Keep Smiling!

Ok, while on lunch, I'll try to put in to words the adventure of last Friday night. I dont have my little notebook handy, that I took notes in ... so it'll have to be purely from memory.

I was the first one to arrive at the cemetary. I was wearing my cargo jeans and I swear, each pocket was loaded to the gills. *laugh* Ok, ever-so-slightly 'over packed' I was. The cemetary is in downtown Clayton, one of the oldest and .. um .. one of the more "unsafe" parts of town. The cemetary was established in 1881 and covers a few acres ... maybe no more than 2 or 3.

I walked in the gate and immediately felt .. held back. I was glad I was alone, cuz anyone else would have thought I was nuts ... I tried a few times to walk in different directions, on the path and off, and each time, I had to take a step backwards. I felt like I should explain my purpose, so I said who I was and asked permission to be there. I said out loud that we were coming with respect to the residents, meant no harm, and that we wished to discuss and possibly document the lives that they had lived. I said there would most likely be laughter and joking, but it would not be directed towards anyone still there in spirit ... and as a token, I made a donation of an amethyst crystal to the earth that became them.

That being said, I was able to feel welcome and relaxed. I started taking pictures immediately, I wanted to get a shot of each direction after I first walked in the gate. I was drawn to the far right of the cemetary, as I saw something blurry catch my eye (never did find out what). I was working my way down that way when Tony and Maureen drove up.

I waved hey to them ... met Tony for the first time, met Maureen for the second time, and we chatted. Tony set up his video camera at one end and showed me his infrared thermometer thingie that you can point to a spot and get a temp reading. He also had some sound equipment and other camera type thingies, but I was too distracted by the whole cemetary at the moment to pay much attention (oops *grin*).

Angie called, she was a little bit lost ... so I gave her directions (Me! Ha! The one famous for getting lost going straight ...) and Maureen and I wandered off to get 'a feel' for the place. (And I wanted to see what her 'feel' was for Tony, to see if they were gonna become an item *grin*)

The longer we were there, the more ... energy ... we were able to pick up on. There was one corner we were interested in, and took several pictures around ... Maureen and I both discussed what we "sensed" around there. Tony came over to us and told us that the temp was anywhere from 8-10 degrees cooler depending on the spot, about where we were discussing.

Angie joined us, and we all had introductions and stuff ... I wandered off on my own, didnt feel like doing the chit-chat thing. *grin* There was this one gravestone ... I cant recall the name or dates (written down in my notebook) but I got the strongest sense that a spirit either came to visit it, or left it to go visit someone else. There was just energy there, coming and going.

Then Christy came ... so there was more discussions, and by now it was dark. Tony was ready to go, just as I was thinking things were getting interesting. He was anxious to get everybody back to his house, so he could show some of the pictures he'd taken before, some of the recordings he'd taken, etc. I just kinda kept ignoring his requests to leave. *grin* I played around with my camera settings (not too many options, using an older digital camera).

At one point, I was standing next to a wrought-iron fence, so I rested my arm on it so the camera would be really still ... and took a picture of the cemetary in general. When the flash went off, it showed that there was a HUGE spider right in front of my face that I hadnt seen, since it was so dark out ... the effect was really cool ... so I took a few more pictures of it.

The most excellent picture was Maureen, Angie and Christy standing around talking. I was taking random shots in the dark. When I took some of them, one of the pictures showed a foggy 'mass' in between Maureen and Angie. It couldnt have been fog, or cigarette smoke, or a smudge - it didnt show up in the pictures right before or right after. UNFORTUNATELY, when I took the pics off my camera, that picture got destroyed. The logical side of my head is saying "ok, so maybe that smudge was a bad sector of the memory disk." I have several pictures of "orbs" (but I dont really buy in to the whole "orb" theory).

There are a few other experiences from that night that I'll write about sometime. Cecilia, the 8 year old ... a lot of other young kids that died ... the 'most at peace' spirits we found ... it was really cool. Tony was finally able to round everyone up to go back to his house, which I still wasnt that keen on the idea ... so I went home when they left.