The Spirits of the Mountains

[Bill Ryan]

I've been thinking of sharing this for a while, and I'm curious to know if others have had similar experiences.

I'm fairly attuned to things like this, and in my regular hikes in the mountains here over the years I've explored many remote, wild valleys and peaks. The peaks all feel 'clean', and very much the same: beautiful, peaceful, quiet and isolated. But the valleys all have their own character and I can always feel the differences.

Some feel friendly and welcoming:
"Hey, great to see you! Thanks for coming to see us again."
While a few are kind of grumpy:
"Oh, it's you again. Huh."
One valley I went to a couple of times, I just didn't feel good at all. It was very scenic (they all are!), but for reasons unknown I didn't really enjoy the hike, and my energy was quite low.

But I could see on Google Earth (the only real map I have) that quite a bit further down that valley there were several interesting-looking little lakes. Because back then several years ago)I was intent on exploring everywhere I could, I decided to go there to take a close look.

I was turned back. It was VERY strong, like a checkpoint or a roadblock. Or running into a wall.
"YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED HERE. GO HOME."
I stopped in my tracks, politely acknowledged the command, and turned right round to retrace my steps. I've never been back there since.

There's another valley as well, in which are The Haunted Lakes. (That's actually their name: Las Lagunas Encantadas. That translates as 'The Enchanted Lakes', which sounds like something out of a Disney cartoon. But the intended local meaning is 'Haunted'. Apparently they have quite a reputation.)

I've written about those before. The first time I went there, I had a bizarre experience in which I actually became disoriented and lost my normally-excellent sense of direction: I was being 'pulled' to return back to my vehicle in what was totally the wrong direction, and had to get my compass out to check.

And all that time, for a good 15 minutes, Mara my dog was shaking and growling with fear, trembling and with her hair on end, staring all the time at something I could NOT see. I captured the whole thing on video (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?93672-Bill-s-searches-for-the-Wawa-Grande--Ecuador-s-Bigfoot-&p=1386163&viewfull=1#post1386163).

I promised myself I would never return there again on my own. It looked physically gorgeous, but felt like a truly spooky and scary place, clearly inhabited by something that wasn't friendly at all.

A few weeks ago, I went there again, this time with some good friends: a very athletic family with their two children — safety in numbers. :) Several odd things happened.

The first thing was that I felt ABSOLUTELY SURE there was someone or something right behind me, just a few feet away. I even stopped immediately and turned round to check, but there was nothing I could see.

Then Noam (my friends' very bright and able 18-year old son) lost his trekking poles. That sounds like a tiny thing (and it is!) but for anyone who's hiked with trekking poles, this is a very weird thing to happen. If you use them all the time, you know when you've not got them. It's like not having your backpack, or maybe your boots. Noam had no idea he'd left them behind somewhere until he suddenly realized. We had to split up and do an organized search before we found where he'd left them and had no idea it had happened.

Next thing, I dropped my camera in the Haunted Lake. (OMG! :facepalm: In all these years in mountains all over the world, I've never dropped a camera in a river or a lake, or even a small puddle. I just never drop my camera.)

But this time, it inexplicably fell right into the lake and sat there underwater for a good few seconds before I swooped down to pluck it out. It was soaked, kaput and nothing would work. I bemoaned the loss of quite a good $250 camera... but happily I was able to dry it out back home and after that a local technician restored it perfectly for almost nothing.

Light relief: Here's Noam (who is an international swimmer) actually swimming in the Haunted Lake. You can see how pristine it all looks, and no monster grabbed him with its tentacles. But his gasp at the very last second of the video is hilarious. (It was just a couple of degrees above zero, way up at nearly 14,000 ft under a clear sky. :bigsmile: )

https://projectavalon.net/Noam_in_the_Haunted_lake.mp4
(https://projectavalon.net/Noam_in_the_Haunted_lake.mp4)
https://projectavalon.net/Noam_in_the_Haunted_Lake.mp4

