Inner Journeys
Settling In
In the course of Windsong’s evolution several of us decided to buy properties close by the “mother ship.” as it were.
Just to give some context…we are talking about a part of Quebec that at that time 1980’s was quite isolated…Properties were still cheap…the population was sparse and consisted of people who worked the land…and these people were French Canadian…they spoke their own dialect and had done for centuries…they weren’t used to English speaking folks…who were suspect at best.
I contacted a real estate agent in the area of Lac Megantic and she found several properties that sounded interesting…so one snowy spring morning I left Montreal early and drove south…just to the edge of the US border where these properties lay…
The agent obviously had a mind set about who I was and what I wanted…middle class…English speaking…well educated…you get the drift…After her third offering I was bored…traditional boxy 1950’s architecture with small rooms and tight hallways…everything seemed like an attempt to keep nature at bay and cozy up with electric baseboard heating…Definitely not my style.
In a last ditch effort to save the day she said…”Well there is one other property…but it’s very old and the owner is a strange man who always says he wants to sell and then when there is a buyer he changes his mind”…Interesting I thought and we set off…my antenna turned on.
It was a windswept morning…the land barren and off putting…small gusts of snow laden wind swirled around my legs as I stepped out of the car. Visibility was less than good but it was clear that the house was a small wooden building…with a front door that consisted of a sheet of plywood nailed across the frame….no Welcome sign There wasn’t any entry by that means…Try the back entrance…which wasn’t much better…and there was nobody home anyway.
But it didn’t really matter…from the moment my right foot touched the ground I knew that this was the right place..This was a place to settle…to develop…to raise a family and to do some healing work.
It took sometime to locate the owner…but I was happy to wait…as far as I was concerned it was a done deal. …the rest was just a question of mechanics..He arrived about a half hour later on a tiny motorbike…wearing a world war two soldier’s helmet…at least the guy is eccentric I thought…definitely a plus in my world.
He didn’t look as if he wanted to sell anything….he didn’t look as if he was particularly connected to anything or anybody either…How was I going to get this done? He was quite distrustful..probably because I wasn’t French Canadian..I was obviously English speaking…but we got on…We had a good conversation.He was hesitant…distrustful… but we got on…
Through the blowing snow I saw that there was an old broken down barn on the property… which I was given to understand was a square mile in area with a a stream…a pond…maple and birch forests and lots of rocky cliffs that warranted hours of exploration. I couldn’t see any of it through the snow but no problem, I knew it was the right place for me and I dearly hoped that it would be the right place for my family..It was walking distance to the US border…as if that mattered at all…but it did actually because it gave some protection to the southern boundary…Nobody would be building in that direction.
He quoted his price..I had already decided that I wasn’t going to negotiate anything…which seemed to set him back a bit…”I don’t really believe in land ownership, “ I said…”so, if you sell this to me I want you to know that you can always come here to fish and hunt..you will always be welcome here.”…and in the years that followed he did just that…I would sometimes see him entering the property with his fishing pole…his tiny motorbike parked along the roadway.
Perhaps that was the clincher but contrary to what I had been told about his taciturn nature he never went back on our agreement and within a month the property was legally mine for. $40,000.00 Canadian dollars.
In those early spring days I would often leave Montreal at 3:00 a.m and drive to the property…just to be in that Silence…just to walk the forests…and Listen…At night I would load up the old barrel wood stove with four foot logs… settle down in front of it….and let the flames talk to me. The house was uninsulated…sawdust had been used as a filler between the inner and outer layers of wood but at thirty below zero the heat from the fire went out through those walls as quickly as it rose from the burning logs.
The tiny upstairs was unusable in these frigid temperatures…but somebody did live up there…The first night I spent in the house was unsettling in the sense that there were a lot of goings on upstairs…doors banging…people talking…It disturbed my sleep and annoyed me…So the next night when my lodgers started up again with their shenanigans I went upstairs with a lit candle and sat down in the middle of the floor.
How does one talk to spirits? I had no idea so I started from what I knew…which was the world of humans…If I can talk to a person why would talking to a spirit be any different?…so I just talked…just like I am talking to you…“ Hello…I want to introduce myself,” I said…”My name is Keith and I’m going to be living here now. That means that you will have to move to another place. Right now. I’m sorry about the inconvenience but you are in the wrong place…the family left a long time ago. You may be able to find them but they are not here. You will not find any of them here…so you have to leave now.”
I sat very quietly then and bathed the space in Light …I imagined that my lodgers were leaving but I really don’t know what happened. I never heard from them again…not on that day or on any other day.
The story went that there had been thirteen children born in that tiny house…They lined them up in small cots all along the upstairs space and in the short summer months the kids were settled into chicken coops in the backyard.
Why so many kids in such poor circumstances? you might well ask…Well the Catholic priest made the rounds of the settlers with great regularity and one of the questions he invariably asked was whether the lady of the house was pregnant and if not why not? I will not comment on that behavior and leave you to make your own judgement about it…Suffice it to say that some horrendous and irresponsible things have been done in the name of organized religion.
What’s the takeaway on this post…A couple of things maybe…First, if any spirits are bugging you just stand tall….be brave…and claim your territory. they have no business being in our dimension so tell them to go away…but you must do that with great force…believing in the words that come out of your mouth…allow God to spek through you…as it were.
Secondly, well, maybe it was good karma that you were not a woman born in that part of the world in the twentieth century.
Oh yes, don’t forget the most important thing..When we ask (consciously or unconsciously) for something…something good… something that is aligned with what is best for us and those around us (spiritually speaking) …you can be sure that the Universe will support our desire…the hidden truth in that thought being that once our desire is granted we will be responsible for the karma which is thereby accrued…and that is a wonderful thing too..do you not agree?