Join us for a spooky episode featuring some of the spookier tales sent in by members of the AFA. We read and discuss some spooky stories sent in about halloween, hallows eve, and hallows day.
00:39:22.960but i like it i like those kind of stories and i like those kind of incidents
00:39:29.760as long as they're not hurting anybody or doing anything you know all right so i'm gonna read
00:39:37.500one from Harold. It says, I have only two spooky instances in my life that are noteworthy. One
00:39:45.020involving a very old house in Pony, Montana, which I was advised of it having a presence in that
00:39:51.580domicile. Your basic spooky stuff, cabinets open, noises in the kitchen, your general run-of-the-mill
00:39:58.300spooky ghost qualifiers. I only spent a short time in this house and did experience light switches
00:40:05.060flicking on and off, but that's not the story I'm going to share with you today. The story I wish
00:40:10.460to share with you today. The story I wish to share with you takes place north of Missoula
00:40:15.060in the Rattlesnake River drainage when I worked trail cruise for Montana Conservation Corps
00:40:20.760in 2008. After a long day of moving earth with hand tools, I laid down in my sleeping bag on a
00:40:27.780full moon night body fatigued but mind and attention still sharply awake i laid out in
00:40:34.820my sleeping bag with one arm out of the bag and above my head as i watched the shadow cast from
00:40:40.260the moon to the tree branches casting crisp and layered shadows upon my tense rainfly you guys
00:40:47.220are so descriptive i love this i took note of how clear the shadow cast were in multi-dimensional
00:40:54.580layered effect the light projected for me to observe as the wind blew the branches in a nicely
00:41:00.660orchestrated rhythmic pattern. Suddenly and abrasively, I felt what could only be a rope
00:41:07.180lasso around my arm, which was above my head, tightened around my arm and began dragging me at
00:41:13.620high rates of speed, tent, sleeping bag, and all through the woods. I felt as my body smashed
00:41:19.720against trees, rock, earth, and subsequent impact. I felt bones break and felt pulverized
00:41:25.680and grated. The sound of horse galloping and wind blowing as I groaned in agony, knocking the wind
00:41:30.780out of me on each impact. The abuse went on for many seconds, when just as suddenly as the
00:41:37.360experience began, it just suddenly ended. As I regained my consciousness laying in the same spot
00:41:43.560I had begun. In my tents, in my sleeping bag, arm above my head, staying plainly at the roof
00:41:52.580of my tent, watching the rhythmic dance of the branch of the shadowscape. Had I briefly fallen
00:41:57.580asleep? I don't remember opening my eyes. They were already open when I regained my awareness.
00:42:03.880What was this experience? It felt very real. I did next what any rational man of pride would do.
00:42:10.720I stepped outside of my tent and marked my territory in a rugged manly fashion and claimed the space as my own.
00:42:19.020I laid back into my tent and laid awake for several hours, contemplating the potentiality of a spiritual attack by hostile indigenous land veteer and or the real possibility of inconvenient and untimely schizophrenia.
00:42:32.820I have since ruled out the later on account of a long history of normal rational life experiences since then.
00:42:39.700i still to this day i wonder about that experience i hope you will find the story
00:42:44.360sufficiently that is a great story that is great i like that what yeah i'd be in i'd be interested
00:42:56.080in the history of that spot yeah what type of things happened in the past or was it something
00:43:00.940he brought with him right experienced it from his family right or was it an echo from that area i
00:43:09.200mean that would have been like a spot where those kind of things were likely to happen you know in
00:43:16.700the modern day that can even happen in that area you know that's montana can still be some rugged
00:43:22.760countries or you know be some rugged country out there but yeah you know was that did you fall
00:43:29.360asleep for a second you know was that in was it an echo you know what was it that you experienced
00:43:35.020you know what happened over there you know that is amazing that is a great story harold if you're
00:43:41.340here if you're watching vns drop it in the chat tell us tell us if you ever researched that tell
00:43:48.460us if you found anything that is an amazing story speaking of the chat if you guys have anything
00:44:00.060that you do want us to air on here we do have all of these submissions but if you do have something
00:44:05.420drop it in the chat if if you didn't know that we were taking submissions tonight and you have
00:44:09.820a spooky story for us drop it in the chat and we will read it during the podcast
00:44:16.860oh sheila have you ever had any have you ever had those nights where you dream something
00:44:21.660and then you wake up and you're not a hundred percent sure if it was real or if you were
00:44:25.340dreaming you ever had that sure i have oh yeah yeah where it felt so very very real at least i
00:44:32.380know i get those still sometimes i don't dream very much anymore but every once in a while i
00:44:38.620have a very deep dream and it feels so real but um i don't sense you know doesn't seem to go anywhere
00:44:45.500but yeah i think those are fascinating how about you a lot i'm a very vivid and active dreamer
00:44:55.740and i'm i'm very into keeping that dream journal because i've had prophetic dreams
00:45:01.260so for example when i was really little i it was before my brother was born so i must have been
00:45:10.300three or four um and everybody used to make fun of me all the time because i had a dream