So all that had a happy ending. But not so for a highly experienced local mountaineer called Wilson Serrano, who disappeared without trace somewhere in that area back in 2018. (I wrote to Dave Paulides about it, and posted about it here (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?93672-Bill-s-searches-for-the-Wawa-Grande--Ecuador-s-Bigfoot-&p=1246080&viewfull=1#post1246080).) 664 people, including indigenous trackers, army and police searched for him for 30 days before they gave up. He has never been found.

~~~

So, those were just a few personal anecdotes. I usually restrict my valley hikes these days to the welcoming, feel-good places which I'm very familiar with. :)

But have others had similar experiences, either positive or negative? Maybe not in the mountains, but in abandoned ghost towns, or old houses, or in forests, valleys or gardens anywhere else in the world?

:flower:

[Tracie (Bodhicee)]

I do kind of love that Noam - brave Noam? (or, blissfully unaware?) - thumbed his nose, energetically, at whatever is there. And such beautiful powerful footage too. But, lol as i've said, it's not anything to be messed with, whatever it is that is there. Who knows how many 'strong vital' people it has overcome and consumed?

I do get chills, reading your account again. I've had 2 very palpable experiences to do with earth energy or portals. Once was near the base of Mt Imlay in the very south of NSW. We'd started out on a late walk to climb the mountain, supposedly the first place, (but really the second), to get first light on the continent of Australia. Because of the late start we got back down late (it wasn't a hard walk, just fairly remote). Light was failing - i generally don't want to be walking at that time, in that situation, wherever I am, anyway lol - we were hurrying. But there was this very clear sense that the mountain, or something, did not want us there. We were like being hurried off the mountain. It just felt like an ejection, related to time of day, not place. Goodness knows why. Needless to say we didn't argue but instead hurried.

The second experience was once while overnight camping in a tent at Bateman's Bay, south of Sydney. I remember clearly crawling into my tent and sleeping bag and nestling DOWN into the ground.... like i was burrowing into a deep mattress... The land was so welcoming, it actually embraced me, like a feather bed might.

Additionally i recall i was once overnight camping in a beautiful forest at Bundanoon, on the Southern Highlands, south of Sydney. My partner at the time, around sunset, had to leave the tent and step outside. Afterwards, i asked him "what's going on?" . He said "there's something out there and I was warding it off".

A year or two later we learnt that a serial killer had been captured after many years of searching and a favourite hunting ground (horrible) of his was that forest and he'd buried bodies there. (oh cripes.) To this day, i felt my dear friend warded off that malevolence and protected us. I'll always be grateful to his powerful vigilance and fearlessness. He wasn't afraid to go out and meet whatever was out there.

[Brigantia]

I've been all over Britain to wild places, the energies often seem to say that they're ok with people; there are very few places in this small and crowded isle that are truly wild so people have cohabited with the landscape for a very long time. Some places have given me the chills such as Badbury Rings in Dorset, but one place that I am never going back to is Cannock Chase; it felt seriously creepy there and rather malevolent. The YT channel Bedtime Stories as just done the first part of a two-parter on Cannock Chase.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uju8-jAZnNw&list=LL&index=22

[Bill Ryan]

I do kind of love that Noam... Brave Noam (or blissfully unaware?) thumbed his nose, energetically, at whatever is there. Well, he's a strong, confident, happy-go-lucky teenager! :)

I thought I'd add this PS. Those following Dave Paulides' research (his Avalon thread is David Paulides' research: over 2000 inexplicable abductions in National Parks, wilderness, and urban areas (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88574-David-Paulides-research-over-2000-inexplicable-abductions-in-National-Parks-wilderness-and-urban-areas)) will remember he's often remarked on the interesting placenames on maps, often originating from settlers of a couple hundred years ago, or from Native American oral tradition: Devil's Canyon, Devil's Peak, Devil's Gulch, Devil's Lookout, and so on.

Quite a few of the baffling disappearances Paulides has recorded have occurred near places with names like that.

:worried:

[Ewan]

I do kind of love that Noam... Brave Noam (or blissfully unaware?) thumbed his nose, energetically, at whatever is there. Well, he's a strong, confident, happy-go-lucky teenager! :)

I thought I'd add this PS. Those following Dave Paulides' research (his Avalon thread is David Paulides' research: over 2000 inexplicable abductions in National Parks, wilderness, and urban areas (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88574-David-Paulides-research-over-2000-inexplicable-abductions-in-National-Parks-wilderness-and-urban-areas)) will remember he's often remarked on the interesting placenames on maps, often originating from settlers of a couple hundred years ago, or from Native American oral tradition: Devil's Canyon, Devil's Peak, Devil's Gulch, Devil's Lookout, and so on.

Quite a few of the baffling disappearances Paulides has recorded have occurred near places with names like that.

:worried:

The mention of the loss (forgetting) of the trekking poles immediately made me think of David Paulides' accounts of hunters/missing persons getting confused. As did you earlier related tale about Las Lagunas Encantadas which I remember well.

As to my own experience I cannot say with any authority if they were genuine or a product of my own vivid imagination spurred on by fear, but I've got out of a few places in the mountains or forests at increasing pace as light fades, on occasion with hair rising on my forearms and a prickly sensation on the back of my neck - I'll be honest, that's the point I start jogging. :).

Yet with that said, I have camped in a one-man tent with no companion, other than dog, in the Cairngorms mountain range in Scotland with no unease.

Edit:

I've mentioned on Avalon before about E. E. Doc Smith's 'Lensman' series of novels.
There was an alien race that lured people to their demise, (they consumed their energies, which was their food source), by planting false thoughts through mind control. I'm not suggesting such an alien race exists, but it would explain a lot of what happens in the Missing Person's cases Paulides discusses and given the potential for millions of species - its possible such a race exists.

Also 90% sure I read on, or via link perhaps from, Avalon an account of a group of bikers heading through a southern US state when they noticed one of their number was missing. Turning around they headed back to look for him and by luck found him heading straight out across the scrub into nothing. His bike was parked by the side of the road and he had undressed as he walked away from the bike. He was very confused as to what had happened.

[gnostic9]

Hi Bill! I think this may be relevant.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3LexwpcZYA


Love peace and joy to all!

[Tracie (Bodhicee)]

I do kind of love that Noam... Brave Noam (or blissfully unaware?) thumbed his nose, energetically, at whatever is there. Well, he's a strong, confident, happy-go-lucky teenager! :)



Yes, a powerhouse of life energy, that loveliness of youth (and perhaps blissful ignorance too? :sherlock:
I refer you to the documentary and tragic example "The Alpinist" and hereby rest my case.:wink: :ninja:)SRpVyzagXLQ

[grapevine]

When I was a teenager, I was with a group of 8 friends, having drinks in a pub on the River Crouch in Essex. We left to walk home at around 9.15pm, and as there was a huge full moon it was still light. It was a beautiful warm and balmy summer night, no breeze, and we were in good humour as we walked around the back of the pub and along the riverbank, the river on our left and a grassed area with swings and a slide to our right. It was completely deserted, apart from us.

We were walking along chatting amiably when suddenly, and all at the same time, we became aware that just one of the swings was swinging up and down WITH NOBODY ON IT. And it wasn't just going to and fro - it was really swinging (like the bumps)! As one, we stopped talking, stared for a full 10 seconds, and then legged it as fast we could for all we were worth. We tore out of the pub grounds, hearts pounding, and ran at least 200 yards along the towpath, now with a field on our right, and trees. I felt as though my lungs would burst. And then this bloody white horse put its head over the fence in front of us and we all came to a complete standstill and just about crapped ourselves. Shaken to the core, we all laughed hysterically, but nobody was brave enough to go back so we never did find out what it was. Until I read Bill's story I honestly haven't thought about that night in more than 50 years.

Unfortunately it was so long ago there isn't a picture of how it used to look.
The area with the tables is where the swings were and the pub is behind the camera view.
https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/14/2d/87/a4/wonderful-views-over.jpg

[Pris]

.

I've been thinking of sharing this for a while, and I'm curious to know if others have had similar experiences.

I'm fairly attuned to things like this, and in my regular hikes in the mountains here over the years I've explored many remote, wild valleys and peaks. The peaks all feel 'clean', and very much the same: beautiful, peaceful, quiet and isolated. But the valleys all have their own character and I can always feel the differences.

Some feel friendly and welcoming:
"Hey, great to see you! Thanks for coming to see us again."
While a few are kind of grumpy:
"Oh, it's you again. Huh."
One valley I went to a couple of times, I just didn't feel good at all. It was very scenic (they all are!), but for reasons unknown I didn't really enjoy the hike, and my energy was quite low.

But I could see on Google Earth (the only real map I have) that quite a bit further down that valley there were several interesting-looking little lakes. Because back then several years ago)I was intent on exploring everywhere I could, I decided to go there to take a close look.

I was turned back. It was VERY strong, like a checkpoint or a roadblock. Or running into a wall.
"YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED HERE. GO HOME."
I stopped in my tracks, politely acknowledged the command, and turned right round to retrace my steps. I've never been back there since.

There's another valley as well, in which are The Haunted Lakes. (That's actually their name: Las Lagunas Encantadas. That translates as 'The Enchanted Lakes', which sounds like something out of a Disney cartoon. But the intended local meaning is 'Haunted'. Apparently they have quite a reputation.)

I've written about those before. The first time I went there, I had a bizarre experience in which I actually became disoriented and lost my normally-excellent sense of direction: I was being 'pulled' to return back to my vehicle in what was totally the wrong direction, and had to get my compass out to check.

And all that time, for a good 15 minutes, Mara my dog was shaking and growling with fear, trembling and with her hair on end, staring all the time at something I could NOT see. I captured the whole thing on video (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?93672-Bill-s-searches-for-the-Wawa-Grande--Ecuador-s-Bigfoot-&p=1386163&viewfull=1#post1386163).

I promised myself I would never return there again on my own. It looked physically gorgeous, but felt like a truly spooky and scary place, clearly inhabited by something that wasn't friendly at all.

A few weeks ago, I went there again, this time with some good friends: a very athletic family with their two children — safety in numbers. :) Several odd things happened.

The first thing was that I felt ABSOLUTELY SURE there was someone or something right behind me, just a few feet away. I even stopped immediately and turned round to check, but there was nothing I could see.

Then Noam (my friends' very bright and able 18-year old son) lost his trekking poles. That sounds like a tiny thing (and it is!) but for anyone who's hiked with trekking poles, this is a very weird thing to happen. If you use them all the time, you know when you've not got them. It's like not having your backpack, or maybe your boots. Noam had no idea he'd left them behind somewhere until he suddenly realized. We had to split up and do an organized search before we found where he'd left them and had no idea it had happened.

Next thing, I dropped my camera in the Haunted Lake. (OMG! :facepalm: In all these years in mountains all over the world, I've never dropped a camera in a river or a lake, or even a small puddle. I just never drop my camera.)

But this time, it inexplicably fell right into the lake and sat there underwater for a good few seconds before I swooped down to pluck it out. It was soaked, kaput and nothing would work. I bemoaned the loss of quite a good $250 camera... but happily I was able to dry it out back home and after that a local technician restored it perfectly for almost nothing.

Light relief: Here's Noam (who is an international swimmer) actually swimming in the Haunted Lake. You can see how pristine it all looks, and no monster grabbed him with its tentacles. But his gasp at the very last second of the video is hilarious. (It was just a couple of degrees above zero, way up at nearly 14,000 ft under a clear sky. :bigsmile: )

https://projectavalon.net/Noam_in_the_Haunted_lake.mp4
(https://projectavalon.net/Noam_in_the_Haunted_lake.mp4)


So all that had a happy ending. But not so for a highly experienced local mountaineer called Wilson Serrano, who disappeared without trace somewhere in that area back in 2018. (I wrote to Dave Paulides about it, and posted about it here (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?93672-Bill-s-searches-for-the-Wawa-Grande--Ecuador-s-Bigfoot-&p=1246080&viewfull=1#post1246080).) 664 people, including indigenous trackers, army and police searched for him for 30 days before they gave up. He has never been found.

~~~

So, those were just a few personal anecdotes. I usually restrict my valley hikes these days to the welcoming, feel-good places which I'm very familiar with. :)

But have others had similar experiences, either positive or negative? Maybe not in the mountains, but in abandoned ghost towns, or old houses, or in forests, valleys or gardens anywhere else in the world?

:flower:


Interesting! I'm thinking how maybe the energy grid of the Earth and energy vortices -- I'm guessing (black hole) Earth versions of "sun spots" will probably effect the way a (local) place feels magnetically/energetically (I'd speculate inter-dimensional portals). Also if there is running water beneath the ground under one's feet, I'm guessing that can create powerful electromagnetic/energetic (static electrical) effects upon our bodies. (I think we're like living divining rods. Actual divining rods, from what I've seen and my own experience, totally work.) I noticed for myself that having long hair is very helpful for "feeling" (pulling in) these energies. (I absolutely hate having my hair tied up -- only if it gets in the way when I'm working or when it's just too stinking hot to have it down.)

As for dropping your camera into the lake and having to reach in to get it, Bill, this scene came to mind. :)

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AncientCrispGrub-size_restricted.gif


https://i.makeagif.com/media/2-20-2014/e7SgTQ.gif


https://64.media.tumblr.com/43dbdec8f76293a35f55fd1a366b2b2d/tumblr_inline_o1zawaObkd1t5sase_500.gif



As for myself, when I was a teenager, I lived in an older house... I was hanging out with a friend in the kitchen, sitting at a table chatting away late one night when we started to get spooked. It felt like the house was bending in towards us listening to our conversation. As we noticed that, the sensation intensified. A heavy, dark, malevolent feeling... it was like the walls and ceiling were inching closer. We couldn't shake the feeling so we quickly got out of the house and I walked my friend home. I never felt more uncomfortable in that house.

But, I always felt uncomfortable in that house. It had a long, narrow, enclosed, badly lit staircase up to my bedroom... and a long dark hallway I had to go through just to get to my room. The hallway was flanked on both sides by old doors -- one on each side -- that lead into an unfinished, stuffy attic. I hated having to pass by those doors every single night.

I've also not liked being anywhere near cemeteries -- particularly very old cemeteries. And, we had one by the bay. I had a couple of very freaky experiences in and nearby that particular cemetery. If anyone is interested to hear about it, I'll be happy to share.

These days, I've noticed I'm less likely to be spooked because I do my best to reign in my imagination. I think imagination and reality are intertwined.

