Story telling time

Right before my Grandma (Nanny) passed, the candle I had lit started sputtering like crazy. Then my Mom called. I knew what she was going to say.

I wouldn't call myself Pagan, I'm Christian, really, but I think there are a lot of things in concordance that unite us.

Green Tea

“I don’t want
To be bitter,” she said,
And magic is a wish,
A long, drawn, heartfelt wish
Between two people, one
Wanting the other’s
Wish to be true, it is
A watched pot boiling.

In one hand, frankincense
By the candle, in the other
Oil, herbs and stones,
And stories
Of wine after death,
Of gathering, of calling
Like some secret beacon;
The family comes together,
Bird and butterfly, stag and foal.

Each stands in that circle,
Together, each
That knows the other
In a succession of separate images,
Of atoms mixing in rising smoke,
Morning glories climbing
Over the lilac, opening, closing,
Of coming together in mourning.

The two women who knew
That home is a small flash
In time,
The fleeting lace of together
Draped around them sleeping
In a quiet house,
Could close their eyes
And still see the snuffed candles,
Embraces, and laughter
Of those tired past the point
Of aching,
The joined hands,
This most precious gift.

I don't tell many folks these stories because at the time I was in some seriously bad headspace. I was mad at the world, depressed, and lonely. I kept feeling like I was holding sand in my hands and had to keep it from leaking through my fingers. That sand was all that was good in my life. And everything in the world was trying to take it from me.

I was 21 and that was just how things were.

So my girlfriend was seeing somebody else on the side. She told me about it, broke up with me and left with him. I had abandonment issues, too.

So I had this great idea--I'll spy on her using remote viewing. Nevermind that I had never done it before. Nevermind it wasn't my business. Really, all I cared about was that massive, bottomless hole in my chest.

So I proceeded to follow what little I knew of remote viewing and had that beginner's luck so many have experienced when they try.

Good timing, too, because I got to watch them have sex. That drove me even crazier.

So I sent her an e-mail describing his dorm room and all kinds of details, etc. She freaked out and accused the new guy of filming her or something. He thought I had somehow bugged his room. It got weird.

I've never remote viewed again.

I'm so glad those days are long gone.

I had a dream once that I was hanging by my hands from my 3rd floor balacony. Standing on the other side of the rail, leaning on it, calmly smoking a cigarette and smiling at me was a guy I'd been seeing. I started to slip and I tried to get him to help me up, but he just inhaled on his cigarette and smiled when he blew the smoke out. I lost my grip and woke up just as my back hit the palmetto growing by the sidewalk to the parking lot.

Later that morning, his roommate called me about our plans for the day and this guy asked his roommate to ask me how I was, that he'd dreamed about me the night before.

He'd had the same exact dream with the variation that he'd seen me fall into the palmetto bush then get up, flip him the bird, and stomp off.

I have lots of vivid dreams but this was the only one, to my knowledge, that I've ever actually dreamed with another person.

Great thread and I'd love to read more of people's experiences!

I've grown up in a family that is, while not pagan as such, very connected to the natural and spiritual worlds. My mother is fairly clairvoyant and used to read tarot very accurately, though she doesn't do it much anymore and generally refuses to read for her family members.

My friends and I also dabbled in wicca when we were younger, and practiced rituals fairly regularly, but as we were young and stupid we sometimes took things a little too far and after a few bad experiences realised we were getting in over our heads and stopped.

My mother has a lot of prophetic dreams and frequently sees, hears or feels entities. There's something very disconcerting about being in her home and have her suddenly break off mid-conversation and say 'oh, I just saw someone walk into my bedroom'. Especially when you actually did see the door to her room open seemingly by itself.

A few incidences that stand out to me particularly relate to my father's death. My mother had a dream that she saw him looking just as he did when they first met, in their youth, and that he told her he was going home. She told me about it on the phone and said very seriously 'I think you'd better get in touch with him, because that means he's going to die.' Not something anyone says unless they are sure. My father had his first serious heart attack a week later, and two weeks after that he had another and he died. Which reminds me, when we went to see him in hospital after the first heart attack, he was talking to people who weren't there and told us there were a few more people in the room that we couldn't see. He seemed confused as to why we couldn't see them.

A couple of weeks after he died, I was talking to my sister who said that her daughter, who was a toddler at the time, was looking at the ceiling and waving and chattering away. My sister asked her what she was looking at, and she said 'Poppy Paul's on the ceiling' and 'Poppy Paul's a fairy'. The family hadn't even told her that her Poppy had died, because she was too young to understand.