00:45:17.020that i went to work with my dad and we were uh walking through so you know like the movies where
00:45:25.260they have like the the the sewer systems where it's like a big circle and there's like two paths
00:45:30.380and then there's the water in between right so i had a dream that i went to work with my dad
00:45:36.060my biological dad and his job was to count water makes zero sense right like to a rational adult
00:45:44.620how do you count water that makes zero sense well when i was about five my dad started working for
00:45:52.380the ditch company which managed the irrigation canals through all of the area of montana that
00:45:58.300we lived in and he used to ride a ditch and he would do things like um you know put things into
00:46:06.780the canal to raise the water level um they had this thing that caught the moss had to make sure
00:46:13.100that worked so for a three-year-old who have no idea what that is that could very well be
00:46:19.100counting water it's just you know in my little brain that's how it manifested right
00:46:25.580and they're like yeah you said your dad counted water well he really kind of did
00:46:31.180but water levels that's counting that's kind of keeping track
00:46:35.980yeah he's going out into ditches and yeah the perceptive the craziest one i had was when i was
00:46:44.460little and when i was really really young and i even remember being young enough that when
00:46:51.100my grandma's brother, my grandmother's brother came to visit. His name was Sam and he was in the
00:46:57.760Navy. And they asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. And I said, I want to join the military
00:47:04.900and I want to work on radars because I had had a dream that I worked on radars. And I remember
00:47:11.820sitting in front of this big radar screen, right? And it was the black and green screen, just like
00:47:18.940you see in the movies, right? And I remember I was working on the radar, but I was just sitting
00:47:24.600in front of it. I remember clearly. And I remember looking next to me and there was like chairs and
00:47:30.080there was more radars. And then I remember a man, a silhouette of a man standing in a lit doorway.
00:47:37.060Well, I was 18 years old. I joined the military, you know, and I went to technical training
00:47:44.000and I'm sitting in front of a mock radar screen, you know, controlling fake aircraft, you know,
00:47:53.220in a radar situation. And I looked over and it was the exact same scene. And I had written this
00:47:59.500down because it's very vivid. And I talked about it a lot. I want to work on radars. I want to work
00:48:04.400on radars. And I looked over and my instructor was leaning against the doorway that was backlit.
00:48:11.580you know and to this day that still sticks with me you know and it's just
00:48:16.880I get a lot of deja vu like you'll just stop for a minute and you're like whoa like this has
00:48:26.320happened before this is going to happen again right and you just feel like it's happened over
00:48:30.780and over and over and I think that a lot of that stuff if I go back in my dream journals I'll see
00:48:36.320it you know it'll be like that's where i got it from it's not that it actually already happened
00:48:41.520it's just like that was in a dream you know so you're a very very vivid dreamer if if you wake
00:48:48.800up in the morning and you remember those dreams take a minute and write them down because you just
00:48:54.800never know but you never know am i gonna say that i prophesize through dreams no because i'm kind of
00:49:03.280of like Nostradamus I don't know until it already happens and I have to go back and go oh wait there
00:49:08.160it is so I mean if we went off of my dream prophecies my cat's gonna fly tomorrow you know
00:49:16.280I mean I'm gonna have a Porsche you know yeah all right so let's see what we got in the comments
01:16:24.080i'm just gonna say something so we just had of course winter nights better nighter and um
01:16:32.000i was hoping to do something very special for both the morning bloat and the evening bloat and
01:16:39.280part of that was to do like a personal inventory you know just have people sitting on a piece of
01:16:44.480paper write down their blessings and then things they wanted to work on in their own life and how
01:16:49.760to do those steps i was focusing on those those rituals how to make them important and give value
01:16:58.400to people and i was typing this up and i was trying to print stuff off because i was finishing
01:17:04.720up all my plans all the things i needed and i was sitting at my computer and steve was upstairs
01:17:10.240sound asleep and i heard a really strange noise it sounded like pebbles or something like beans
01:17:19.760going and i could hear it was the only sound of the house and i waited and it happened again
01:17:31.360it was in the kitchen so i went to the kitchen and i walked over to where by the toaster and
01:17:36.800the coffee maker and i heard and then i stepped a little bit to the left and there was a box
01:17:44.320and in it are pills different kinds of pills we have lots of pills in our house but there was
01:17:50.080nothing nobody touched it you know i start going through the pills they're all soft tabs and not
01:17:54.240the type that will make but actually sounded like it was pebbles and you know it kind of goes back
01:18:02.880to a story i told last last time we were on about my my great grandmother who had passed
01:18:08.960It didn't say that back in 1962, but in 1993, she somehow appeared at my home and gave me a gift, and it was a hairnet, and it goes back to our Christmases with her, and I almost think that whatever I was doing was kind of connecting.