[Pris]

.

~~~

So, those were just a few personal anecdotes. I usually restrict my valley hikes these days to the welcoming, feel-good places which I'm very familiar with. :)

But have others had similar experiences, either positive or negative? Maybe not in the mountains, but in abandoned ghost towns, or old houses, or in forests, valleys or gardens anywhere else in the world?

:flower:


I should mention that I do have very positive experiences mostly out in nature, almost never in cities unless it's in a city park...

There's a small forest of mostly ponderosa pines right where I live (with my significant other) and the feeling here is wonderful. I always put out very appreciative and grateful feelings to all the gorgeous trees, the bushes, the birds, the bugs, the life all around. Absolutely, I love them all -- and that includes the surrounding cliffs, river, lake, sun and sky above me and ground beneath my feet... And, to our home (which I've gotten very intimate with thanks to our own hands-on repairs and renos). I care. My attentiveness and concern... The feeling of love and appreciation seems to come back to me and fills me up.

[DNA]

Have you ever tried to research the haunted lakes?
It would be interesting to hear if the place has a history of disappearances and the particulars.
I believe there are ancient people living under Mt. Shasta, the Gobi desert in China, the Himalayas. I believe these folks are intelligent and have greater technology than we and apparently don't like us.
I believe there are little people that live in the Indonesian island of sulawesi that don't seem to like humans and routinely abduct them never to return.
I believe there are giants that live in the underbelly of various islands in Indonesia
and the soloman islands especially Quadelcanal.
I think there are giants living in the deep mountain caves of Afghanistan and in Peru for that matter.
I believe there are giants living in the vast tunnels under Malta and I had a little native friend from the jungles of Baja California Mexico who told me that his village believed in giants that would roam the jungles at night and that you had better not be out after a certain hour for fear of being abducted by them.
I believe there are Gray bases and Reptilian bases as well.
I believe any of the aforementioned do sometimes have Sasquatch in their employ as top side pets who serve as guardians, escorts and who go on missions that are retreaval in nature.
Living underground in hallowed out cavern cities is apparently the rule and the norm for some reason and we can only guess as to why.
So, if you wonder into a wilderness area you're not familiar with and a not welcome sign is flashing on your third eye, yeah I would leave that place alone.

[shaberon]

David Paulides' research: over 2000 inexplicable abductions in National Parks, wilderness, and urban areas[/URL]) will remember he's often remarked on the interesting placenames on maps, often originating from settlers of a couple hundred years ago, or from Native American oral tradition: Devil's Canyon, Devil's Peak, Devil's Gulch, Devil's Lookout, and so on.



Total opposite here.

There is evidently a (fictional) movie coming out now, perhaps related to the dodgiest second of footage ever shot by Ghost Hunters based around this:

https://wwwcache.wral.com/asset/news/local/2020/10/10/19329858/devils-tramping-ground-ghost-DMID1-5oh4gxa6t-640x411.jpg



A little weird, but, we do see columnar "ground clouds" sometimes.

Called "Poison Tract" in a 1784 land deed, thought to be a war dance site or Indian battlefield, possibly fought by Croatan, i. e. related to the disappearance of the Lost Colony.

They say it is sterile or nothing has ever grown here and as you can tell, it gets used as a campsite:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/DevilsTrampingGround.jdh.jpg/800px-DevilsTrampingGround.jdh.jpg


Devil's Tramping Ground (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Tramping_Ground)


I have been given the stories that when you stay there, your loose gear gets thrown out of the middle.

There is a smaller, less famous one within about fifty miles.

No one whose gear was moved ever mentioned chills or freaking out, and, so far there is not much witnessing of The Devil actually doing any kind of work, so, I never bothered going out there. Instead we get fruitcakes around the corner.

I have spent many days at two parks that are unmarked "Civil War" battlefields, and thought they were nice.

I have had a psychic duel with an Indian ghost and another, but these had nothing to do with being in any particular location. So, no, underwhelmed by "haunted areas" or anything like that, comparatively speaking.

[Matthew]

A bit off topic - about compass polarity swaps... I found when my compass swapped polarity it didn't quite point south, it was about 10 degrees out. I've seen your video before, but that was before my own compass flipped out. Seeing your video again, your broken compass Bill looks to me like it could be about 10 degrees off south like mine is, judging by your walking pole orientation. Is this freeze frame showing that you have a better sense of north than the lying compasses suggests?

Your broken compass:

https://i.postimg.cc/cJ4d6nBd/image.png

My broken compass:

https://i.postimg.cc/rpqvQ2Dj/image.png

As I've said in a previous post already, I didn't know my compass had swapped its polarity so I had a very confused walk around London. My compass walked me past the same hat shop seven times instead of helping me find my friends. So I gave up trying to meet them and bought a hat instead.

[Bruce G Charlton]

What a great thread this has turned into!

Thanks to all contributors for expanding my mind. It came on top of, just this morning, starting to read a story by HP Lovecraft called The Colour out of Space (https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks15/1500421h.html). Which contains the following, in relation to the relationship between such places and their names:


When I went into the hills and vales to survey for the new reservoir they told me the place was evil. They told me this in Arkham, and because that is a very old town full of witch legends I thought the evil must he something which grandams had whispered to children through centuries. The name "blasted heath" seemed to me very odd and theatrical, and I wondered how it had come into the folklore of a Puritan people. Then I saw that dark westward tangle of glens and slopes for myself, end ceased to wonder at anything beside its own elder mystery. It was morning when I saw it, but shadow lurked always there. The trees grew too thickly, and their trunks were too big for any healthy New England wood. There was too much silence in the dim alleys between them, and the floor was too soft with the dank moss and mattings of infinite years of decay.

In the open spaces, mostly along the line of the old road, there were little hillside farms; sometimes with all the buildings standing, sometimes with only one or two, and sometimes with only a lone chimney or fast-filling cellar. Weeds and briars reigned, and furtive wild things rustled in the undergrowth. Upon everything was a haze of restlessness and oppression; a touch of the unreal and the grotesque, as if some vital element of perspective or chiaroscuro were awry. I did not wonder that the foreigners would not stay, for this was no region to sleep in. It was too much like a landscape of Salvator Rosa; too much like some forbidden woodcut in a tale of terror.

But even all this was not so bad as the blasted heath. I knew it the moment I came upon it at the bottom of a spacious valley; for no other name could fit such a thing, or any other thing fit such a name. It was as if the poet had coined the phrase from having seen this one particular region.

[Bill Ryan]

Have you ever tried to research the haunted lakes?I asked a local mountain guide about the lakes, someone who speaks excellent English and whom I know quite well. He said that his grandmother (now passed), when she was a little girl, had visited the lakes and seen a staircase going down into a hole in the ground. She was very excited and told everyone, but when her family went to take a look, it could not be found.

So she was teased about making it all up — but my mountain guide friend said that she stuck to her story till her dying day.

:flower:

[Strat]

Before I forget: Bill you've been to the pyramids (and I'd assume other similar sites) in Egypt, did you have any kind of 'feelings/sensations' when you were there? I plan on going there in the next few years. A close friend of mine (Egyptian, in Giza) has told me some neat things but I want to hear your thoughts.

What about places in sub Saharan Africa? I feel some kind of a 'pull' toward Africa and I'm not sure why.


-----------

I am trying to think of a time where I was told to turn back and I can't really think of it. I believe it though, and I think there is some consistency with mountains being associated with God/positive spirituality (for lack of a better term). It's a shame because there're no mountains where I live.

I've definitely been to places where I've felt the 'mood/energy' pick up a bit. One of them was in the church at Collodi, Italy. It's not a remarkable church and very touristy but the moment I walked in it hit my like a ton of bricks. I've been to many churches, new and old but something was different there.

I think my gardening is a small way of doing my part to improve the energy (or whatever) of where I live and in my specific location. I think of all the humans that occupied this small part of the globe before me and what they did. So I care for the land, once you're in tune with it it's a great thing. My soil is sand but I've worked with it enough to get my tiny little area to produce what I want. At any given time there's a butterfly, often more than one. Lots of bees and other flying things, and lizards chasing after them. Hummingbirds come for the mexican petunias and vermillionaire. Squirrels come because it's an all you can eat buffet, woodpeckers peck away at the oaks and hawks watch over it all.

[shaberon]

A bit off topic - about compass polarity swaps... I found when my compass swapped polarity it didn't quite point south, it was about 10 degrees out.



It is all similar. I had a friend who flew B-24s out of Homestead, Florida take all the EM anomalies of the Bermuda Triangle very seriously. Deadpan sober about disappearing planes and all that.

We still would not have a way to say that earth or spirit based EM is unrelated or not affecting each other, and cannot be sure that horses and dogs do not panic about something that is a little cold, or magnetically weird, difficult for a human to sense. Until you get to Foo Fighters maybe.


The Brown Mountain Lights are similar to Foo Fighters, however, infra-red photography reveals that they have a thermal form briefly, before, and after, becoming visible. They have never been called threatening. And I can't remember the temperature, let's just say, for example, it was "warm", eighty degrees or so, and then perhaps an invisible ghost is "cold", like it is about fifty degrees. Something like that could be obvious in the infra-red, however, it might be ordinarily visible due to a slight atmospheric effect, or it could affect air pressure or maybe even have a scent, or be combined with a magnetic effect, disturbing the animals.

[Matthew]

Best I can tell my compass flipped when it was next to a magnetic phone case clasp. Other people have had the same. It can be fixed apparently, by rubbing a magnet across it again. But I kept my broken one in a Faraday bag, and its replacement in its own Faraday bag too. Bill wrote "Reversed" on his but I wish I thought of that. I wrote "****" on mine :facepalm:

[Pam]

Ok , I have to contribute a bit, not about a valley in particular but a place that energically blew me away. At the risk of sounding new agey and silly I have to admit that the power of Sedona, Arizona is very, very real. I believe the energy of certain places that are magical. I went there with the idea of enjoying the beauty and knowing that it is called an energy vortex but I could have cared less about that. The idea of it being so special seemed trivialized and commercialized to me. I was more than happy just to hike the terrain and enjoy the beauty.

