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2002-10-24 The Sad Loss of Folklore As I lost a very long entry that I wrote last night thanks to Diaryland, I have decided to type my entries first in notepad. Thus I have no idea when this will be posted, or how it'll work out for me. As some of you may know, I am going to be writing a paper for my history class, on the Scottish immigrants to Canada, as well as the importation of their folkloric beliefs. I am also hoping to include the reactions of clergy members to this phenomenon in Canada, but thus far, my search has been in vain. In any case, I am busy researching what I have at my disposal, which at the moment include books and books and more books filled with story after story. Some are blood-chilling, but I love them anyway. And it got me to thinking about how sad it is that, in the modern world, we seem to have lost these stories. Or, to be more accurate, we've lost the belief in them. They have become mere stories, meant only for entertainment. I suppose that there are places in the world where such stories are believed to be true, but that is becoming extinct as technology and the belief in science takes over. I feel fortunate in that I do not ignore the validity of science (how can anyone deny them?), but I also accept and embrace the fact that there are things in the world that we just cannot understand, that science cannot explain. I suppose I'd have to, seeing as how I practice Wicca. It is, however, like two different persons living inside my body -- on the one hand, there is the believer, who reads ghost stories with wide eyes and lies awake at night for fear of creatures that lurk in the darkness, and there is the skeptic, who sort of snickers at accounts (especially those that are present-day) and thinks, "Either they're trying to have their 15 minutes of fame or they're on crack". I hate that latter side. I suppose it's good to have in order to be balanced, but there are times when I want to believe and it's exceedingly difficult to do so. This is what I consider to be a sad state of the world. At one time, people gathered around the hearth fire, in what the Scottish called the ceilidh (Gaelic for social gathering or visit), and listened to these stories. Yes, it was a form of entertainment, the only form of entertainment, but these were personal accounts of what happened to the storyteller or to someone who had first recounted this tale. Today? We gather around the TV. It's the same thing, you say? Well, in a sense, yes. In front of the TV, you'll get a story told to you for entertainment, to make you laugh, make you cry, make you shake with fear. But the images are provided for you. In the old-time ceilidh, you supplied the imagery for yourself, from your imagination. There is also a sense of dissociation with television shows that is not there in the ceilidh. The images come from this little box in front of you, whereas in the old-fashioned method, they come from your own mind. They deal with your surroundings, they come from people you know and consider trustworthy. Now, this may all seem very strange to hear from me, of all people. Me who watches 12 hours of television a night. Me who cannot live without watching "Buffy" and "Angel" and "Alias" every week. Me who yells at the television screen when I get angry at characters (that may very well be me trying to break down the barrier of dissociation). But do I have people around me telling ghost stories and legends? Not usually. My nanny can often be induced to tell stories of her life, living in Val-D'Or (a small end-of-the-line town way up north). But it's not the same as the ceilidh, maybe because I don't get stories involving the paranormal, stories that would today be denounced as untrue, as belonging merely to the imagination. I really feel that I, and everyone else who doesn't experience the ceilidh are missing out on something really wonderful. I love to hear these sorts of stories. In grade 7, Natalie and I would talk on the phone at night about different "supernatural" events we (thought we) experienced. It always ended the same way - since it was at night, and therefore we'd be going to bed soon, we wouldn't want to get off the phone, because we'd freak each other out. We were afraid of what would happen when we put the phone back in its cradle. Sadly, we don't often have stories like that anymore. I'm not sure about Natalie, but I feel like I've lost touch with that side of the world. Which is strange, seeing as how I practice Wicca now (as opposed to when I was in grade 7), and therefore should be more open to those experiences. There may be a very good reason for that. I think I may have closed myself off, because of a previous experience that scared the shit out of me. Forgive me if I've told this story before, because I've told quite a few people over the years, and I don't remember to whom. It happened when I was 15. I got ready for bed as usual, crawled in and turned out the light. Nothing seemed strange or amiss. Just another normal night. As I was drifting off, I was in that in-between stage where I wasn't quite asleep but not quite awake. It's hard to explain, but I'm sure most people have experienced it before and know what I'm talking about. It's that stage where you're most likely to have that horrible sensation of falling (which, thankfully, I haven't had in a long time). Anyway, I was lying there, drifting off, and all of a sudden, a vivid image popped into my head. People will say it was a dream or just my imagination. All I can say is that it most certainly was NOT a dream because I hadn't yet fallen asleep (and I think, if memory serves, it takes longer to actually start dreaming). It was not my imagination because there is absolutely no reason for me to imagine what I saw - I hadn't seen any violent tv or movies or read any violent books lately. In what I call the 'vision', I felt as though I was in the body of the man who was lying on the bed, and his wife was straddling him. I did not see her face, because her wildly curly hair was hanging down in front of it. And she was stabbing him. Repeatedly. I didn't feel the pain of the knife, but I did feel his emotions - confusion, betrayal, wondering why she was doing this. And then I opened my eyes. My room was normal. But I wasn't. My chest rose and fell hard, as I wondered, "What the hell was that???" Suffice it to say that I had much difficulty falling asleep that night. I don't know why, but I didn't check it out. I didn't look at the newspapers, didn't listen with an intent ear to the radio news to see if this happened for real. I guess I was too afraid that it was. It was easier to just believe it was my imagination. But it wasn't. My gut tells me that this was not only in my head. It was very real. And so. I suppose it's not SO difficult to understand why I may have inadvertently cut myself off from such messages. I had other experiences, but that was my first (and only) 'vision'. Why the Powers That Be would choose THAT as my first experience, is beyond me. Maybe they were testing me, seeing if I was ready, which apparently I wasn't. I like to think that I am now. Not that I want to see those things, but I want to feel a greater connection. We only ever hear of the horrible visions but that doesn't mean they're all bad. And sometimes they're not only things that are happening while we're seeing them, but can be things which we can prevent. But first I have to open myself up to them. A few months ago, I was at my nanny's one weekend, in bed (I think that's the only time when my mind is sufficiently quiet to let these things through), and I felt something coming. And while part of me was screaming for me to let it come, the other part, the part that wanted to close down, push it away, won out. ***** How did this entry turn from a love of folklore and the loss we should all feel about it drifting to the background, turn into a discussion of visions? Well, I don't know. I guess that's part of the mystery of my mind. So, go out and get someone to tell you a story, or if worse comes to worse, go to the library and pull out a book on folklore. Light some candles, and allow yourself to return to a time when ghosts wandered the plains, fairies danced in the forest, and Second Sight was a common trait for a person to have. |
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