01:18:28.680so my story here is that sometimes it's the little things that you need to be aware of
01:18:34.760because also that weekend it's just been a week and a half um we used runes and i have my
01:18:42.100wonderful set of runes i use them for everything they're beautiful um handmade and and a special
01:18:48.940kind of oak and i had scooped up all the runes as i left the hof the other day they had been in a
01:18:56.300and put them into the bag brought the bag home put it over on my ancestors table the next morning
01:19:04.060steve and i are on the sofa i'm right in front of us we have a coffee table with glass top
01:19:09.100and there was a rune and i said steve did you put this here he said no i didn't do that
01:19:14.140and i said well i didn't do it either the rune was i was or he was the you rune you know the
01:19:20.940one that goes it goes that way and very very powerful in fact i think we had done that rune
01:19:28.300at the ritual and i had also taken that rune as my own rune at the very last rune that was drawn
01:19:36.380after the dc of load so um yeah went back with the rest of them but don't ask me how it got from
01:19:43.500in the bag right in front of me on i think was monday morning so it was little things it says
01:19:49.900you know there are the magnificent things the ghosts that walk through your house or whatever
01:19:54.140and there's those little subtle things that you could easily miss so i call them anomalies be
01:20:00.140aware of anomalies everybody and as you become more aware of them you're going to feel more
01:20:05.260connections and make interpretations that are meaningful for you and that's what i did that's
01:20:10.460how i kind of tied it back to ancestors trying to help me along getting ready for bloat and with
01:20:16.700that don't ask me why i haven't figured that one out yet but still it happened and i heard it
01:20:22.780happen it was almost right before me so there's my story maybe something just to get your attention
01:20:30.700maybe so yeah just let me know yes this is well i felt that had i not been doing that particular
01:20:36.940task it wouldn't have happened it was yes it was all part of the whole package of getting ready
01:20:42.380to do two blow blow tar the next day and really wanting to make them very distinct because one
01:20:49.340was for fathers one was for mothers and i did and i think i really i'm not one to do uh bloats to
01:20:59.740the gods you know i tend to i always do the goddesses right and we ladies do but i did and
01:21:06.140i did it to the fathers and it felt so natural to me because i was thinking about all of our fathers
01:21:11.900all those men who sacrificed so much who taught us who cared for us all those things and it was
01:21:17.980so easy to do that bloat it just just kind of flowed and came out of me and i think was a good
01:21:23.500one i really liked it all right we do have a question and then we're going to get into some
01:21:34.220poetry. Question is, what is the official as a true position on luck levels of black cats?
