face multiple realities? and drugs opens the unconscious up like a dead clam.)  can all be easy targets to the stray spirit or the nasty ghost.
I could write about all the cat ghost visits (they tend to be very gentle and only short visits !) but it would make this article way too long.  And, Yes, it does happen! As recently as this week.
ONE more experience before I end this... one day, my husband, Leon asked me to go fetch something from the room I am writing from this morning. Our attic is nothing more than a crawl space - its opening is just outside this room in the hall ceiling. As I was walking past the attic opening (which was opened because it was summer!) I saw a gargoyle - yes, a gargoyle. No hair, looking ugly as sin, leathery body, large claws bending down looking at me curiously. Well,  a gargoyle. Scared, startled by such the sudden intrusion of the unexpected,  I said a quick prayer "Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!" quietly and told the beastie he had no welcome in our house... and fetched the object I was seeking... I didn't want Leon to know what I saw ... never sure if he could see it, too - He did and commented about the Gargoyle in our attic. I said yes, but I told it to go and it did. I saw in my mind that it flew away through the walls out towards the south. Odd, very odd. I really wonder sometimes how the universe works ... is that a spirit, my imagination or is it the denizen of some alternative dimension - but it couldn't be my imagination because my husband saw it, too -
SO WHAT WAS IT? Now that doesn't fit quite into my world view... !

I thought I would finally write about this episode of my life. It is, I admit, very esoteric here in the West, though less so than it was even 24 years ago. In May 1983 I was 31 approaching my 32nd. birthday. I had decided late in 1982 to begin to meditate, again, after many years away from that discipline and I did so every night after my husband fell asleep throughout the early months of the year. I studied the Tarot cards, which I still like, and read many books from almost every nameable religion & philosophy, except Islam, which I have never liked because of their violent history and their hatred & disdain of womankind. ( my favorites will always be Taoist and Buddhist but my dedication belongs to Jesus Christ!) I had always been attracted to the esoteric and mystical aspects of religion and that more than anything else caused me to leave the Catholic Church as soon as I could be called an adult; I was married by a protestant minister but did not consider myself, truly Christian at that time. I would call myself a searcher during my 20s and thirties: I wanted deeper understanding and truer wisdom.
I do not, though, want to truly explain my long spiritual journey, I want, instead to give what information I know about the Kundalini, with the hope that anyone who is also experiencing its arousal will find this blog and be comforted and reassured by my words.

I remember my chest hurting as May dawned, in the immediate center between my breasts. It scared me, of course. I finally accepted the inevitable and went to the Doctor and found out it was an inflamed xiphoid process, he suggested that I rest and get a lot of sun and assured me it would heal itself. But it was something more; my heart center was awakening, I was awakening as a soul and nothing would ever be the same, again. The Heart Chakra is the center of Love - not sexual love, that is handled by the 2th chakra and is called the sacral center. It handles the love as Christ spoke of - a divine love that never ends, a love for all mankind, the outflowing of love and kindness.

I fear I will do a bad job of this but I will try: The East tells us that there is an energy that flows through all things and especially Living things - human beings. It is identified with sex, particularly, though, not solely. It is the energy of life, called prana by some and Chi by others. It flows through energy veins (not connected to blood veins but it's as good a word as I can summon.) Where these veins or passages cross and recross many times you find a Chakra - a center or wheel in English, which is a nexus of energy. There are seven (7) major centers in the human body - though one of these centers or chakras is at the top of the head and seems actually to be outside the body. This energy system is what vitalizes the human body. The best descriptions of it are Far East Indian; they have made it all nearly a science and philosophy - yoga. The Chinese also discuss it and their acupuncture uses needles to effect the flow of this energy and release its blockage to heal people. (I discussed this previously!) The Chakras each handle certain aspects of human consciousness.

NOW - I am not speaking of human intelligence, but consciousness, awareness, understanding,'gifts', creativity. It is here in these chakras and in the Kundalini that we see the meeting place of flesh, spirit and energy

Perhaps I should go by the circuitous route and explain the centers.
1st. : At the bottom of the backbone, there is Root chakra - it is what ties us to our mortality and the Earth.
2nd: The next handles human sexuality, it is the Sacral .
3nd. :The next is the solar plexus and handles the consciousness of eating, consuming and conquering.
These chakras, the first three, are animal consciousnesses; all animals have them. We became human, though, when we had the potential for more centers and more consciousnesses than the merely evolutionary.
4th.: Heart. The Heart Chakra is solely human as I said it is LOVE - an infinite and divine love, not sentimental and feel good love, it is a love that demands service and doing what is best for others not what makes YOU feel good!
5th. : The throat - It seems to be the consciousness of communications, speaking, of course but also writing.
6th. : The Third Eye - it is the seeing in spirit, the deeper seeing of what is holy and divine in the world.
7th. : Crown Chakra. It seems to be actually ABOVE the body. It connects us to the divine, when it awakens we go into ecstasy and enter before the Divine One - it is the chakra of Union with the Divine.
So there are the centers, we all have them, the worse and best have them, it is part of being human. Each is said to have a color and a tone.

