Can lovers be reunited across time? Tricia McGill

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In my latest book I say, yes they can. For a long time I have firmly believed that I have lived before and hope I will be reunited with a loved one in the future. The only explanation I have for this is that my dreams have me featured in certain circumstances and I know they are set in the past. Often I don’t  recognise the other person and yet know deep down who it is. The logical part of my brain tells me this is probably fanciful thinking, and my overactive imagination concocting stories I would like to be true. In one of my most vivid dreams I was most definitely in Ireland (never been there in this life) with a man I knew well even though he looked different to the one I know in this life. We had a family of children (I have none in this life) and were a struggling family which was obvious by the surroundings. It was so convincing I believed I was reliving a past life.

One of my previous doctors was born in Pakistan and later lived in India (or it might have been the other way around) before coming to Australia. We got to talking one day about my beliefs and certain religions and I was taken aback when he assured me I was a Buddhist, or so aligned with their faith it was obvious I shared their beliefs.

It seems I am not alone in my belief in reincarnation, as the concept has existed for a long time in certain religions. I was surprised, stunned in fact, to learn that there are probably more people alive today who believe in it than those who do not. This surprised me because of this technological age we live in I thought it would be something that wasn’t even considered. The most surprising fact to me was that a large proportion of  people in the USA and Western Europe do hold a belief in reincarnation.

Read more about it here: 

http://www.deathreference.com/Py-Se/Reincarnation.html

Another fact that surprised me is there is quite a difference in such beliefs in certain cultures. I believed it was something more taught by Buddhists but learnt that it features largely in the Hindu culture also. They believe in Karma and that rather than meeting up with past loves in the future we are more likely to simply be reborn, even as an animal or of the opposite sex. I am a great believer in Karma, or Fate as I like to call it, and know it has played an enormous part in my life.

Read more:  

http://www.deathreference.com/knowledge/Theravada.html

Something that I found immensely interesting is that in 1961 Ian Stevenson who at the time was chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia was so intrigued by the cases of children claiming to remember past lives that he gave up his position at the University and opted on full-time research of the cases. He found children who spoke quite fluently of other lives and deceased people. Their stories were so convincing that some families made contact with members of this previous person the child mentioned in such detail.

At these meetings, the child would often be said to identify members of the previous family as well as items belonging to the deceased individual. Since he began his research he and others have found many such cases of children claiming to recall past lives. Seem too fanciful? Not to me, as children often have invisible friends, and I doubt if a child could go so far as to imagine and describe someone is such detail that it could be proved later this person lived. And cases have been found in so many different locations there has to be more truth in it than wishful thinking. Most common cases are found in countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, West Africa, and mostly in cultures with a firm belief in reincarnation. It’s the fact that these are children and not adults who could clearly make stories up to satisfy the researcher that makes it so convincing.

My mother never had in-depth discussions with us on such things as life after death but I can still see her wreath lying on our father’s coffin, with her card that simply said, “Till we meet again.”

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Itching To Get Ahead

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The word “itch” amuses me. It is almost crying for a consonant or two at the beginning. Which. Witch. Hitch. Much better.

However, we are burdened with this word; a word that brings back memories and initiates thoughts. In my youth it spent much of its time sharing a sentence with the word mosquito. In summer it somehow managed to dampen a trip to a local Alberta lake by conjuring up warnings about “the itch.” Still, there were other lakes that didn’t carry the stigma or the itch. So, we had a splashing good time.

Our move from the west to Ontario introduced us to the idea that a mosquito bite placed second behind the dreaded black fly bite. What? It seems the black flies in the east are far more aggressive. I cannot remember hearing much less experiencing a black fly bit. Especially one that leaves a looonie-sized itchy welt.

These painful option leave me itching. Itching for more time at our favourite places on the planet. Just yesterday we reminisced about the wonderful days we spent walking the miles and miles of footpaths in England. Stopping to watch the sheep or cattle. Yes, occasionally keeping out a wary eye for a bull among the cows.

Tempting indeed. However, the fine Ontario weather is upon us. Best wait until perhaps October to pop across the pond and enjoy the walks...fish and chips...bitter…peaceful rolling hills of the countryside.

Ghost Stories Now and Then by S. L. Carlson

Ghost Stories Now and Then by S. L. Carlson

Do you believe in ghosts? Should you believe in ghosts? The idea of ghosts has fascinated me my whole life. Ghosts have been around for as long as there have been people.

I’ve never been keen to see one, but I have sensed and heard them. I don’t like to acknowledge them for fear of an introduction. Ignorance-Ignoring is bliss. Still, it’s hard to ignore a mixer turning on and off by itself. So when something like that happens I spin and point my finger to the air, and in my strongest ghost-scolding voice, say, “Stop that! Not funny!”

A house siding contractor went into our basement when we weren’t home. He had no business down there. I only figured it out when we returned and he looked pale, asking if our house was haunted. I laughed and mentioned our doorbell ringing at odd hours with no one there (even when we’re by the door to “catch” anyone). He mentioned a door slammed when he was inside. (Why was he inside, anyway?) Even though there was no breeze, I suggested the wind did it. He said there were no windows opened. Well, yes, there were, but not in the basement! Good, old ghost.

The Great Lakes have thousands of ghost stories, as well they should from the many untimely deaths on them. One told in the Milwaukee Journal, January 24, 1895, is of a man named Bill who died en route to Buffalo. When the ship arrived, the entire crew felt the vessel was now unlucky, so didn’t sign on for the trip over to Cleveland. The mate shanghaied a new crew. As they neared the boat, they pointed to the ship’s mast. The mate recognized the figure as Bill. The new crew, drunk as they were, fled. Finally other crew members came. The ship never made it to Cleveland. It sunk off of Dunkirk with all hands.

One more (of the thousands): On November 28, 1966, the Daniel J. Morrell broke apart in the middle of the night during a storm on Lake Huron. Watchman Dennis Hale was in his bunk when the ship cracked. He grabbed his life jacket and ran on deck in only his shorts. The ship had buckled. He ran back to his bunk for his pea jacket and made it into a lifeboat with three others. As the waves crested the raft, the water turned to ice on them. They lay in the lifeboat. Dennis was in the middle. The other three froze to death in the night. The next day he washed up on rocks, but too far to swim in the freezing water. He started to eat the ice from his pea jacket when a translucent man in white hovered over him and told him not to eat the ice or it would lower his body temperature and he’d die. The following day the same vision occurred. He was rescued, given last rites because he was so near death, but lived. As the sole survivor of the sinking, it took more than twenty years before he told the rest of the survival story with words of ghostly advice.

F.Y.I. There will be ghosts in my book coming out in September with BWL, Escape, War Unicorn Chronicles, Book 2. Find my other books here: http://www.bookswelove.com/authors/carlson-sandy-young-adult/