01:21:44.160Unless they all share a go, they correct me in the chat. There isn't one. We love them. We love
01:21:51.700them. I have the biggest, most beautiful black cat that is old and decrepit and does not know
01:22:00.340that she is a little heavier than she should be right oh yes so she loves to go outside
01:22:07.480you know she does and again she doesn't realize she's old and she doesn't realize that she's obese
01:22:14.200and i let her outside one day and i was sitting outside just hanging out and she was sitting
01:22:20.060there and the squirrels in our area have like turf wars you know like they fight each other
01:22:27.260and it's and it's like block wars with squirrels so the squirrel comes into the yard and my cat
01:22:33.820just automatically goes into predator mode you know keep in mind she's old and obese and she
01:22:40.780takes after this squirrel and the squirrel runs up this tree and then my cat takes a flying leap0.79
01:22:47.440she jumps about four inches and she latches onto the tree and like she's gonna climb the tree
01:22:52.180and then she realized she's old and obese and she just looked at me and hung there for a minute0.81
01:22:59.480and she looked at me like in sheer terror and then she just fell backward off the tree0.96
01:23:04.020oh wow oh she's hilarious yes what about you we have our own we have our own black cat she weighs
01:23:14.180about 21 pounds she's enormous and we love her and she talks to us especially in the morning and at
01:23:21.100night and um she you know will respond to us with a little sing-song meow and it's very sweet she
01:23:28.140loves to roll on her back and get her tummy rubbed and her tail pulled and uh she just kind of came
01:23:35.300to us we already had two cats we took her from a friend who uh was very very ill and we just
01:23:42.000loved that cat so anyway think about freya's cats of course no matter what size those cats are
01:23:47.680Of course we love cats, whatever color. I love, I love my cat. So another funny story about my
01:23:56.880obese black cat, right? She's on a diet and the diet is not working because she will play anybody0.99
01:24:07.780that walks into my house. She gets a small hand food of food, food in the morning. She gets a1.00
01:24:12.500small handful of food in the evening, right? And I always tell everybody if they come to my house,
01:24:18.860you know, I have people that like stay with me when there's events and stuff like that, you know,
01:24:22.220and I always tell them, I don't care how much she cries, how much she begs, she's been fed,
01:24:28.820leave her alone, do not give her more food, right? And she will just play the I'm famished0.99
01:24:35.320and mom forgot about me and I'm so abused and neglected. She plays this to the point where she0.96
01:24:41.880lays on the floor all stretched out in her big fat glory and she paws at her bowl and she flips1.00
01:24:49.980it and flips it and flips it like she is just completely malnourished like she'll flip it over1.00
01:24:56.220and she just goes mal like so dramatic
01:25:00.360but we have to tell people don't let her fool you she's not starving i promise oh yeah
01:25:09.480lana says my fat pug is the same always hungry
01:25:15.120oh right now we got some poems that we gonna we are going to read so nick submitted a poem
01:25:25.840and i'm going to read that for us okay and it's called grandma's rocking chair
01:25:31.600there's a room of pink and lace where ponies play and smiles on her face a young girl sits
01:25:39.940with dolls in hand dreaming of being in a fairy land in this quiet room where moonic
01:25:45.260moonlight glows a gentle shadow shadow comes and goes she lingers near with watchful eyes
01:25:51.840a granny's ghost time made wise she watched her grand girl with ribboned hair chasing butterflies
01:25:58.880through summer air through scraped up knees and bedtime prayers her love has always her love was
01:26:06.260always waiting there she saw her bloom and braided grace a vibrant young woman bright of face she
01:26:12.360watched her walk to make his horn a steady man so strong so grand through candlelit nights and
01:26:19.260lullabies she saw new babes born of twinkling eyes the same warm sport spark she once had known a
01:26:26.580piece of her in flesh and bone. The years like rivers moved along, great-grandchildren grew with
01:26:32.540voices strong, and still she stayed a quiet light, a loving soul in fading night. Children's laughter
01:26:41.160warmed the quiet air, where little feet danced everywhere. Through passing years, a mourn's love
01:26:47.700held true, but over time silver's hair the children knew. Now in her chair, she softly sways.
01:26:54.500now she's a grandma in her twilight days her children groan their laughter near she keeps the
01:27:01.220watch her own help dear as the rocking chair grew still the hurt the hearth was warm the house was
01:27:09.500chill the old one smiled her breath was gone but death was just the breaking dawn she turned her
01:27:16.560head no longer frail to see her granny though thin and pale no longer ghost but seen whole
01:27:24.160and true with arms outstretched like dew and eyes like dew smiles and hugs to women where time is
01:27:30.960none both old both young both newly spun a family returned that quiet presence now known grandmother
01:27:39.200granddaughter a new role now shown wow that's beautiful beautiful man yeah
01:27:46.000sheila do you see the uh private chat where monk's poem is in there otherwise i can read it too
01:27:55.800yeah i'm not sure i i can read that one i got it right okay so monk submitted one as well it says
01:28:03.900sadness sings the mind madness so so is the soul cold stone forges the heart the pain consumes it
01:28:10.080all dry tears fall before blind eyes broken body is a is a prison born no one no escape while sanity
01:28:19.040stands may the lady come for me to end the pain the world sings for me broken heart and in mind
01:28:25.280may she someday set me free you see my eternal love so i can hold her one more time no rest for