I was on a hike and never felt such a strong inclination to stay there. The comfort it offered was amazing. I literally wanted to run away and hide in the shelter of the stone formations. There are definite places on our beloved planet that offer sanctuary to those that are connected to the natural world.

I am so filled with gratitude to be able to witness the natural world in a rural atmosphere.I live in the apex of the Sasquatch phenomena. I savor everything about it, the call of the dove, the squawking of the black bird, even the snails, that eat my vegetables. I love it all, I savor every moment of it. The quail that are so lovely but are not very street wise. The whole thing, it is magnificent. I call my little farm Lame deer farm. That is because they can find sanctuary here. I let them eat the lower levels of my fruit trees, even though that is painful. I believe in cooperation with the natural world. From a city dweller with a huge amount of cognitive dissonance to a hermit of sorts with immense love of the natural world I am filled with gratitude. There is much pain from this life experience but I feel I am the luckiest fool alive.

I try to always walk barefoot on my lovely piece of paradise. I want to absorb the power of the great mother earth. I am pretty sure I sound like a fool, but Bill has always been kind to me and hasn't ejected me, ever. Just a tiny pitch. This is totally unsolicited but if you have a bit of money to spare, please help the forum continue. Bill has NEVER sold out for profit and fame. Let's keep this thing going till the end. I write this of my own volition there is nobody influencing me. I can never put a monetary value on what I have gained here, but it is priceless. I know I am going off topic,,, but I am filled with gratitude with what all of you have given to me. Without this forum I would have been locked into a spiral of a hellscape I don't want to consider.

Gratitude and investment in our ability to share our intuits, our knowledge and our community . I love each of you and am so grateful to be a part of this forum. Let's keep it going, until the last light is gone.
Damn, the gratitude to all of you is immense. Enough now. I step off my soap box and promise to stay on topic, until I don't.....


Back to topic......

[Heart to heart]

Thank you gnostic9 for recommending this film.
I watched it last night and loved it, touched my heart with their wonderful intention
Ireland holds so much sorrow and needs the healing.
One can feel it as you walk the land and see the old ruins, the unmarked gravestones.
But it is a land of true magic and I love it❤️

[Bill Ryan]

Before I forget: Bill you've been to the pyramids (and I'd assume other similar sites) in Egypt, did you have any kind of 'feelings/sensations' when you were there? I plan on going there in the next few years. A close friend of mine (Egyptian, in Giza) has told me some neat things but I want to hear your thoughts. Ha. I've never been to the Egyptian Pyramids. :) (I've had the opportunity, but strangely I never felt 'called' to go. I suspect it may be because as best I know I never had any past-life connection with the place.)

But I have been to Tikal (in what is now Guatemala), and was entranced. I absolutely fell in love with it. And there I know I do have a strong past-life connection.

For those for whom Tikal doesn't strike a chord, a tiny part of the complex is shown in this photo — once a huge Mayan metropolis which even now has only partially been excavated from the jungle. (I also went to Chichen Itza, and in contrast, for me that felt bleak, cold and unfriendly.)

https://www.worldhistory.org/img/r/p/750x750/3100.jpg?v=1631193304

[Ewan]

At the risk of sounding new agey and silly

Impossible!

I am so filled with gratitude to be able to witness the natural world in a rural atmosphere.I live in the apex of the Sasquatch phenomena. I savor everything about it, the call of the dove, the squawking of the black bird, even the snails, that eat my vegetables. I love it all, I savor every moment of it. The quail that are so lovely but are not very street wise. The whole thing, it is magnificent. I call my little farm Lame deer farm. That is because they can find sanctuary here. I let them eat the lower levels of my fruit trees, even though that is painful. I believe in cooperation with the natural world. From a city dweller with a huge amount of cognitive dissonance to a hermit of sorts with immense love of the natural world I am filled with gratitude. There is much pain from this life experience but I feel I am the luckiest fool alive.

We probably all are, we just don't realise it. That puts you a step ahead. :)

This is totally unsolicited but if you have a bit of money to spare, please help the forum continue. Bill has NEVER sold out for profit and fame.

Amen


Back to topic......

Response(s) in red above. :heart:

[shaberon]

Ok , I have to contribute a bit, not about a valley in particular but a place that energically blew me away. At the risk of sounding new agey and silly I have to admit that the power of Sedona, Arizona is very, very real. I believe the energy of certain places that are magical.



Most of us feel this way, and those are the places we usually like to go. For me, a prime example would be Hawksbill Mountain in Linville Gorge. And here we can find a school of art, which I believe originates with Hodson 1937 for Table Mountain, South Africa:


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Deva_-_Table_Mountain.jpg





Until you get this you have not been to the mountains.


Unspecified:

https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/mountain-deva-barbara-klimova.jpg



Taos:

https://maria-mikhailas.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Deva-of-Taos-Mountain-953x684.jpg





I would say those are real, I have spent many days admiring them, compared to which, a patch of ground fog does not scare me.

Because the OP was more in the vein of "Warning!", then, I think I may be unable to relate, since my equivalent is just the psychic aura of human beings. Plenty of that I would rather avoid. I thought everyone was able to visit these mountain devas? They are not that hard to see.

[Innocent Warrior]

There's a region of the Great Dividing Range, the Tweed Valley, that has an effect on me. I'm still not certain of the cause but it begins to take effect as I'm approaching the forest from the north of that region. It effects my mind and leaves me feeling fairly spaced out and unable to focus like I usually do. I can still function fine enough but not enough to drive or anything else that requires me to have my wits about me. The effect quickly leaves me as I'm leaving the region.

I say I'm not certain of the cause because I feel something very dark is going on there and that it's due to human activity but the effect on my mind is like this monolithic and powerful energy of the forest is overwhelming to the point that it changes the frequency of my mind and there's nothing I can do about that but leave.

We always visit this hippie type of town when we go there, it's pretty, tiny and quirky and a hub for tourists on day trips from Byron. It's the most practical place to go to first to rest after driving to the region from home, where we have something to eat before we head off to explore.

Being there and in the forest is always a strange experience for me because of the conflict between what I'm seeing and what I'm feeling. Here is a photograph of the range in the Tweed Valley area:

https://i.postimg.cc/JzTMbFBf/images-7.jpg

Dense, ancient, virgin forest, gorgeous swimming holes, breathtaking views from lookouts, and yet between the overwhelming energy of the picturesque forest and the soul sapping feel of that quaint little town, I'm never at ease there.

I'm perfectly at home with all terrain in Australia; desert, the bush, tropics, oceans, rivers, whatever - no problem, I've spent more time barefoot and outdoors than anyone else I've personally known. I've also driven through the range for hours on end in locations further up the coast many times with no problems.

The forest effect is neither positive nor negative, it's just inconvenient because I can't explore as freely and fearlessly as I do anywhere else in nature, but I can feel the darkness that can be felt most strongest in town in the forest also. It's the kind of energy that gives me a feeling of loneliness, which usually means it's something terribly dark.

I intend to take further trips to investigate the cause but ATM it's still a mystery to me.

Bill, the craziest place I've heard of in Australia is a place called the Babinda Boulders in far north Queensland, the locals call it The Devil's Pool. It's at a junction of three streams and people drown from the currents amongst the boulders but the indigenous people have a story about how the waters became that way. I have too much respect for their knowledge to care how about how illogical their stories seem. Combine the natural conditions with the amount of people who have died in those waters, some of which were never found, and it makes for a pretty interesting location.

Here is a decent and short article on it with photographs (gorgeous): https://www.mamamia.com.au/devils-pool-haunted/ I'd like to visit and ask the locals about any paranormal aspect of it.

I'm wondering, is there or was there a junction of waterways where the haunted lakes are located?

[Szymon]

There's a region of the Great Dividing Range, the Tweed Valley, that has an effect on me. I'm still not certain of the cause but it begins to take effect as I'm approaching the forest from the north of that region. It effects my mind and leaves me feeling fairly spaced out and unable to focus like I usually do. I can still function fine enough but not enough to drive or anything else that requires me to have my wits about me. The effect quickly leaves me as I'm leaving the region.

I say I'm not certain of the cause because I feel something very dark is going on there and that it's due to human activity but the effect on my mind is like this monolithic and powerful energy of the forest is overwhelming to the point that it changes the frequency of my mind and there's nothing I can do about that but leave.

We always visit this hippie type of town when we go there, it's pretty, tiny and quirky and a hub for tourists on day trips from Byron. It's the most practical place to go to first to rest after driving to the region from home, where we have something to eat before we head off to explore.

Being there and in the forest is always a strange experience for me because of the conflict between what I'm seeing and what I'm feeling. I can't get the image or link features to work, here is a link to a photograph of the range in the Tweed Valley area: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons

Dense, ancient, virgin forest, gorgeous swimming holes, breathtaking views from lookouts, and yet between the overwhelming energy of the picturesque forest and the soul sapping feel of that quaint little town, I'm never at ease there.

I'm perfectly at home with all terrain in Australia; desert, the bush, tropics, oceans, rivers, whatever - no problem, I've spent more time barefoot and outdoors than anyone else I've personally known. I've also driven through the range for hours on end in locations further up the coast many times with no problems.

The forest effect is neither positive nor negative, it's just inconvenient because I can't explore as freely and fearlessly as I do anywhere else in nature, but I can feel the darkness that can be felt most strongest in town in the forest also. It's the kind of energy that gives me a feeling of loneliness, which usually means it's something terribly dark.

I intend to take further trips to investigate the cause but ATM it's still a mystery to me.

Bill, the craziest place I've heard of in Australia is a place called the Babinda Boulders in far north Queensland, the locals call it The Devil's Pool. It's at a junction of three streams and people drown from the currents amongst the boulders but the indigenous people have a story about how the waters became that way. I have too much respect for their knowledge to care how about how illogical their stories seem. Combine the natural conditions with the amount of people who have died in those waters, some of which were never found, and it makes for a pretty interesting location.

