The Visitor

There were signs.  Some of my earliest memories are Visitations. An entity, who seemed male, but perhaps not – I had a limited perspective at the time – would come to me while I would be playing alone in my room. I could hear it coming down the hall, but I felt it coming before I even heard it. It was a heaviness, mostly felt in my ears – you know, how when pressure changes in an airplane, or when your altitude changes rapidly when driving up and down hills.  So this pressure would build up in my ears, and then came the swoosh-swish-swoosh sound of a heavy, long garment being dragged along by its adorner, down the carpeted hallway towards my bedroom. The sound was even paced – almost graceful, but purposeful is a more accurate descriptive.

You may be wishing you could have such a Visitation, recognizing the opportunity of such an event. Regretfully, I did not take advantage of these visits because of two major factors working against me. One was because of my age – about 3 or 4 years old, hardly able to comprehend what was happening, though that alone was not the cause of my disregard. For children, who are naturally curious, creative, and open, wouldn’t necessarily hide from a Visitor. But I did, because the second factor working against me was the fear that had I had been indoctrinated with – an insidious, toxic fear that, though unfounded, was so deeply rooted in me that future encounters with Visitors would also be lost to it.

This deadly dose of fear was the product of two major innoculations: my religious upbringing and my cultural/mass-media upbringing.  At the time and at the innocent, impressionable age I was, I could not help but view this visitor as menevolent.  In fairness, perhaps that was the vibe it was giving off, and, having picked up on it, I instinctually acted accordingly.But there is no way of knowing this for sure – for fear and ignorance can turn off or severely impair one’s ability to accurately attune to the vibrations of another entity.  Since I was never told of such a thing as Visitors, and since anything on the topic of spirits, fairies, ghosts, aliens, and the like was out of a storybook that I had been told by my seemingly omnipotent parents was just that – a story – I had no point of reference for this creature. There were only two otherworldly beings I knew about that were “real,” and that was angels and demons.  This Visitor, in his heavy robe, reminded me of a character I had seen on a TV show who wore a heavy robe – Skeletor – the evil villian of He-Man in a cartoon series. He looked like the Grim Reaper, darkly cloaked, deathly. And we all knew Skeletor was bad, seemingly in work with Satan himself – so this Visitor must be a demon!

Consequently, I irrationally labeled it and became terrified to the point of voicelessness…or was it that the creature stripped my voice right out of me…either way I was rendered speechless and was unable to cry to my mom or make any sort of needy yelp at all.  So, my only defense, in perfect child-like manner, was to hide under furniture in my room.  Under the bed, beneath a little table I had there – I would cower and shake – my little heart pounding in deafening sync with the swishing of Skelator’s slinky footglides.  I thought I might explode with fear!

The Visitor would enter my room. I could not see his robes or feet because I was not looking; again,  in child’s defense, I closed my eyes thinking that perhaps if I didn’t acknowledge its presence, it wouldn’t notice me either. Well, it seemed to work, because the creature would stand in the room for a few moments, perhaps looking around, or waiting for a sound, a movement to signal my hiding spot (and, reflecting back, perhaps waiting for engagement), and receiving nothing, would turn and exit the room, swishing back the way he came, down the hall. I waited in my hiding spot until the pulsing in my ears had fully come to a stop and the swishing had faded into whatever demension he had emerged from. These visits happened more than just a few times. Each was the same. Eventually, discouraged by my lack of reciprocity, they stopped.

As I grew, I forgot about them, or rather, pushed them to an area of my mind not frequented. When I would be reminded of the Visits, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, because, despite all my attempts to tell myself that I was just a child with an overactive imagination, I knew in my Heart of Hearts that these Visits had really happened. 

Unable to explain these events to others without sounding fanciful and loony, I never told anyone, not even Mary, my mother. Unable to explain them to myself, I continued to tell myself that they simply faded as my imagination faded – that I no longer endulged myself in such fantasies and thus, they were not conjured up. But now I know differently. Now I realize that it is my lack of outreach and communication that haulted the Visits.

These were the first signs that I was more than I thought I was, and this was the first time, faced with such powerful and foreign knowledge, that I disregarded such information, which would come to me again, and again would be denied out of fear. 

To this day, I long for more visits, that I might rectify my insulting cowardace; that I might own up to who I am, who They are, and what we All are in together.  For now I have recognized myself as the true Witch -  woman of spiritual and shamanic wisdom - that I am.  My religious and mass-media induced fears have been overcome, and my interest the true nature of the Mystery is peaked. 

There have been, however, some events that  indeed became fully active Encounters, though such events are hardly the basis of theme of my tales here. I due time, I will share these adventures and more.  But, as with most stories, the place to begin is the beginning. And so, here I have begun, and thus, I will continue…