Month: May 2013

Have you ever wondered if you were seeing things? Have you ever wondered if there is a parallel universe with a black hole connection to earth or our world, where spirits can move back and forth between different dimensions? Have you ever watched Ghost Hunters or similar programs on TV and wondered if there really is any truth to what they are experiencing? Approximately one-third of Americans do.

On Memorial Day weekend, 2013, I decided my hard working husband needed a vacation and some rest. So we went to Vancouver, Washington to a local Inn. We planned on staying three nights. The next day was a sunny Saturday and we drove to Lincoln City, had seafood and watched the ocean waves crash on the rocks. I wondered if there were any mermaids there; but never saw any as we drove up the coast to Astoria and the Washington side of the Columbia river. Of course on the 27th of May, Animal Planet was going to show the documentary: Mermaids: New Evidence. I have a curious nature and watch this stuff and wonder about it, even if it is unscientific.

Sunday we planned on touring the Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon. I casually noted the place was haunted by some rather friendly spirits. We met my nephew and his wife and child at the Inn and proceeded to lunch at Applebee’s where it was decided they would accompany us to the mansion, since his wife had never been there,

After driving up a steep incline or mountain/hill to get there, parking was hard to find. Nevertheless, we piled out of the cars and began walking up to one of the most beautiful mansions I have ever seen! We passed the three car garage of this mansion and the mansion came into view. It was built in 1914, by Mr. Henry Pittock and his wife Georgiana Burton Pittock. The mansion was breath taking as we approached it. You could see down to the city of Portland and all  the mountains surrounding the city. We could not tour the mansion because there was only 45 minutes before it closed. So we began a tour of our own. I felt the true joy of this wonderful place and knew it must have been truly loved by it’s owners. I felt nothing that was supernatural, only peace and beauty.

As we walked around the mansion and viewed the sites and flower gardens, we came to a third building that served as the quarters for their servants or hired help. You couldn’t go in the building, so we looked through the windows. After walking around to the back of the building, I began to feel a bit dizzy.  That was only the beginning of my experience for the next two days.

By the time I got back to the room at our Inn, I was totally exhausted and laid down to rest. I fell immediately into a deep REM sleep. I awoke still feeling tired. As we watched television, I began to smell the most fragrant incense I have ever experienced. It was so strong and nothing like anything I had smelled before. I asked my husband if he smelled it too. He did not. I fell back to sleep again. When I awoke this time, I smelled a strong smell of flowers so sweet it took my breath away. Again, I asked my husband if he smelled the flowers. Again, he did not.

Shortly after that, I began to feel euphoric. I felt a loving comforting presence and began thinking about my brother (my nephews father and a USAF veteran who died recently) and our last days together before his death. It was 11:30 pm and this lasted until 3:30 am Memorial Day morning. I feel deeply asleep and when I awoke again it was about 5:30 am in the morning. I tried to get up to go to the ladies room and felt horribly dizzy. I was absolutely exhausted and felt totally drained.

We were leaving to go back to Seattle that morning and I felt even dizzier as the hours pasted. By 9:30 am I finally was able to get up and get our things packed. I managed to drive home to Seattle; but when I entered our house, it came back so strong, I felt nauseated. This feeling continued until the day after Memorial Day. I spent those two days lying in bed too sick to raise my head and too tired to even think straight. Oddly, I had no fever and/or signs of the flu or food poisoning.

By Wednesday morning I became extremely curious and began to read everything I could on spirits and encounters. Apparently, apparitions often do alert the person of their presence by using smells that are familiar. I found that whenever the ghost of Georgiana was present at the mansion, there was a strong smell of roses. Secondly, there is a belief that in order not to frighten the person the spirit is contacting, they alert them by using a scent that person can associate with the person trying to make contact or should I say spirit trying to make contact? Also, there is a belief that spirits can attach to the energy field or aura of a human person. Thus, one could have followed me from the mansion.

Incidentally, one side note,while we were driving to the Oregon coast, I began to feel a great deal of anger toward my brother. I began remembering all the past hurts and how we disagreed regarding religion, politics and family. My poor husband listened to a rather heated rant of mine! I was never a drinker and just did not get the life style my brother had after 33 years in the US Air Force where alcohol had played a role in the lives of service members before the Reagan Administration. In fact my officer husband was the drug and alcohol control officer during his years in the US Army. Neither of us used drugs and seldom touched alcohol. After having this rant, I felt really awful and wished I had not been so angry with his memory.

Okay, with all this being said,  I am sounding too weird for even me to comprehend. So, I contacted the Puget Sound Paranormal Society to see if I could get some answers. So far they have not responded.  I have never had an experience like this and am wondering what in the world did my imagination drum up or if I did indeed have a paranormal experience, for whatever reason.

Note: Just a side note. Roses have always been important in our family. My mother and daughter’s middle name is Rose and my favorite flower is the rose. Mrs. Georgiana Burton Pittock is called the Queen of Portland’s Roses. I have visited every rose garden in every city there was one. Incidentally, the state flower of Washington is the Rhododendron. In Greek” Rhodo means rose and Dendron means tree.

When I attended the universities and studied criminology, it was not uncommon to research the motives and history of people who today are called, “monsters.”  I have been closely watching the latest so called monster, Ariel Castro. What in the world motives a man (maybe this term is too loosely applied here) to kidnap, rape, enslave and brutalize three young girls, one in her 20’s and the rest the age of his daughter Emily?

He claims he was abused as a child. That doesn’t excuse his behavior and hardly justifies his alleged crimes.  One thing is quite certain you can act totally against societies norms and mores in an abnormal way and still be quite sane. I think what he did was absolutely clearly thought out and carried out. Was his decision making seriously compromised by his past experiences, most probably.

