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A true story from our house

Sunday 4:27 am, January 21st, 2018

Through the half-opened curtain beyond the glass of the patio door, I could see a deep layer of snow. Melancholy light poured into the darkness of the room.

We moved into the house in June the previous year. Now January and finally we had curtains hung over both the window and patio doors in the living room, offering a warmth that was soon to turn very cold.

Inside the room, my thoughts become focused on an object motionless in the middle of the floor. I switched on the light. A wooden box. For a moment I paused, my mind searching for an explanation as to why my partner Carrie had left one curtain open and a small wooden box upside down in the middle of the living room floor. The box no more than 6” squared contained a collection of gemstones making it heavy for its size. Its latch still clasped shut.

I reached down, picked up the box to place it back on top of the tall bookcase from where it usually lived when I noticed the plant. It sat in its pot as usual on the floor next to the right-hand side of the bookcase. Pushed into the pot was a small wooden mushroom. Now the mushroom now lay far away along with several leaves scattered across the floor.

My eyes scanned the room. Other than a Native American drum lying face down on the carpet everything else looked as I would expect. I lent the drum back up against the side of the coffee table when a wave of apprehension flooded into my thoughts. The room felt different. The wooden box could have fallen off the bookcase hitting the plant, but to end up where it had, so far into the room made no sense at all.

As I unrolled my yoga mat out over the floor, my thoughts dived into the dark waters of the paranormal. With each yoga posture, deeper and deeper these thoughts began to swim. My daily meditation which followed became consumed by question after question. Trapped in my thoughts it was time to come up for air, to leave those murky waters before they convinced me of things that could not be happening inside my own house.

Sundays, I always like to head out walking before sunrise so after a coffee out I went.

It had been a night of heavy snow; the countryside was wearing its finest white cloak giving the landscape a magical feeling inside my thoughts. A welcomed contrast from where they had been an hour before.

It was just before 9.30 when I arrived home. The living room was warm. Carrie sat reading on the sofa with a cup of tea. The scene was like any other Sunday morning. It felt a shame to break the illusion.

It turns out when Carrie went to bed the curtains were drawn and the room was left tidy.

Sunday 10.30 pm

“Are you awake? Did you hear that? There’s something downstairs.”

I had gone to bed a little after 8 pm, I tend to get up around 4 am so going to bed at this time was normal. Carrie followed a little later around 9.00 when I was already fast asleep.

“Oh, it will be the snow falling off the house roofs,”

A wishful answer to Carrie's question that awoke me from a deep sleep. The temperature had become milder as the day went on, outside the snow was starting to thaw. It was not a lie, falling snow could be heard. In truth, the last thing I wanted was to go downstairs.

“You’re going to have to go and take a look”.

“No, I don’t”, I thought to myself.

“What time is it?” hoping it was nearly time to get up and the night to be over.

“Ten thirty.”

Was the reply which delivered with it a sinking feeling addressed to my thoughts.

Once out of bed I reached for the light switch, then making sure every switch I passed on my way to the living room got switched on. Having been brought up on horror movies as a child, I have seen too many people walk around in dark houses followed by bad things happening to them.

“The curtain is opening again; I’m guessing when you came to bed it was closed?”

“Yes”.

The wooden box containing the gemstones was nearly at a tipping point on the edge of the bookcase. The noise Carrie heard was the cactus that sat in front of the box falling onto the floor, pushed by the box moving forward.
The previous night we guess the box moved right falling from the bookcase. Hitting the plant on the floor before changing direction and moving six feet into the middle of the room.

I reached up, took the box from the bookcase, opened the lid, and placed it in the middle of the floor. Aloud I spoke to the room.

“There you go, obviously you are interested in the box, now you can see what’s inside. It would be good whoever you were to please stop moving things and let us get some sleep”.

With the box on the floor, I closed curtains, switched off the light and we both went back to bed. Carrie now mentioned at 9:30 she had heard the living room door open then close.

After saying goodnight, I stuffed my earbuds as deep into my ears as possible. I did not need or want to hear what was taking place directly below where we were soon to be sleeping.

Monday 3.37 am

“Oh good,” I said when I opened the living room door. The light was on and the curtain open.

So much for the idea that everything would be okay if the lights were on. Accepting the fact that I knew we left the living room in the dark the previous night. I glanced around the room to gauge how scared I needed to feel.

In the room where two identical bookcases, one was where the wooden box was, sat on top of the other had been two small carved wooden elephants, the smallest 3” high, a gift from a very good friend who died the previous year. My eyes now found the smaller of the two elephants resting on the floor a little too far to have just dropped off. A window separates these two bookcases. On its sill, a row of nine pots containing peyote cacti, one of which had been turned upside down. This I did not find until later in the day once the curtains had been opened. What I did find was most strange, a pool of water filled a dent in one of our two large bean bag seats.

“Who, are you?”

I heard myself ask in a soft quiet voice. The room was silent.

I am still puzzled by what made me roll out my yoga mat that morning. An hour later rolling it back up my mind was full of thoughts, surely, I did not think all would be calm.

I have never mentioned to our neighbours what had happened inside our house those couple of nights. I am sure we brought ourselves to their attention that Monday evening.

After a day lost in thought, upon returning home from work it was Carrie’s reaction that left us with only one thing we had to do.

Monday, 5.30 pm

The house now a beacon in a dark landscape with all its lights turned on, the windows and doors all open. Outside it was a cool still evening, neighbours cooking dinner others returning home from work. It must have been an odd sight and sound to behold. The rhythmic beat of a Native American drum, the burning smell of white sage drifting from the house out into the dark January evening sky shadowed by the soft voice of Carrie talking to the unknown.

Even now, a few years further on the emotions, I felt looking out from our landing window the evening of the house clearing ceremony has been burned to memory. I felt I had once again become the child looking out into a world I did not know, grasping for a parent's hand to tell me all would be okay.

It was a difficult time the following week. Each morning opening the living room door not knowing what I might find. Tuesday was the worst, had the clearing ceremony projected our wishes to the ears of the unknown. I opened the door expecting a room in chaos. Nothing was out of place.

“Thank you” became my greeting to the living room each morning for several weeks.

The following Saturday Carrie went to stay with her mother for a week. That evening alone in the house, I sat on the sofa in the living room thinking about all that had happened the previous week. To have no control over things taking place in your own home was a little disturbing, to say the least. With my imagination running through the wilderness of my thoughts I could only do what any sane person would do at a time like this.

In the same soft quiet voice, I used the previous Monday morning I spoke out.

“You are still, here aren’t you?”

It was for a very long second when the light above where I sat went off, and then came back on.

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Websites offering useful intimation

Permaculture Association: https://www.permaculture.org.uk/

The Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design: https://www.permaculture.org.uk/diploma

To learn more about the Permaculture ethics and Principles https://permacultureprinciples.com/

Podcast - Homesteading and Permaculture by Paul Wheaton: https://richsoil.com/permaculture/category/podcast

Podcast - Diego Footer's Permaculture Voices: https://www.permaculturevoices.com/

Sun Surveyor app https://www.sunsurveyor.com/