Now the Kundalini seems to be a resting energy; something more than prana flow. The image that comes to mind is resting snakes (it is because it snakes up or winds up the backbone, I suspect! ) I remember actually dreaming about snakes when I first experienced it. It is said to rest at the bottom of the spine on either side, actually, one energy is cold, moon, female energy. The other is male, hot, sun energy, they entwined and sometimes in the highest centers become ONE - it is this union that makes Oneness and spiritual union with the Divine possible.

Why does it rest dormant in most human beings? I don't know for sure but after a life time of reading and experiencing I would suggest it is evolution. I think in mostly European and Western images so I never have an easy time communicating about this subject. The Kundalini energy seems a bit dangerous - it does literally raise consciousness - perhaps, in some future era, more of mankind will experience its effects but for now, full arousal of it is a bit rare as far as I can tell. I have never met another person who has it awake. Perhaps that is because I live in the USA instead of the East but even an Indian man, Gopie Krishna, said it was very difficult to find a master of the Kundalini in India ! His book is still worth the effort, by the way. I would also suggest that I am a very independent person, very old fashioned, in some ways. I like being alone most of the time so I don't go to the places where I might meet others. It is part of my nature to be so and I don't think I could change even if I wanted to.

To return to my own story:
As the summer progressed I began to experience each chakra as the energy rose and burned away the blocks and entered the next chakra - it actually does make them spin like a wheel. It was terribly frightening at times, almost embarrassing, at others.. I was alone or at least felt alone. I did not share with my husband what I was experiencing for a very long time. As I neared late summer, early fall, even, the energy of the kundalini entered the highest chakras (centers, wheels) and I experienced ecstasy 3 or 4 times. I would make you laugh if I tell you what I said after the first one - I will also make myself blush! But oh, what an experience and how I long to have it just one more time before I die! Everything, my dear friends and readers is indeed ONE. We are one and all is LIGHT and LOVE. The love of that which I saw will never leave me and I will never surrender to any darkness either interior or exterior for the Love of the love envelopes me.

It is a very strange experience but I found there was nothing to truly fear. I also found there are many spirits who serve the Light of Love that will help a person who is awaking if the person is awaking out of desire for spiritual growth and dedication. There is nothing to fear if you do not fear hard work, dedication to the light of love and the service of mankind. I must warn you- It is growing up - you are a mature human being, or, at least, a maturing human being... No more excuses, no more excesses or irresponsibility. You don't lose your joy, you find it but you will never sleep walk through life, again - the awaking of the Kundalini has many effects on the body, spirit and mind of a person & many of them are entirely unpredictable. You grow sensitive to a unseen world of energy & spirits. You stand spirit in the flesh and flesh in the spirit.

I, also, found something out that surprised me : I needed for awhile to regress and find some strong rock to stand on. I needed to explore my own soul, my soul's history, the meaning of my own life, the reasons why I was here, the things forgotten and hidden away that I did not like about myself - I needed to clean house and dispose of a lot of rubbish. I needed to forgive, I needed to let go, I needed to accept a great many things that were painful to me personally. I could no longer play at being a person, I could no longer ignore my own inner worlds, I had to make some hard decisions. I found my spiritual images (my visions) were becoming increasingly Christian. I returned to the Catholic Church for a short time but found no home there and realized I did not belong and went to therapy to handle the psychological aspects of my awaking. I experienced a great deal of pain and a great deal of pleasure and some joy that grew stronger as the years passed. I received an spiritual initiation that I do not feel comfortable describing to others, but to say, I dedicated myself to serving others, to bring the light of love into the world. In Christian terms I went through the dark night of the soul in the late 80s and into the 1990's. I grew spiritually, faced the darkness and called it a lie & lier and grew more in love with God and Jesus Christ, every day, something that is still true.

I am not sure what I would suggest to the seeker whose chakras awaken - I am a Christian but I do not believe that my path is the only path. Love is the only path, love, divine love, God's love can be in the Jewish or Indian or Chinese (etc.) heart just as easily as the Italian Christian heart! I am not so sure about Muslim hearts, but they, too have had lovers of God among their number, though, many of them perished at the hands of their fellow Muslims. Perhaps God will guide them all into a greater wisdom than any of them are showing at this time. I trust God's will. I would suggest only one thing: find a religious tradition/philosophy/ mindset that will help you and not hinder you and will help you grow mature. I don't go to church any longer because it would make life difficult and you can love God privately in your home, or as Christ, said, in your closet at night! So find what works and stick with it. Fill your soul - the keeper of your images - with good things. Trust the path; your soul knows what to do, when to do it and what is needed for you to grow. Your wandering days are over. Now is the time to work. Work to love and not hate, strive to be a good, loving, creative person!

And there is my story. I hope that, if you, too, experience the Kundalini you will dedicate yourself to the Light of Love (what ever your spiritual and religious disciplines, otherwise, are!) and you will use the Fire to serve and bring love, wholeness and peace to our planet.