In an article called, “What Makes Serial Killers Tick,” Shirley Lynn Scott writes, “Yet if you intend to avoid the path of a serial killer [kidnapper and rapist], your best strategy is to sidestep the charming, the impeccably dressed, polite individuals. They blend in, camouflaged in contemporary anonymity. They lurk in churches and malls, and prowl the freeways and streets. “Dress him in a suit and he looks like ten other men,” said one attorney in describing Dahmer. Like all evolved predators, they know how to stalk their victims by gaining their trust. Serial killers don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves. Instead, they hide behind a carefully constructed facade of normalcy.”

That is exactly the way Ariel Castro came across to the many people and neighbors that knew him. He could put the veil of normalcy around everything he was doing. It has not been proved that our killer Ariel has murdered anyone except possibly unborn children; but given time most likely his victims would not have lived out their lives. They were not being fed properly, did not have medical care and mostly likely seriously lacked Vitamin D, from the lack of sunlight and outdoor experiences.

Ariel Castro, if found quilty was every bit a monster as those described in the Grimm tales. He had no compassion for his victims, based on what we’re hearing in the news. What bothers me the most however, is his lawyers stating he is truly attached and concerned for his daughter; the daughter he produced by raping Amanda Berry. Right! If he was so concerned about his daughter he would have stopped doing what he was doing and turned himself in. Or he would have treated her mother with human dignity and respect. Like any other batterer, he did none of those things…so I am not buying this plea copping! I have no compassion for this person. I do not agree with or believe in the use of the death penalty, as I have stated before…however, I really don’t want to pay for his life in prison. 

One of Ariel’s daughters is in prison for trying to slit the throat of her baby and kill herself. It doesn’t seem like the fruit has fallen too far from the tree. She tried to slash her baby’s throat…yup, that is right. She also attended elementary school with Amanda Berry and knew Gina de Jesus. Looks like Ariel Castro’s fathering skills need a considerable amount of work or fixing and up-dating. In fact, it sounds like he used this daughter Emily to get to two of the girls. There may be hope for his daughter Emily; But I can see no hope for him. Unfortunately, we have not advanced enough, as a human species, to know why there are people like Ariel. How very sad this fact is.

I have watched and listened to the news regarding the lives of the two Tsarnaev brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar.  The most tragic figure is their mother.  She may have let her religion get in the way of her rational thinking processes, when she urged her oldest son to follow the rules and teachings of possibly radical Islam.  How is any mother to know when they step over the edge into fundamentalist thinking or radicalism? It has happened in many incidents recorded by the Catholic religion.

I cannot even imagine how I would feel if my sons had done what her two boys may have done in Boston at the marathon. I have read what the conspiracy theorists are saying about it being a staged attack and how no one was really hurt, there was no blood only paint. Zubeidat’s escape into that reality may be the only way she can cope with the horror of what her sons did or may have done there. I have watched her rants when in front of American journalist and television cameras. Her hurt is beyond my ability to comprehend. She has lost her two boys and at some point may have to face her inner demons; and the fact that she was party to the religious transformation of her son Tamleran, which may have led him down a wrong path.

When I see the pictures being shown of Tamerlan and how much he wanted to be an Olympian boxer, I am overcome with grief by the way things turned out for him and his victims. I can understand his deep disappointment in not being able to become a boxer of this magnitude because he could not become a citizen due to his actions when he slapped a girl or girls. His pain must have been extremely deep to have it come out on innocent people in the way it did. What better way to exact revenge on the American people who ended his career with their rules and laws. It was a sporting event and the people running that marathon were athletes striving for perfection in their sport, in much the same way he once trained and executed his events.

Most parents want what is best for their children.  I think Zubeidat wanted that for her sons too. Maybe she was doomed to lead them to this act, partially because of her religious views and partially because of where she lived and bore them. Only the God she believes in knows her heart and how things got to this point. One thing is certain, every mother who was involved in this incident, whether an on looker or a victim or the mother of victims, were united in this unholy act of terror. Unlike men, women understand the heart of a mother at a very deep level of understanding. They participate in creation in an intimate way.

I had three boys. Like I have said in earlier blogs, the middle one committed suicide, the oldest is still struggling and one has nothing to do with my family. I know one of my boys could have done something as terrible; because two of them got into drugs as teens. Drugs often bring out the worst in teenagers and young adults. Luckily nothing major ever happened…I was just lucky. One thing I do know is no matter what your children do, you will love them. You may not speak to them, you may banish them from the family for a period of time…but in the end, you will always love them. Also, you will live with the pain of their death for as long as you live. I pray that Dzhokhar doesn’t get the death penalty. I believe that will make him a hero. I hope this for his mother’s sake too, no matter how vilified she may become by the American public.

While I am opposed to the death penalty, I see that money decides fates. Would you rather have the state take the person’s life or as a taxpayer pay what it costs to keep someone in prison for life. If the state or federal govenment doesn’t have the funds to feed or care for older and younger adults or those with challenges, how does one justify using state or federal funds to keep someone in prison for all those years? In spite of complicated decisions like this one, I am hoping the authorities do not make a hero out of Dzhokhar by taking his life. On the other hand, I am concerned about his mother.

No matter what kind of person she is now, she is still a child of the God she believes in. I think it would be tragic for her to pay the penalty of losing both of her sons. But if that is the penalty that is set upon the family, may the God they believe in give them the comfort they need to get past this and live with it. Hopefully, this God will be merciful to all the people participating in this event in one way or another.

photo credit: jeff_golden via photopin cc