Not Everyone's Cup of Tea--or Coffee

Sometimes, I feel the need to explain some of my weirdness to other people

This is one of those times. 

A weird thing about me is that when I walk into a new place, I can usually sense something about it. I call it a vibe.  There are a lot of different kinds of vibes for different places. 

One time I visited a house in Iowa that was made into a museum.  It stood on the edge of a little town, overlooking the town and thousands of acres of mostly prairie.  Supposedly, at the time the house was built, the man owned a lot of the little town and the prairie surrounding it.  

All of this, I learned one hot Sunday afternoon by listening to a high school girl/tour guide rattle off the story she had memorized about the history of this house/museum.

The story she didn't tell, I could tell by walking through the house.  In the 90's outside, but I was FREEZING walking around, and I couldn't stay long.  Because the house had a really, really bad vibe. It became more apparent in two places:  upstairs in the second floor foyer area, which was a sewing and sitting area for the women of the house, and in the basement summer kitchen area. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful house, with a lot of original furnishings and other items which were appropriate for the time period.  But something was very wrong.  I don't know what happened there. But someone was very unhappy.  Or something bad happened there.

I don't believe in ghosts.  Of course there are spirits, everyone has one.  But I think people have somewhere to go after they die, so there is no reason to hang around.  But energy sometimes stays in an area, and I think I can sense it. I've noticed that houses, roads, forests, fields, places of business, all can have a vibe. If you don't believe me, I'm okay with that.

Mostly every new place I go impresses me in some way.  When we were looking for a house when moving to Michigan, some places, although they looked okay, were not somewhere would be able to live.  Not happy places at all.  

Our shop in Ontonagon has a happy vibe.  So did my house in Carroll.   My house in Paynesville is just sorta neutral, which is okay, too, because that means we are free to influence the energy there all we want.  We'll be happy, so it will feel that way.

Do you think I'm crazy, yet?

ANYWAY, all this explanation has to do with the pictures I took yesterday.  As I was driving home from Ontonagon, I was thinking about a Michigan photo contest I read about.  It was too late to enter it, but I was thinking about where it would be possible to take an iconic picture of this beautiful fall scenery.  I decided to drive around in Rockland, which is a cute little historic town.  Driving past the Catholic church, I noticed something strange ahead...twin houses backed up against the forest at the edge of town, and driving down that road, a deserted cemetery.

I stopped and took a few pictures, just because everything looked so overgrown and interesting.  Not any kind of vibe, especially.  But it reminded me of another cemetery whose entrance I drive by every day.  I had thought to drive in there one day, but noticed just a narrow rutted two-track disappearing into the forest. Anyway, after seeing the little cemetery in Rockland, I decided that it was the day for me to explore Irish Hollow Cemetery. 

I am so glad I did.  I have never seen a cemetery quite like this.  Just a twisting path through the forest, gravestones and markers scattered here and there. Family plots, fenced off by black iron.   

But the vibe.  I thought to myself that probably the area gets some traffic close to Halloween, but honestly, it wasn't a scary place.  Even though it is close to a busy highway, it is hidden.  And so quiet.  A place you could go and think about the people who lived in the area so long ago.  A place you could pray for them quietly, walking the moss covered paths between one family plot and another.  And nothing else.  Restful peace. It confirms what I know.  That no one is there.  Proof that our spirits, our souls, our energy has somewhere else to go.  And so it does. 

God bless all the souls represented by the memorials in Irish Hollow. The bodies of many children are buried there.  At some time, there was probably a vibe of sadness, energy left over from mournful humans, but it's not there, now.  I felt blessed to walk there in the forest and read about the people and imagine what their lives had been.  And pray for them a little, too. 

If you get creeped out by cemeteries, you probably won't want to see these pictures.  But I think there is astonishing beauty here in the forests of the UP, and I think the people wanted their family members to rest in a beautiful place.  So look if you want.  I hope I captured some of the quiet:

This is the setting.  Just forest.

Interesting that the first marker I saw had my name on it.  Someone's infant daugther.

I think this is a lightning-struck tree among the stones

Love bears all things....

The rugged cross

More children

Roses

Family plot

Heavenward

Staying on the path

I think you can see that my pictures were taken on an overcast, gloomy day.  But there is one that I think is sorta inspirational.  I didn't notice it until I looked at the pictures at home.  But just as I took one of the pictures, there was a beam of sunlight just beyond it.  It looks almost fakey, but it wasn't.  

I think it reminds me that I was alone in this cemetery yesterday.  Everyone else had already found the light waiting beyond.  

Amen.