Michigan's Otherside

I've been pretty busy lately so not much time to post here but I thought I'd pop in real quick to let you know that a blog post I wrote got published on a Web site called Michigan's Otherside. If you're interested in the paranormal, check out their site. To see my blog post on their site, click here. Purty cool, huh?


The below info was taken from the Michigan's Otherside Web site. They are symbols you may see while in a cemetery. Thought you fellow graveyard walkers might be interested.

Dove - The dove is a very common animal symbol, mostly because of its Biblical meaning. Usually holding an olive branch which refers to Noah from the Bible. Also a symbol of purity and peace.

Willow Trees - Grief, sorrow and immortality.

Closed book - Many represent the bible but they can also stand for a life completed.

Curtains - Passing into another existence. Protection.

Broken Column - Life cut short and life coming to an end. A very popular symbol in cemeteries in the 19^th century.

Praying Hands - Christian symbol.

Lambs - Innocence. Usually found on the graves of children and babies.

Flowers - Flowers have been used in burial ceremonies since the early days of civilization and before. Flowers have always held a soft spot in people. Their beauty and fragility is a symbol for life and love.

Fingers pointing up - A symbol of the soul rising to heaven.

Hands shaking - Matrimony. Sometimes there is one masculine hand and one feminine hand. Look at the sleeves of the hands. If there is no difference in the sleeves, then the hands are a symbol of being greeted into heaven or saying good-bye from earth.

IHS and IHC - Many times these letters are seen connected with each other. IHS comes from the first three letter of Jesus’ name using the Greek alphabet: Iota, Eta, Sigma. IHC stands for the same thing, but is Roman.

Broken branches - Life cut short.

Tree stumps - Life cut short.

The last of the Lolcats...or is it?

Here is the last of my Lolcats arsenal...for now. I'm sure there will be more in the future. Enjoy! I'm off to watch the season finale of Paranormal State. If you don't know what that is, you're missing out! Check the right hand side of my blog and you'll see a link to it.

Mirrors

This is a continuation of my last post. The second movie I "rented" today was Mirrors with Kiefer Sutherland. I thought this was a good movie and the ending was not what I expected. There are a lot of horror movies out there that make inanimate objects frightening but mirrors are pretty freaky, if you think about it.

The first thing that comes to mind is "Bloody Mary", which I'm sure most of you have heard of. If you haven't, the story goes that if you chant the words "bloody mary" three times (or thirteen) while staring into a mirror in a dark room (or lit by a candle), that you will see the ghost of Bloody Mary. Mary was a supposed witch named Mary Worth who was executed long ago. There are many different versions with how to do it and what you'll see but that is the gist of it. I remember seeing a bunch of girls do it in the bathroom in junior high but I left before they stopped chanting because it freaked me out a bit but it stayed in my mind. I decided to try it one day that I was home alone...it worked. Although I didn't see Bloody Mary, I did see my deceased great grandpa. I will never forget that image. That was my first encounter with the paranormal. While living in that house, I would hear my name being called by a man but when I asked my dad if he had called me, he hadn't. Hmm.

It is said that you can see the future or find lost objects by using a mirror or pretty much any reflective surface, including calm water. I've heard of people painting a mirror black to use for magic or to see your inner self.

Mirrors have been seen as a way to trap spirits and demons. Before funeral parlors, the deceased would be in their own homes and when someone died, all of the mirrors in the house would be covered until the body was taken away for burial because if the deceased saw themselves in a mirror, they would be trapped. In the movie Constantine, a demon is tricked into looking into its reflection in a mirror and is forced to leave the possessed person's body and is trapped in the mirror.

You've heard that if you break a mirror, you'll have seven years back luck, right? Since mirrors can supposedly see and/or hold your soul, it was said that if you broke a mirror, part of your soul was trapped inside and since the mirror was broken, your soul was broken and that brought on bad luck. Apparently the Romans believed that your body renewed itself every seven years so it would take seven years for you to become whole again.

A mirror played a role in Snow White. Remember the witch would use the mirror to get answers to her questions?

Bram Stoker knew of mirror superstitions and incorporated that into Dracula. I can only assume he did this because it would make the vampire appear to be soulless because he cast no reflection in mirrors.

So the next time you look in a mirror, take a close look. What do you see?


Picture courtesy of Photobucket.

Alright kiddies...it's time for a ghost story!

I guess you could say I'm your stereotypical goth who occasionally likes to walk through cemeteries. I find them peaceful and intriguing. I had heard a rumor that a nearby cemetery was haunted and I had to check it out. This happened last summer.

The story goes that there is a stairway to hell and that, on some nights, you can see a "blue" man at the top of the stairs on Ferry Hill. I wanted to check the cemetery out during the day, as I like to take pictures and although I love the moon, my camera does not. The cemetery is about a half hour's drive away. What I didn't know was that it is absolutely huge. It's 80 acres! So when I set out to find the infamous stairway, it took a bit longer than expected. There was no map so I just wandered until I found it.

At this point, I should tell you that I can pick up on spirits. Creepy? Not really. Most cemeteries are surprisingly quiet and by quiet I mean not a lot of activity from ghosts or spirits or whatever you like to call them.

So there I am walking along, taking the occasional picture, and something tells me to go a certain way. Lo and behold, there's the stairway. As I approach, I'm not hearing much noise around. There was a lawn crew at the entrance to the cemetery but you couldn't hear them where I was. There wasn't anyone around, which seemed normal for an afternoon during the work week. Everything seemed normal until I got to the stairway. As I started walking up, my stomach began to cramp and I could hear crows cawing. I looked up and there were about five crows flying in a circle over Ferry Hill. Hmm, that was strange. I kept going to the top and my stomach cramps kept getting worse. The crows were circling overheard and I had a bad feeling about the place but I didn't come this far for nothing so I decided to stay for a bit and check it out. Eventually the noise from the crows got to me and I began to descend the stairs. By the time I got to the ground, my stomach cramps had vanished and the crows had too.

While I was up there, I did sense a man in his late 30's or early 40's dressed in a brown suit with a bowtie. When researching the cemetery and who was buried there, I came across a Web site that had some pictures and one of them looks eerily similar to the man I sensed on Ferry Hill but he died in his 70's. He did have a son who died in his 40's but the only picture of his son was from when he was probably around 10 years old. There wasn't much information to go on.

I plan on going back there once the weather warms up and this time I'll go at night. Who knows? Maybe the blue man will make an appearance?

The picture shown below is one that I took that day. Looks harmless, yes? Sometimes the creepiest things do.