Ghosts?

I know it's kind of late - you all were in the mood for Halloween/Samhain a week-ish ago, but I watched An American Haunting recently, and while the movie didn't really speak of ghosts precisely, I thought I'd wonder out loud (or..in type...) about this particular topic.

I probably have mentioned ghosts before here. I can't really remember at the moment, as it's pretty late at night for me, but I'm awake enough to not be able to sleep.

I don't know about you, interwebs, but I think I believe in ghosts.  I mean, how could something so widely mentioned or experienced not be at least partly true?  There's always a possibility.

I've had a few encounters (I think) with spirits of some sort.  One time, I was driving down into town back in Washington. It was dark, yes, but I am 100% sure of what I saw.  I was at the stop light, waiting to turn left, when suddenly I felt the urge to look behind me in the rear view mirror.

The moment I did so, a figure with blue (or green?) eyes moved his gaze to look directly at mine, and did so through the mirror.  Instinctively, like every good horror movie star, I turned around and - of course - saw nothing.

But I'm certain of what I saw. I saw a man with a slightly square ish jaw line, with short hair (perhaps a military cut?) look directly into my eyes from the right back seat of my car.  Now... the car I was driving at the time had been given to me by my uncle, who had bought it from someone else.  It was well used, and the back and front ends' interior colors did not match.  It's possible that the car could have been in an accident, or something similar to that.  It was made in '89 after all, that's a lot of time to fill with owners.

The most recent encounter I can think of was here in Australia.  I didn't see this one, rather, my husband did.  One night, I got out of bed and opened the bedroom door.  I recall looking down the hallway towards the kitchen, I think it was to check if the doors were open or not, but I can't really explain why I felt the need to look in the first place.  After looking, I started to head to the bathroom across the hall.

As I reached the bathroom, I heard a few gasps come from the bedroom. I looked over, thinking dear husband was playing around, only to find out that he had seen something. When I returned to the bedroom, I sat down next to him and he told me that he had seen someone, or something, gliding behind me. It seemed to be travelling from the kitchen to the front of the house, and its path crossed mine.  He described it as a dark green figure that seemed covered in scrap cloths of some sort.

Kinda freaky, eh?  The weirdest thing was that aside from the urge to look down at the kitchen, I felt nothing. Though right now, just thinking about it, I'm getting a little freaked out.  Haha.

Anywho, tell me what your thoughts are on ghosts.  Have you seen one? What would you do if you did?

Until next time...

Is there a "Plan"?

Makes you wonder, who are they playing against?

I try not to nit pick about other people's beliefs, but I was thinking last night while responding to the PBP topic I chose to start out with.  The question was, "What makes you a pagan?" and among those answers I provided, I included that I believe that we make our own fate, and that nothing is predetermined.

I remember often times being told, "God has a plan for us/you," "It's not what God wanted," and my personal favorite, "Don't worry, it's all part of God's plan."

Based on my own personal beliefs (which are, to say, the ones that feel the most 'right' to me, but may not necessarily be what someone else believes), the idea of God and Goddess having a plan for me kind of makes me giggle.  To me, God and Goddess are always there, whether we choose to interact with them or not.  It is I who choose what I do, and to think any different would send me into a spiraling depression (is that just me, or would others do the same?).

That all being said, I took the liberty of re-versing myself on what the Bible says God's plan is for us.  In the process, I discovered this website, which outlines the general idea fairly clearly.  Some lines may be an actual quote from the page, so be sure to drop by and make sure I didn't miss anything important.

Lengthy, read on if you wish.

Woot! A Quick Update

Our immigration agent sent our visa application this week, and when I last checked, it was on its way to its destination. Yay! I'm so happy to have all the paperwork and stress of that off my chest. Now the most we've got to worry about is the approval of the visa application and repaying the loan we had to take out to pay for all of it while staying afloat with other stuff.

We discovered a book store in Sydney by Central when we went to pay off our application fee. It's called "Basement Books" or something to that effect. It's under the street, in a pedestrian tunnel thing that go to the trams I think. I don't know for sure. But the prices there on books were AMAZING. I bought a new book, The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Practical Magic by Susan Greenwood and Raje Airey. I found it laying amongst books about dream interpretation, and figured that it would be a good read.