Here is a decent and short article on it with photographs (gorgeous): https://www.mamamia.com.au/devils-pool-haunted/ I'd like to visit and ask the locals about any paranormal aspect of it.

I'm wondering, is there or was there a junction of waterways where the haunted lakes are located?

Thanks for the post. Where exactly is this spot? I used to live in Byron Bay, but now on the Goldie, so I'm quite familiar with that area. Cheers Szymon

[Innocent Warrior]

Thanks for the post. Where exactly is this spot? I used to live in Byron Bay, but now on the Goldie, so I'm quite familiar with that area. Cheers Szymon

Hi, neighbour!

Look familiar?

https://i.postimg.cc/j5sn3mjR/images-5.jpg

Nimbin.

Since I'm back posting here I'll add a cool little story about Nimbin.

The night before my husband and I visited Nimbin for the first time we were really excited to go, my sister had told me how cool it is and I felt a connection with the area from what we had seen online. My husband said, "wouldn't it be cool if when we got there and someone said 'welcome home, I've been waiting for you'".

Next day, we stopped in at the candle factory before we entered Nimbin and parked next a van with its sliding door open and a gentleman and his dog were sitting in the van. I got out of our car and before I had even closed the door the man said, "welcome home, I've been waiting for you!".

I looked over at my husband to see if he heard it, he had, and when I looked back at the man he saw my incredulous expression and insisted, "I have!". He lived in his van that was all decked out, he then went on to explain he had been doing Falun Gong and was going to leave but decided he'd wait for one more visitor.

He looked like a hippie that had just stepped straight out of the sixties, told us he was a rainbow warrior and told us about his days of when they founded Nimbin. We talked with him for about an hour before we continued in town. So I'm not done with that place yet but it was a major let down.

[Bill Ryan]

I'm wondering, is there or was there a junction of waterways where the haunted lakes are located?Well, sort of! But just several small mountain streams that all flow into the cluster of Haunted Lakes (there are 4 of them, all connected, plus a few tiny ones which I don't know are haunted or not. :)). The outflow into the valley below is one slightly larger river. In this whole large and complex area (the Cajas mountains) there are a zillion streams, rivers and lakes of all sizes, many of them unnamed and quite hard to get to.

But as I mentioned in my first post, some valleys here (and one in particular) are very friendly, feel-good and welcoming. My thread was really about the contrasts in friendly and not-so-friendly places.

Another example, a tiny one but which I remember vividly to this day, 25 years later. I was hiking in Death Valley in California, where there's a high, arid mountain called Telegraph Peak.

https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/peakery-media/images/items/main/cache/telegraph-peak-4.JPG.1920x1440_q95_crop.jpg

All was fine and normal, and then I came across a solitary tree (which I think was a Jeffrey Pine (https://calscape.com/ExtData/allimages/Photos/Pinus_jeffreyi_image75.jpg)) that had the most wonderful feeling emanating from it. I was instantly struck, and although I wasn't tired at all I sat underneath it for a VERY long time and did not want to move. The feeling was specific to that one tree in that one spot. I'm sure others will have had the same experience in other places.

:heart:

[Tracie (Bodhicee)]

There's a region of the Great Dividing Range, the Tweed Valley, that has an effect on me. I'm still not certain of the cause but it begins to take effect as I'm approaching the forest from the north of that region. It effects my mind and leaves me feeling fairly spaced out and unable to focus like I usually do. I can still function fine enough but not enough to drive or anything else that requires me to have my wits about me. The effect quickly leaves me as I'm leaving the region.

I say I'm not certain of the cause because I feel something very dark is going on there and that it's due to human activity but the effect on my mind is like this monolithic and powerful energy of the forest is overwhelming to the point that it changes the frequency of my mind and there's nothing I can do about that but leave.

We always visit this hippie type of town when we go there, it's pretty, tiny and quirky and a hub for tourists on day trips from Byron. It's the most practical place to go to first to rest after driving to the region from home, where we have something to eat before we head off to explore.

Being there and in the forest is always a strange experience for me because of the conflict between what I'm seeing and what I'm feeling. Here is a photograph of the range in the Tweed Valley area:

https://i.postimg.cc/JzTMbFBf/images-7.jpg

Dense, ancient, virgin forest, gorgeous swimming holes, breathtaking views from lookouts, and yet between the overwhelming energy of the picturesque forest and the soul sapping feel of that quaint little town, I'm never at ease there.

I'm perfectly at home with all terrain in Australia; desert, the bush, tropics, oceans, rivers, whatever - no problem, I've spent more time barefoot and outdoors than anyone else I've personally known. I've also driven through the range for hours on end in locations further up the coast many times with no problems.

The forest effect is neither positive nor negative, it's just inconvenient because I can't explore as freely and fearlessly as I do anywhere else in nature, but I can feel the darkness that can be felt most strongest in town in the forest also. It's the kind of energy that gives me a feeling of loneliness, which usually means it's something terribly dark.

I intend to take further trips to investigate the cause but ATM it's still a mystery to me.
(snip)


Hello Innocent.

You write about my backyard lol... I live about 7k from Wollumbin and have lived here for 13 years after moving from Byron Bay (where I often have trouble with the energetics lol). Interestingly I've not experienced what you talked about in any forest around here but do relate to what you said about the little hippy town - Nimbin, right? I find that place to be very energetically dirty, very, like there is a cloud or miasma around it....... I attribute this to the presence of very strong parasitic energy, enabled and attracted and energised by the amount of addiction there.

Regarding the caldera... Interestingly I spent quite sometime with an elder 2 weeks ago and he told me that in truth.... all of earth's humanity began right HERE, that , in fact, Wollumbin is the most important point on the whole planet. He said humanity didn't come from the Rift Valley but instead originated from right here and Aboriginal dna is found in all the indigenous cultures from Innuit to the Amazon etc of the world. It came first, according to him. He was asked to do a painting to tell the story of mankind and he honoured me (I felt honoured) by showing me a photo of it and 'unpacking it' in detail... It included Pangea, the Great Flood, the 13 tribes etc... The point being that all of this came from Wollumbin. Myself I've climbed it several times - I assume you have too? I've honestly not noticed anything you've described, have even once walked it in an ecstatic state (I don't believe the state was due to the mountain but because of something else). I didn't realise it is a men's business sacred site at the time. On that note he said only men should therefore climb it and that all the women's sites surround it and that's where they should go.

I made the point to him that actually, from the air, the mountain looked in fact like a vulva but i soon could see that in truth it shows clearly as the shakti/shiva yoni/lingam , holy union shape. I saw a form of this union clearly a couple of hours prior to meeting the elder, and was so impressed to realise that this is represented in Wollumbin.

Could all this perhaps explain what you were feeling?

In truth there were terrible massacres in this region.

Minyon Falls was apparently one such place where a number of indigenous ones were forced over that terrible 100m precipice to their deaths.... I can't recall more but believe there were others. Perhaps it is this you pick up on ?

Regarding this elder , to my sense, he spoke with true authority. I'll try and post a photo of him in my album.

**edited to add:

unfortunately the 2 pics won't upload (Upload of the file failed).

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

I also went to Chichen Itza, and in contrast, for me that felt bleak, cold and unfriendly.)


Yes! I so agree. When did you go Bill? When I was there I felt the exact same thing. Blood, fear and trauma. I could feel it in the air. A fascinating place, but not a friendly one if you're sensitive to energies. I remember distinctly looking into one of the deep cenotes nearby and feeling a sense of dread. I later heard that either for sacrifice or punishment people would be thrown in that hole. Chilling!

After leaving I had the worst headache. Not a pounding sort of headache, but thick and dull, like the brain was made of lead - and a buzzing sensation as if my head was vibrating slightly.

I took this photo on my visit there in August 1994.

51334

[Szymon]

Thanks for the post. Where exactly is this spot? I used to live in Byron Bay, but now on the Goldie, so I'm quite familiar with that area. Cheers Szymon

Hi, neighbour!

Look familiar?

https://i.postimg.cc/j5sn3mjR/images-5.jpg

Nimbin.

Since I'm back posting here I'll add a cool little story about Nimbin.

The night before my husband and I visited Nimbin for the first time we were really excited to go, my sister had told me how cool it is and I felt a connection with the area from what we had seen online. My husband said, "wouldn't it be cool if when we got there and someone said 'welcome home, I've been waiting for you'".

Next day, we stopped in at the candle factory before we entered Nimbin and parked next a van with its sliding door open and a gentleman and his dog were sitting in the van. I got out of our car and before I had even closed the door the man said, "welcome home, I've been waiting for you!".

I looked over at my husband to see if he heard it, he had, and when I looked back at the man he saw my incredulous expression and insisted, "I have!". He lived in his van that was all decked out, he then went on to explain he had been doing Falun Gong and was going to leave but decided he'd wait for one more visitor.

He looked like a hippie that had just stepped straight out of the sixties, told us he was a rainbow warrior and told us about his days of when they founded Nimbin. We talked with him for about an hour before we continued in town. So I'm not done with that place yet but it was a major let down.

Hi neighbor, yes that image looks very familiar, been there a few times. Nimbin is definitely an interesting place and so are the people.

Last weekend I traveled to UKI, to the monthly markets, just love the energy there. The crystal shop in the center of the market is wonderful.

[Strat]

Before I forget: Bill you've been to the pyramids (and I'd assume other similar sites) in Egypt, did you have any kind of 'feelings/sensations' when you were there? I plan on going there in the next few years. A close friend of mine (Egyptian, in Giza) has told me some neat things but I want to hear your thoughts. Ha. I've never been to the Egyptian Pyramids. :)

Ahh my apologies, I could've sworn you did a video with Kerry many years ago in front of the Sphinx but I must be mistaken.

Kind of a silly inside joke: I often misremember things like this and a friend of mine pokes fun at me by asking me randomly if I "could've sworn."

As much as I like Egypt, I'm not overly excited about the pyramids of Giza either. I think that's more for the tourists, the sites of significance are scattered elsewhere.

[Eagle Eye]

In Albania we have a mysterious mountain called mount Tomorr. It has been called as a sacred mountain by our ancestors, also it's a place where sect members (bektashi/shia) make pilgrimage every year. That mountain is also described as a portal to heaven and some researchers claim that it has a different frequency in part of it and also there has been reports about ufo activity in the past.