Evolution summons each person who is ready to go further and do more. Answer the call if it is in your heart to do so.

A friend recently commented that I tend to look to the past and was very conscious of history. I agreed and said that it was because my conversion to Christianity (which was more a conversion to Christ and not the religion!) was the pivotal moment in my life that changed everything; the defining moment of the second half of my life and it happened on a certain day at a certain hour, and yes, I am not likely to ever forget it or fail to mark its passing each year. It gave me a history worth remembering.

Her comment caused me to think about the subject of personal history and how we store away our personal history in our minds and hearts. We all celebrate our birthdays and mark the day we entered physical life as important. We don't seem to acknowledge another date until we graduate from High School, but even that is a minor date in the calendar of our lives. The next big date is our wedding day - the day we unite the pattern of our life to another's and become one pattern. This we mark with a yearly anniversary - mine is at the very beginning of winter, December 2o, and, yes, its been 31 glorious years! And, of course, there will be our death, which we will not mark, though, we pray others will.

Above you see the pattern of DNA - the very chemical substance of life. Why do I choose that pattern for an essay about the spiritual path? I will answer you in a circuitous manner:

The pattern that most people use to imply a spirituality is a closed pattern, the labyrinth and is seen as a walking in a pattern that turns in towards a center. I think Christians like this pattern because it reminds them that the Triune God is the center purpose of all spirituality and that Love is the law that we live by. It also reminds them( and me) of the Christian year - the series of festivals, feast days and anniversaries (Christmas, Easter, Palm Sunday etc.) that are celebrated every calendar year. It is a closed in system that repeats itself, endlessly - I, too, like the old calendar that they repeat each year; their labyrinth of remembering.

It is important to every Christian because we are attempting to become LIKE Christ- to imitate his love, mercy, goodness and purity of heart and if we intend this it makes sense to mark his own life on our calendar the same way you see the calendars that mark the big days in, lets say, the Lord of the Rings. Christ's great days : his birth, spiritual awaking (Baptism), and death are holy to us because we intend to make them our own - we wish to become roses on his vine of love and one way to do so is to remember his pattern/life.

But, and this is why I added the DNA picture above, (and I apologize for my amateur's way of doing so !) there is, after we awaken our own path, our own calendar of remarkable days that mark our spiritual paths. They are very personal things and I celebrate each of them in a very personal way. I mark my days and remember and by remembering I hold sacred what happened to me and what it means. I mark these events so I will not forget them, because I must not forget them. They are my faith moments - the ones I recall when my trust (Faith) in Christ is troubled. They are very important to me because they are not only moments in my life : they are my weapons in my fight against the darkness both within myself and the darkness exterior to myself.

Faith is not believing facts about a person/God/religion - I must emphasize this as strongly as possible - once you take those first few steps on the spiritual path you are almost entirely all alone except for Christ and you must trust Him beyond any or you will falter and fall. No one is going to help you if HE does not, no one will care if He does not - you are on your own, except for Him. No one can fight your fights for you, or ,as Paul said, run the race for you - The spiritual life is YOURS --- live it or fall to earth and die from the grief of losing what you wanted more than physical life. The hardest thing to do after a full life as a humbled person is to stand up against the forces of darkness and be STRONG - to say No and mean NO. Your confidence, at first is -1 but it must grow or the darkness will defeat you or even turn you into darkness. This is why remembering the past is so important to faith/trust.

To grow in faith you remember what happened before; every time you trusted Christ and He proved His love to you, every time you had some mystical experience that shocked you and changed your heart and mind radically you gain another tool on the long spiral upwards. You have a tool that will give you strength when you need it most. It and your desire for the Divine one are the only real tools worth anything in a spiritual life. (and, yes, the Bible's words can be useful, but they are exterior to you unless they dig really deep into your soul !)

Like the Jews who mark every year their great days of Faith and the Christians who mark Christ's life on the modern calendar a person who walks a spiritual path remembers and in remembering grows stronger with each step and each step takes the mystic another step up the great spiral of evolutionary growth, up, up to what end, we do not know - hence, for me, personally, the spiral of my own DNA is not only physical truth of a chemical unity that makes me human, it is a spiritual symbol - an image that implies a great truth of my spiritual life.

I see my days marked on a spiral ever upwards towards what end, I can only imagine - it is not the closed spiral of the churches, it is the open spiral of spiritual/ physical evolution. I take it for granted that spiritual evolution and physical are linked.
I will share with you all now a few of my special days :
a day early in the year : I died this day in a past life. I remember it very well and I mark it as my "immortality day" when I remind myself that my soul is immortal and never dies, it cannot be destroyed by anything mortal men do it.
April 22 (1984) - My reconciliation day. I had an experience of Christ/God/Spirit and became reconciled to my Father/Mother in a vision of light and love. I consider this day my spiritual birthday and try to celebrate it as such.
May 1 (1983) my heart chakra awoke that month and I realized I was experiencing the Kundalini Fire and I dedicated myself to a spiritual life and began a search for a spiritual home.