About a year later, my husband had a switchboard explode in his face and he had burns on his eyes and had to wear cream and eye patches for three days. He found that time fascinating because he really went deep into his mind, having no visual stimulation. He woke me up one morning and said that he'd had an out-of-body experience the night before. This was a very strange thing for him to say as he's a huge skeptic about things like that but he was adamant that that was what had happened. He said that he was in our room watching us both asleep in bed and that there were little balls of light and energy zooming around the room. He said one ball in particular hovered by me and at one point seemed to go inside my head. The truly strange thing about that is that I'd had a vivid dream that I was watching my mother giving birth. I was sitting by the side of her bed in a hospital and holding her hand. At some point it hit me that it was me she was giving birth to, and that I was sitting basically where my dad would have been and taking his role in the labour - I basically was him. So it would seem to me that the ball of light that my husband saw go into my head was my father showing me what it was like watching me being born.

My most recent experience came after one of our best friends committed suicide last year. I dreamed that I was sitting in a circle with my group of friends and our dead friend was there too. I grabbed him and hugged him and cried and asked why he was there and why did he die and why did it seem like nobody else could see him? He told me that he had messages for all of our friends, and unfortunately when I woke up I couldn't remember any of them, except the message he had for my husband which was 'your parents are ready to move to the next phase now'. My husband is an orphan and his mother died fairly recently, in 2007. I was holding my friends hand so tightly in this dream because I didn't want him to be gone. I woke up and I was in that weird in-between state for a few moments, when you are sort of paralysed but you are aware of your surroundings and you know that you are awake. In that state, I could clearly feel that someone was holding my hand - I was even holding it upright. I clutched at this phantom hand in mine and it was as warm as anything, and then it let go and I was properly awake but I could still feel the warmth on my hand.

That was one of the most beautiful things I have felt and the agony of his death began to ease somewhat after that dream. And my husband, the born skeptic as I noted above, never questioned it. I could tell the message about his parents really got to him and took some weight off his shoulders as well.

Can I share? It's like the opposite of Pagan, but it's a story not many people believe outside of Chassidic circles.

Thanks!

So two years ago, I wasn't religious at all. In fact, I was pretty anti-religion. My dad suggested that I go to Israel for a birthright trip (a program for Jewish people between 18 and 27 that allows them to take a 10-day trip to Israel free of charge). I figured I love to travel, I love history, and I love free trips out of the country. So I went.

I got to a town called Tzfat (one of the 4 Holy Cities) on the second day, and I immediately felt a connection. There was this weird feeling in my heart like I had come somewhere I had been before. We walked around the city for a bit before going to a famous synagogue where R' Isaac Luria z''l (famous Rabbi and giant in Kabbalah) prayed and taught. We walked into the shul, and as soon as I sat down, I felt this rush. It was like I had lived there hundreds of years ago and finally came home.

After we left the shul, I immediately went to a store and bought a prayer book and tzitzit (the garment with the strings on the four corners). I went to his grave and prayed, and then I went to the Isaac Luria z''l mikveh (a natural body of water that purifies the soul). It was January, and the water was FREEZING. When I got out, I felt this incredible warmth and pureness (although that could have been hypothermia setting in for all I know ).

A few days later, I was in Jerusalem. We went to the Western Wall in the Old City, and I prayed at the wall. After my prayers, I asked G-d for some sort of recognition to confirm that I wasn't crazy. I decided that I was going to accept all the 613 commandments, but prayer was going to be the thing I made sure I did right three times a day every day.

About a week later, I was back at the wall. I had prayed every day, three times a day the whole time. It was morning, so I was wearing a prayer shawl with it draped over my head as well. It started raining as soon as I got to the Amidah, the daily prayer said three times each day. We are not allowed to interrupt the prayer for anything except saving a life, so I didn't want to move inside just because of the rain. I decided I would just get wet since doing the mitzvah properly was more important to me.

As I finished, the rain stopped. I looked around, and everyone had pretty much gone inside, including my friend that I was staying with. Everything, including my bag, was soaking wet. I grabbed the shawl to pull it off my head, and I was confused. It was totally dry. My clothes and my prayer book were completely dry as well, but the ground under me was wet.

When I got home, I talked to a Rabbi about it. He told me that G-d was probably testing me with the rain to see if I was truly devoted. When He saw that I was, He provided me with the recognition that I asked for by performing a miracle for me.

It is interesting to note that when He revealed Himself to the Jewish people 3,300 years ago and offered the Torah to them, the people said "We will do, and we will hear." They agreed to everything in the Torah without even knowing what was in it. When I decided to be religious, I had no idea what was in the Torah. I decided to do it because it felt like the right thing to do. Only after I went to the mikveh and then took it upon myself to keep the Torah did I start looking through the commandments.

When I was a child, my shadow would wave to me. It freaked the hell out of me, mostly because it would only happen when I was alone. In restrospect, I was probably dreaming--but a part of me can't help but wonder if it wasn't some sort of playful spirit--particularly since it only happened in a certain house -- not before we moved in, and not after we moved out.