https://visitberat.al/wp-content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/tomorri-ps19j5rhksmo2lj2vd6z23b08yega64cfyumc37b6g.webp

https://berat.al/admin/assets/images/mali%20itomorrit.jpg

[Strat]

I got an email today that someone I know is going on a trip to a place with the name 'Devil' in it and I had to laugh because of this thread. I sure hope it all works out!

[shaberon]

Regarding the caldera... Interestingly I spent quite sometime with an elder 2 weeks ago and he told me that in truth.... all of earth's humanity began right HERE, that , in fact, Wollumbin is the most important point on the whole planet. He said humanity didn't come from the Rift Valley but instead originated from right here and Aboriginal dna is found in all the indigenous cultures from Innuit to the Amazon etc of the world. It came first, according to him.


That is not out of the question.

The oldest known particle of the earth's crust is a zircon crystal from Australia.

We can't always be sure what is meant by "people", does it mean the Sapiens species?

The Denisovan Man (dwarfish) of Siberia turned out to have the closest match to the New Guineans, they are about 5% Denisovan.

Polynesians have said they come from somewhere unknown to the east, implying perhaps a now-submerged landmass.

The suggestion I would make is that tectonic plate drift is not observable, as in it may not be believable that India sailed away from Africa, or the Americas did--but that parts of the ocean floor were once dry land, because they move up and down like pegs. That would of course contradict "Pangaea" as mentioned.

Obviously you aren't going to scoot across the Pacific Ocean on a pirogue, so there may have been land connections, or relatively small waters to ferry.

I am not sure why an aboriginal would want to conform their story to scientific theories or the Bible...shouldn't it be, this is our story, no matter what you say?

I also have no idea what to call them, as soon as it is not Maori, I have no idea what the preference would be.

[Michel Leclerc]

What a great thread this has turned into!

Thanks to all contributors for expanding my mind. It came on top of, just this morning, starting to read a story by HP Lovecraft called The Colour out of Space (https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks15/1500421h.html). Which contains the following, in relation to the relationship between such places and their names:

(...)

[/FONT]

A masterpiece, as are quite a few of Lovecraft’s works. He has written stories that are quite unsettling – going far beyond the bedtime horror story – as if instilling an awareness of metaphysical truth in the reader – that are at the same time brilliantly written and achieve perfection of form. The passage you have quoted exemplifies all that.

[Innocent Warrior]

I'm sure others will have had the same experience in other places.

:heart:

Oh, gotcha. :thumbsup::heart:

I love your mountains in Ecuador, that degree of isolation captivates me and those lakes, there, wow. I have two places where I've experienced contrast like that, both positive. I'll tell you about the outback location. Hardly ideal for a mountaineer but I think you'd like the outback a lot.

I was 17 years old and was invited to go on a hunting trip with a group of friends, they were going out west from Bowen in North Queensland so I accepted and went with them. I don't know where we were exactly, a long way in though, in the middle of nowhere. The terrain was typical north west outback, mostly flat, some dunes, the ground ranged from a pale gold sand to a vivid red dirt, some trees along and near the river and spotted with shrubs everwhere else.

We camped near a river with sandy banks (and croc signs, no swimming). We set off one morning on foot and hiked for roughly half an hour and stopped briefly at some sand dunes. They were all continuing on further into the bush to go hunting so I alone decided to stay at the dunes, one of the boys handed me a rifle so they could locate me after I shot twice to signal when I wanted to leave. They were familiar with the area but I wasn't, I didn't even know how to get back to camp.

All was fine and normal like you described in Death Valley but these dunes specifically were superb, they were so welcoming and nurturing. It was like a labyrinth of dunes and valleys between the dunes but the largest dunes were only about two metres high, the sand was a pale gold colour. There were points of interest of little plants here and there but I was mostly just wandering around aimlessly on what was essentially an inland beach, for I don't know how long.

The sky was perfectly clear and blue. There was no wind and it was silent, not 'I'm about to see a cryptid' silent but soooo quiet that all I could hear was my breathing and movement. The acoustics were so strange to me there because I remember thinking the group must have been moving really fast because I couldn't hear them very shortly after they left my side and I only heard them once while they were away. I let out two shots when I did because I'd assumed it would take a while for them to get back to me but they got to me pretty quickly.

I felt utterly perfect wandering around in that pale gold and deep blue wonderland and so isolated, I forgot myself to the point that I suddenly became aware that I was really thirsty and had no water. I didn't want to leave and was still deciding whether or not to shoot when I came across some pristine water after I bent the corner around a dune. I couldn't believe my luck, it was a teeny tiny lake of perfectly clear, fresh water on a bed of pristine sand. I drank, cooled off and stayed a while before walking off in the general direction I came from. Best. Time. Ever.


Myself I've climbed it several times - I assume you have too?

Hi Tracie!

About Nimbin, yes, very dirty energy, more like grotty with a nasty undercurrent, which is quite the feat in such a beautiful location. I like the tourists though, they're mostly really friendly and kind, I really enjoy their energy and company.

I haven't actually climbed Wollumbin. I've only gone for day trips and I live in Brisbane so when I get out in nature I want to be alone, so I prefer to avoid attractions. I also avoid sacred sites where I can, it physically hurts my heart to be told where I can and can't go on this planet, I don't stick to tracks, so I respect their wishes by avoiding them altogether. I'm more of a hidden gem person and every bit is sacred to me anyway, so not that much of compromise for me.

I still enjoy the forest there but I haven't yet ventured far from town, I think this is why I still feel that energy, that and there's a connection between Nimbin and the surrounding forests and that nasty energy.

I'm confident the effect on my mind is unique to me (nobody I've asked feels it) and there's a purpose to it, which I'm yet to discover and I expect it to cease once I do. About what the elder told you - woooow, OK, so I definitely need to stay a few days (somewhere more like Uki ;)) and focus on Wollumbin. Yes, I do think that's a strong contender for the cause of the effect and when I pondered over what you wrote I suddenly felt I needed to simply be there and it has something to do with energy and DNA activation/tuning. Wild, thank you so much for sharing that. I would love to be able to recognise the elder if I come across him, I'll PM you about the photos.

[Tracie (Bodhicee)]

I'm sure others will have had the same experience in other places.

:heart:

Oh, gotcha. :thumbsup::heart:

I love your mountains in Ecuador, that degree of isolation captivates me and those lakes, there, wow. I have two places where I've experienced contrast like that, both positive. I'll tell you about the outback location. Hardly ideal for a mountaineer but I think you'd like the outback a lot.

I was 17 years old and was invited to go on a hunting trip with a group of friends, they were going out west from Bowen in North Queensland so I accepted and went with them. I don't know where we were exactly, a long way in though, in the middle of nowhere. The terrain was typical north west outback, mostly flat, some dunes, the ground ranged from a pale gold sand to a vivid red dirt, some trees along and near the river and spotted with shrubs everwhere else.

We camped near a river with sandy banks (and croc signs, no swimming). We set off one morning on foot and hiked for roughly half an hour and stopped briefly at some sand dunes. They were all continuing on further into the bush to go hunting so I alone decided to stay at the dunes, one of the boys handed me a rifle so they could locate me after I shot twice to signal when I wanted to leave. They were familiar with the area but I wasn't, I didn't even know how to get back to camp.

All was fine and normal like you described in Death Valley but these dunes specifically were superb, they were so welcoming and nurturing. It was like a labyrinth of dunes and valleys between the dunes but the largest dunes were only about two metres high, the sand was a pale gold colour. There were points of interest of little plants here and there but I was mostly just wandering around aimlessly on what was essentially an inland beach, for I don't know how long.

The sky was perfectly clear and blue. There was no wind and it was silent, not 'I'm about to see a cryptid' silent but soooo quiet that all I could hear was my breathing and movement. The acoustics were so strange to me there because I remember thinking the group must have been moving really fast because I couldn't hear them very shortly after they left my side and I only heard them once while they were away. I let out two shots when I did because I'd assumed it would take a while for them to get back to me but they got to me pretty quickly.

I felt utterly perfect wandering around in that pale gold and deep blue wonderland and so isolated, I forgot myself to the point that I suddenly became aware that I was really thirsty and had no water. I didn't want to leave and was still deciding whether or not to shoot when I came across some pristine water after I bent the corner around a dune. I couldn't believe my luck, it was a teeny tiny lake of perfectly clear, fresh water on a bed of pristine sand. I drank, cooled off and stayed a while before walking off in the general direction I came from. Best. Time. Ever.


Myself I've climbed it several times - I assume you have too?

Hi Tracie!

About Nimbin, yes, very dirty energy, more like grotty with a nasty undercurrent, which is quite the feat in such a beautiful location. I like the tourists though, they're mostly really friendly and kind, I really enjoy their energy and company.

I haven't actually climbed Wollumbin. I've only gone for day trips and I live in Brisbane so when I get out in nature I want to be alone, so I prefer to avoid attractions. I also avoid sacred sites where I can, it physically hurts my heart to be told where I can and can't go on this planet, I don't stick to tracks, so I respect their wishes by avoiding them altogether. I'm more of a hidden gem person and every bit is sacred to me anyway, so not that much of compromise for me.

I still enjoy the forest there but I haven't yet ventured far from town, I think this is why I still feel that energy, that and there's a connection between Nimbin and the surrounding forests and that nasty energy.

I'm confident the effect on my mind is unique to me (nobody I've asked feels it) and there's a purpose to it, which I'm yet to discover and I expect it to cease once I do. About what the elder told you - woooow, OK, so I definitely need to stay a few days (somewhere more like Uki ;)) and focus on Wollumbin. Yes, I do think that's a strong contender for the cause of the effect and when I pondered over what you wrote I suddenly felt I needed to simply be there and it has something to do with energy and DNA activation/tuning. Wild, thank you so much for sharing that. I would love to be able to recognise the elder if I come across him, I'll PM you about the photos.

Hello Innocent.. a quick reply on the run here, due to excitement!

You would positively love the Mount Warning (Wollumbin) Caravan Park! It's so beautiful and peaceful, by a running stream and right almost at the base of the mountain... It is an idyllic place; i think you'd feel like you were in heaven!
https://www.mtwarningrainforestpark.com/

It's located half way between Murwillumbah and Uki.

I'll write more later :inlove:

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

One very interesting place not mentioned is Devil's Tower in Wyoming.

https://cdn.britannica.com/54/94154-050-74AE3A30/Devils-Tower-National-Monument-Wyoming.jpg

Lot of curious myths and legends surrounding this place. Of course my favourite, and where Devil's Tower lives for me, is in Stephen Spielberg's classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind:

https://tribecafilm-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/film/photo_1/4982/full_close.jpeg

[Apulu]

Interesting stuff. I've had a couple of experiences of feeling creeped out at small lochs in the Scottish Highlands.

The first was the most memorable. I was walking in the hills on my own and had planned to make the wee loch a half way point and go for a dip before turning around. I got to the edge and was looking forward to going in. The place itself is a little creepy in that it's quite barren up there and very few people go there, but I don't remember feeling any particularly weird feelings when I got there. The thing was, as I stepped in, I got to a certain point, just over ankle deep perhaps, and then I just COULDN'T bring myself to go any further. The thought of doing so was just overwhelming not nice. It was November and quite cold but I was used to going in to quite cold water at that time. It felt just horrible being in there. I managed to force myself under in a press up position, and that was very much that.

Interestingly, I spoke to a friend not long after who I knew had been to the area, and told him about going up there for a dip - he's also into cold water swimming. "Oh yeah I did that! How did you get on?" he asked. Not very well, I replied. "I could only go so far and then that was that. Things got really creepy suddenly, and I only managed to force myself under in about a foot of water."

"Ha you went in?! I couldn't bring myself to do even that much!" he said. "Just, no way. Had to turn around, couldn't even bring myself to go under." We were both very much agreed: as soon as we stepped into the water, it was as if our senses were yelling at us NOT to go any further. Really, really not a welcoming place to swim.

If anyone happens to want to go there and have a go at getting in, here's where it is! The whole area around there is well worth a visit, and it's not very touristy.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/x7pmF8aC8mBipQVF9

[Bill Ryan]

If anyone happens to want to go there and have a go at getting in, here's where it is! The whole area around there is well worth a visit, and it's not very touristy.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/x7pmF8aC8mBipQVF9For reasons unknown, I can't access Google Maps. (But I do have Google Earth, which works perfectly.) Can you post the coordinates, or the name of the loch? I know the Scottish mountains pretty well, and so this really caught my interest.

:flower:

(personal update)

Inspired by this thread(!), yesterday I went to revisit the valley where every time I've been greeted with

"Hey, great to see you! Thanks for coming to see us again."
I was expecting it to be dull and cloudy, so I took a chance with the weather forecast. But in that exact place I was met with stunning bright blue skies and carpets of alpine flowers. It was ridiculously beautiful. I felt wonderful all the time I was there, and I never wanted to leave. :)

I took a bunch of photos (with my tiny cheap pocket camera), and when I got home I was astonished to see this. The panorama features vertical shafts of light which you can see clearly on the left side of the photo. (Below is embedded a small version to fit the page. But do zoom in to the large version to see everything in fine detail.)

It's probably a lens flare! :P But that's never showed up in any of my other photos, anywhere and at any time, in all my years exploring the mountains here.

:heart:

https://projectavalon.net/shaft_of_light_panorama_sm.jpg

(High-resolution image: https://projectavalon.net/shaft_of_light_panorama.jpg)

[JackMcThorn]

https://projectavalon.net/shaft_of_light_panorama_sm.jpg

What a lumbering poor vehicle prose is for the conveying of a great thought! ... Prose wanders around with a lantern & laboriously schedules & verifies the details & particulars of a valley & its frame of crags & peaks, then Poetry comes, & lays bare the whole landscape with a single splendid flash. -Mark Twain

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

It's probably a lens flare!

As a once pro photographer I've seen a lot of lens flares. These don't look like traditional lens flares to me. There are at least four of them for a start, vertically arranged, only pointing down and not in any other direction, and all caused by a single light source. These could be artefacts due to a dirty lens, but if you can rule that out I'd say you had a mystery there Bill, and one very cool photograph!

[Brigantia]

If anyone happens to want to go there and have a go at getting in, here's where it is! The whole area around there is well worth a visit, and it's not very touristy.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/x7pmF8aC8mBipQVF9For reasons unknown, I can't access Google Maps. (But I do have Google Earth, which works perfectly.) Can you post the coordinates, or the name of the loch? I know the Scottish mountains pretty well, and so this really caught my interest.

I had a look too; it says that it's Lochearnhead but the search sent me to Loch Voil. I'm not sure whether it's that loch or Loch Earn to the east.

[shaberon]

There are at least four of them for a start, vertically arranged, only pointing down and not in any other direction, and all caused by a single light source.



I see five and I would argue they are not precisely parallel.

My suggestion would be Light Pillars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pillar), especially because of the high cirrus clouds. That of course means they would be normally visible, and not a surprise to find them in a picture--unless, perhaps, the clouds were fast-moving and the beams "blinked" in and out of existence quicker than being noticed.

They do not "follow rules", can be above or below the light source, produced by artificial lighting, and so forth, or occur through lower clouds in cold places like Canada or Russia. When there are multiples caused by the sun, then you would typically see the slight incline out of true alignment.


Attention to such things in the "scientific" sense is relatively recent:


The topic was popularised by the wide circulation of a book by Marcel Minnaert, Light and Color in the Open Air, in 1954.

My introduction to it was from the much-maligned William Corliss, whose works have been knocked out of print. A whole heap of them are on Archive (https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Corliss%2C+William+R%22), although "Rare Halos..." is limited unless you sign up for their borrowing thing.


Instead, he is personally focused by Anomaly Archives (https://anomalyarchives.org/collections/file/corliss-william-roger/):


Subsequently, his Web site was one of the first I produced, and one of the first on the Web, in 1997 (qv. archive.org), becoming a UK Web Awards Nominee. I have managed his website, www.science-frontiers.com ever since.


This stems from a career of collecting some 40,000 articles by a physicist, who doesn't really "push it"--for example, according to Speer (https://books.google.com/books?id=JqRtDgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA223&ots=WlZExEEz0c&dq=%22corliss%22%20brown%20mountain%20lights&pg=PA210#v=onepage&q=%22corliss%22%20brown%20mountain%20lights&f=false), he simply compiled a few articles on the Brown Mountain Lights "without offering an interpretation".


Light pillar in cirrus only appearing downwards:


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Light_pillar.jpg/450px-Light_pillar.jpg

[Artemesia]

After obtaining an undergrad philosophy degree at UC San Diego I realized I knew basically nothing of what was ACTUALLY going on in the world, and moreover had realized that wandering alone in the wilderness was where I could most easily get away from the aberent mind control frequencies found in cities and the social conditioning structures that were just bleh and unsupportive, so I began working in national parks, first as a concession tour guide, then as a backcountry wilderness guide for groups of teenagers then finally as a wilderness/backcountry and front country, search and rescue, wilderness paramedic, wildland fire and LE Ranger for the National Park Service. In my many years of wandering the wild places, stories like these became pretty par for the course.


Below is a longer narrative of an encounter of this variety, from my wordpress blog ArtemesiaSpeaks (which had to be taken down in 2012 due to gangstalking by an SRA group) . This story took place in Yellowstone National Park in about circa 2000

Inhabitants of the Forest

In an urban world full of skyscrapers and concrete sidewalks, those who make a departure from such landscapes might be surprised to realize that despite the seemingly endless cities dotting the world, many spaces still exist where wildness roams free and it takes only a few small steps to enter an entirely different realm.
I have had the great pleasure and fortune to live in one of just these kinds of domains, a place where the miniature metropolis stands amidst a deep and pervasive forest of inhabitants of another variety. Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park is a curious contradiction unto itself. Daily, seas of 30,000 summer visitors crowd the boardwalks to watch the world’s most famous geyser erupt at regular intervals. The stunning architecture of the Inn, and a surprisingly large collection of smaller lodging places, administrative outbuildings and domiciles litter the ‘developed’ area, supporting all manner of modern conveniences: hot showers, dining rooms, comfortable beds and abundant gift shops supplying both topographical maps and the finest quality rubber tomahawks money can buy.
However, not too far afield from this melee of people and hot water and Earth-charged energies, the remnants of the super volcano that was the hallmark of the landscape once upon a time, its possible to recede into the background and rejoin the magical yet primitive setting that more native travelers have been navigating for eons.

And so it was that on a day off from my rigorous but rewarding job guiding the dead and nearly dead on their retirement tours of the park in wall to wall carpeted motorcoaches, equipped with a microphone and spouting tales of natural history while careening at 45 miles per hour backwards (so as to face the crowd), that I chose to return to those voyaging grounds.

Fountain flats, situated just North of Old Faithful but essentially in the heart of the caldera, sports a curious collection of geothermal and geological anomalies. The area is highlighted by abundant bubbling sulpherous mud pots and hot springs, open grassland surrounded by a spindly Lodgepole Pine forest, and an unusual collection of hills in the center of the vast expanse of the flats which are ‘thermally cemented glacial moraines, ’ remnants of glacial detritus that became welded together by the cataclysmic events that followed the cold spells.

Not far off the roadway is an area called Sentinel Meadows. Only a few miles down an easy, level path, one finds oneself in a hauntingly prehistoric state of the world. The only signs of human presence are the faintly worn trail, an old crumbling historic bath house preserved nearby in its present form by the silica laden thermal waters, and a curious diamond shaped sign posted on a tree stating “OD3”.

I arrived at the campsite that afternoon with a not entirely welcome companion in tow. Kirk was a tall, lanky and morose fellow who claimed to be an apprentice of sorcery, but mostly showed himself to be a hopelessly inept camper and lust ridden fellow who seemed to be boldly going nowhere in life, not entirely unlike many other concession employees who work a season or two in the park before vanishing back into the city lifestyles from whence they came.

