Awakening

Ihad been interested in the paranormal, played some with the Ouija Board when I was a couple years younger, but I never did know if those sometimes scary experiences were real.

When I was sixteen I moved to Germany for a year as an exchange student. But the longer I lived along the Ahr river in Ahrweiler, Germany, the more confident I became that ghosts do, in fact exist.

I lived not far from an old Nazi tunnel in the hills behind the little walled city of Ahrweiler. This city used to be a monastery several hundred years ago, and the area near the Rhine has a long, rich, and extremely torrential history. I didn't begin to notice anything until I met my first self declared family of Wiccans.

I, myself, was never a religious person, so accepting their ideas was not difficult for me. I spoke with them on many occasions about the paranormal, ghosts, spirits, and energy. They began to send me energy and teach me how to meditate. Trying to practice was difficult, because I rarely found a quiet moment alone in the small house I shared with my host parents and their little boy. But, when I did find the time to meditate, I noticed the candle flickering, and the little black figure that always appeared in the center of the candle flame. When I meditated, I always tried to open myself to the energy around me as well as the entities around me. Really, I don't believe I was ready for the skeptical part of my inner being to be answered.

They always say, don't ask for what you really can't handle. When you make wishes, be careful because they may come true. For me, I asked to know the other side of life, but i saw more than I could handle at the time.

Early one morning after a late night of meditating and writing in my journal, I awoke before the alarm went off. Now, I never wake up before the alarm goes off, for I am not a morning person. But on this morning, I awoke on my side, staring strait out the window to the road below. A black robed figure walked slowly to the middle of the road, and then stopped and looked up directly at me. The hood hid any hair it might have had, and really, it looked as if it was just a walking robe and hood. When it looked at me, there was no face, only a brilliant white luminescence. Not the kind of light that I have ever seen the likes of before or since. This light did not radiate beyond the robe, but it was almost hypnotic.

My heart began to race. This couldn't be an apparition. I just couldn't believe my own eyes. I closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them again, I would see nothing, or maybe even just a jogger or something out at dawn for a workout. When I opened my eyes again, it still stared at me as it stood in the middle of the road. I sat up strait in bed, hoping that I was seeing something because of my vision being crossed from laying on my side. But it didn't change. I rubbed my eyes and looked again.

It stood there, looking up at me. Now, I've always thought it was silly when the people in the movies slapped and pinched themselves to be sure that they were awake. I never thought that a person would really do such a thing. But I did both on this morning. I was awake, not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and I was seeing a black robed figure with a white luminescent face!!! I closed my eyes again, and tried to calm my racing heart. "What does it want? Is this death that I'm seeing? Is this some evil spirit that I see?" I asked myself. I reached out with the question, but I felt no malice, no fear, no pain. My heart slowed to normal. I accepted that this apparition was not going to hurt me. It was only there to tell me that I could see them, that I could feel their presence. The minute my heart beat normally and I thought "It's only making it's presence known. It is not here to take me from this world, or even to give me a premonition of my own death," the apparition walked on.

My sleep for the next few hours was extremely restful. To this day, I have never seen another apparition, but I feel them on a regular basis around me. They don't see fit to ever give me another shred of proof, but I do not ask anymore. I do know, though, that we all must have the gift. Most of us, however, are not able to handle it. I know that I shouldn't have ever allowed myself to give in to my curiosity.