A few weeks earlier he and I had embarked on a similar camping trip in the Norris area, only to find ourselves hopelessly lost after a hike out of our camp, stranded in darkness, and then suddenly overcome by the terrifiying realization that we were surrounded by glowing eyes. Bison had invaded our campsite and the faltering headlamps revealed their eyeshine like an unwanted lighthouse suddenly alerts that one has unexpectedly drifted onto the breakers. Because of this, we were not able to return to our food and shelter for the night. After wandering through the immature trees born of the ‘88 fires, we sat down to sleep but were soon compelled to keep moving, for had we stopped in the cold that night we would likely have blissfully slept our way to a hypothermic death.

And so, it was not without a herculean effort of patience that I consented to his company. It was, however, fall, and with the delightful stand of white bark pine that surrounded the camp, nevermind the grizzly appetite for such foodstuffs, it seemed a prudent move to include someone else on my adventure, even if it was a nincompoop. I had solicited several other folks with the idea of the trip, but time off was a precious and seldom accessed resource; the steady work of industrial tourism in the National Parks required a compliant and complacent work force who took their meager lodgings, shoddy food, petty pay and occasional free time without complaint.

We arrived at a small junction in the trail, and noted that an unusually large male bison, obviously preparing for the rut, was industriously laying waste to the ‘OD3’ sign that marked our would-be quarters for the night. Deciding such a forest inhabitant was best left to his own devices, we hid our packs under some nearby downfall and chose to walk to the nearby hot spring basin to see the historic bath house.

Returning awhile later, ready for some food, we set up our camp, our separate tents, and prepared our meal, pleased to find that the bison had moved off into the meadow just beyond the trees of camp. As I nestled into the comfort of my fleece coat , Crazy Creek chair and hot bowl of something-or-other to eat, we marveled at the growing presence around us.

A harem of elk and their imposing looking bull had wandered out from the surrounding forest and were feasting on the grasses. A flock of Canada geese honked their way slowly across the open terrain, roosting in amongst the dining ungulates. In the distance, a coyote howled a lone refrain that echoed over the bowl shaped hillocks describing the perimeter of the meadow. As the sky lit up in pinks and the sun settled onto its path toward the other side of the Earth, the temperature dropped steadily to about 15 degrees Farenheit, making staying outside too formidable to endure. We hastily hung our food with nylon lines over the conveniently provided bear pole designed for such protective measures, and retired to our tents.

Lying there, silent in the forest with the presence of the wild things all around, it seemed silly to stay separated in our own tents. Kirk joined me in my sturdy, bright orange Mountain Hardwear tent, but not before we dragged some nearby downed tree limbs to form a protective shield around the fragile nylon walls. Recent stories told in the employee dining room reported that the elk were fond of shedding their velvet and sharpening the tines of their antlers on unsuspecting tents, making our feeble but intrepid measure seem necessary, given the proximity of our beastly visitors.

It wasn’t long before my fears began to mount, as we heard the wandering band of elk join us in the relatively warmer and more protective haunts of the white bark pine stand where we lay. I asked Kirk to tell me a story to comfort me, and he began a slow and deliriously scary tale of his own invention. I insisted he stop, and to drive the point home took out my walkman to listen to some music instead (back in the days when I still felt kinship with the awkward technological devices of modern man, insisting on their presence even in the wilderness). As the cold deepened, the batteries began to fail, turning the music into a bizarre tirade of off-tune sound and singers’ voices distorted into haunting howls.

It stopped. I stopped. The batteries of the walkman petrified by cold, I tuned into the sounds outside instead. The elk seemed to be running in all directions around us, panting breathlessly in the night air. The bull elk bugled loudly just beyond the tent walls. The coyote had some brothers join him and soon there was a barking frenzy of canines. The geese honked maniacally too, joining in the ruckus. Then… nothing. Not a sound.

As paralysis of fear quickly overtook me, I could hear nothing but my own shallow breaths in the utterly solid blackness. And then, as if from beyond the fog of terror, we heard it. The unmistakable chuffing sound of the largest of the forest dwellers, the one whose bountiful nut supply we had dared to trespass within. A bear. It seemed to approach the tent closer, closer, slowly being drawn in by the low vibration of stark terror that had besieged me. And then, from beyond that, the very human cries of, “Annalie, Annalie, there’s a big f***ing bear!”

Suddenly the spell of fear broke, and I sat bolt upright at the recognition of my friend Jerry’s voice. He had come! The other person I’d asked to join me had come! I called out, “I know, he’s right here!” Moments later Jerry stood at the open door of the tent, and I asked if he had food with him. He admitted he’d brought beer, cookies, all manner of treats to impress me with his surprise visit, since he was sure I’d come camping alone, unable to find anyone else with a day off.

After leaping out into the cold in my stylishly stupid-looking long underwear to hang his food on our bear pole contraption, we quickly returned and settled into the tent and began to laugh. Kirk and Jerry were equally surprised to find that they each had another suitor to reckon with, never mind the strange cacophony of animal sounds we’d lately heard and the unexpectedly large and predatorial visitor we’d just been entertaining. We’d all settled comfortably into the idea that none of it had happened, that we were now safely together, the odd three, just as the sign had told us we would be.

But no sooner had we congratulated ourselves on our outlandish imaginations, when the sounds began again. This time, the huffing grew closer still, and we heard the unmistakable sound of breaking, snapping branches. We were convinced the bear was working his way over our protective timber boughs, but the sounds continued, endlessly. Soon, unbelievable belching ensued, and along with it an odd ripping, squishing sound. The bull elk began to go crazy, circling the camp and bellowing loudly as if in protest.

So that was it. The bear had surprised us all, and in the melee, had killed one of the female elk. And the subsequent sounds were of it breaking its prey’s bones, ripping its flesh, and eating it. In our camp. And the bull elk was furious. And the coyotes wanted a piece of the action. And the geese were in a gander over it all.
As the night progressed the mounting tension in the tent matched the drama outside. Jerry had had no time to get out his sleeping bag, and lay on the cold ground growing steadily numb. In an attempt to keep him warm, I covered him with my downy covered sleeping bag legs, nestling in close. Kirk was enormously irked at this gesture, his well-laid plans for sexual advances were now literally blocked by a bear of a man and also the bear outside.

Outside, the killing spree drew in another guest, and the sounds of scuffling above our heads and then a loud battle of roars suggested that a mother bear with two cubs, whom she hid safely in the trees, was fighting for her share of the bounty.
And so it went on for hours and hours, the awkward maneuvers in our tent of me trying to pee in a Nalgene bottle from inside my sleeping bag, the unfortunate aftermath of Kirk not having the good sense to do so and hence leaving himself a cold, wet and miserable dripping mess of urine, Jerry making the painstaking efforts to get in his sleeping bag with minimal sounds amidst the deafening scrapings of polyfill on nylon and the bellowing creatures outside.

Three people confirmed that we all heard the same thing, and yet, as the dawn rose and we hastily packed up and fled the site, no evidence remained of the experience. Not a tuft of wayward fur, not a drop of blood, not a bent blade of grass showing the drag-marked trail of a carcass hauled off. Nothing, except a turd. And when Jerry found it just a few feet beyond the tent door, remarking that the beast had indeed left its calling card, it was with no small amount of embarrassment that I was forced to admit that I had made such a shameless placement of excrement, when I first emerged from the tent to survey the scene after our long night. After all, if the men send the woman out first to check if the coast is clear, what better opportunity to do a little personal business in the quiet trepidation of being the sacrificial surveyor?
To this day, I really don’t know what it was that we encountered out there. Years after the event, I read some material about the spirits that inhabit the Navajo lands, and the stories of trickster shapeshifters imitating the wild beasts to give their human audience a shamanic voyage into the untold depths of fear and imagination had an uncannily familiar feel to it.

Rangers who later checked the area thoroughly confirmed what we had seen, that nothing had been there. It is true that on a cold, clear night sound can travel remarkably well, and its possible to hear things from unusual distances. But this drama had taken place, undoubtedly, all around us. We’d seen all the hallmark beasts earlier in the twilight, we’d had the initial sighting of the bison demonstrating that an aggressive drama of sexual lust driven to destruction, even death, would descend upon the OD(d) 3.

But despite these physical precursors, all that we were left with was an adventure of sound and mind and subtle rhythms. It was truly an initiation into the primitive, the shamanic animal totem world, and an experience that was at once of the natural order and also of the imminent beyond that is accessed when one steps but a few feet off the pavement and returns to the wilderness from which mankind initially emerged.

[Artemesia]

Some images, on a drive along forest service roads in search of a 'big cedar' marked on the map, I saw something anomalous in the woods and leapt out of the car to go see what it was up close. I discovered someone had placed an enormous mirror in the forest with a little note attached. I snapped a pic with a handheld digital elph camera. I used a flash so it looks as though I am holding an orb of light! it is just a camera trick but it was a pretty cool find nonetheless. We did end up finding the big cedar soon after. It was indeed a marvelously big tree being indeed!!

[Ravenlocke]

Many years ago I had the opportunity to visit the Bristle Cone Pine forest up in the White mountains, in California. I enjoyed the visit very much and I got to see a golden eagle. The forest is protected and I learned that these bristle cone pine trees are over 5000 years old. They look like dried up gnarly trees but they’re alive. I got to experience what others have termed the “Oneness” of life up there for a few moments but I never forgot that. I got to sit in a beautiful grassy meadow with aspen trees nearby. I was with a group that had come to visit a whittling artist who was to give us a lesson in whittling a piece of wood. We were a small group of maybe 8 people so we sat in a circle in the meadow after we each found a piece of dried wood. We were each given a whittling/ carving knife and the teacher started his carving to show us how to use the knife and how to make cuts to make a face in the wood. When he was done he asked us to start carving our pieces of wood. Unfortunately not long after we started carving someone cut herself and started bleeding profusely. That ended the lesson and tour as she had to be taken to emergency for stitches.
As we tried to hurry and put our belongings and backpacks into the tour Jeep I found I couldn’t run or hurry too much because the movement made me dizzy and nautious. We were at ten thousand feet elevation and the air was thin up there but not noticeable unless you try to move around quickly.

So my visit was cut short but I loved being up there and loved the feel of those mountains and never forgot it. The mountains may look harsh from below but they’re full of life up there and peaceful.