01:28:31.600the wicked no peace for the man mad unknown veteran oh monk someday someday she will sir
01:28:45.680right i think those are all of our submissions but there was a question i did want to ask you
01:28:50.480sheila um and it was like the children with not knowing that these things shouldn't be real right
01:28:57.680so if we have um if we have parents and their their children are you know telling them things
01:29:04.480what is the best way that you think you know as a parent having been a teacher working with young
01:29:09.280children um how do you recommend that parents handle that okay kind of start your question again
01:29:19.520is about about what is yeah when kids tell us oh i saw this or oh i dreamt this what is the
01:29:26.880best handle that do you think in your opinion you know i just think uh parents need to stop
01:29:34.560and pause and wonder if perhaps the kids are telling the truth at least the way they see it
01:29:41.120especially in a home that is an australia home where we do believe in the other powers other
01:29:49.520powers beyond us the holy powers and connection with the sir and our gods i mean our gods of
01:29:57.040course our ancestors and um even the place where we live you know we just it all comes together
01:30:05.200and children are thank goodness are perceptive to those kinds of things um i heard something
01:30:11.840interesting today and had to do with um the idea of telling children the truth and i forget what
01:30:21.280that was the topic was but the lady said you know we we tell them the pretend stories we tell them
01:30:28.720about santa claus we tell them about the tooth fairy and make them seem real to the kids and
01:30:36.640that's lying to them because they need to understand that that those things don't happen
01:30:43.520and i mean i understand it but i have to say um i love i love the idea of a santa claus or
01:30:51.360father christmas or father yule papa yule um when i had kindergartners they would be interviewed by
01:31:00.480uh typically a kid fifth eighth grade who would come and and help them uh find out what they want
01:31:08.640for what would they like for from santa claus or whatever and then the kid would write a letter
01:31:14.320back to them as an elf and all the elves were like strawberry bunny elf or you know candy cane elf
01:31:22.360and those kinds of things and i would roll them up scroll wise and they would suddenly appear with
01:31:28.980with uh little ice chips all over them having been delivered that like day before they took
01:31:35.040off and that's the kind of a teacher i was um i love using my imagination that's kind of the way
01:31:41.180i've always been and i'm not very grounded in a lot of ways but i don't know if it did harm i
01:31:47.660don't think my own kids uh we played up all the that that kind of mythology that kind of storytelling
01:31:54.220and i don't think it harmed them at all i just i think it's it's a very sweet part of childhood
01:32:00.380is and then of course they understand that it's part it makes it adds magic to the season to be
01:32:07.980able to do that with little kids the expectations get so much more exciting however as people
01:32:13.580approach you will um one thing that and we will probably be talking about but um witten's von
01:32:21.260harrell does for his children is that they have um i think multiple nights where they receive gifts
01:32:29.420and at least maybe one night where it's from the ancestors and a certain ancestor will bring them
01:32:34.780socks we'll bring them the hat and as somebody that they know and i think that's a lovely idea
01:32:40.620because it might be an ancestor the child has never heard of and so in a way we're doing that
01:32:45.980same kind of embellishment and making up fantasy but in that way then the child can learn about
01:32:52.620that ancestor what was who was person when did they live what it was like back then when that
01:32:58.060person lived and who was their family all those kinds of things and i think we all if we have
01:33:05.580children need to do something like that at least once during yule is to make sure that the children
01:33:12.140receive special gifts could be a book it could be some writing paper um slippers you know anything
01:33:19.340but it comes from a specific sign by specific ancestor you know with great love from you
01:33:25.340great at mabel kind of thing so i think that is a great idea we do you know we do the 12 days of
01:33:32.860yule at my house too and the kids have always gotten their presence are spread out between
01:33:38.220the first day and the last day of yule you know we don't have just one big day where we open them all
01:33:43.500um and it's just kind of like you know we never did the um the gift from the ancestors
01:33:51.100but i wish i had because that is brilliant that is great you know my kids are 18 and 19 now
01:34:00.100and they still leave their shoes out to get their their gold coins from crampus
01:34:05.820you know so those things carry on you know what i mean like if you leave your shoes out you got
01:34:11.980to check your shoes there's either coal you know or there's gold coins and we used i used to get
01:34:18.320the um go to the bank and get a roll of dollar coins because they're gold colored you know so
01:34:23.580the gold coins in there neat that's brilliant all right and we do have another poem that was
01:34:31.400submitted uh submitted by nick and it's called rest revere and reflect and it says fallen leaves
01:34:40.760ancient eyes silent earth to see your rise autumn's breath the twilight near whispers call
01:34:47.740the ancestors here the desir watch with knowing eyes guiding hands beneath dark skies falling
01:34:54.700leaves and misty air we honor those who once stood there hearth and hall their echoes stay in shadow
01:35:01.340dusk we find our way honored to seer fierce and wise through the veil your voices rise
01:35:06.860mother's past protect and guide in silent woods where shadows bide reflect remember we speak their
01:35:14.460names through quiet winds they stoke the flames reverence deep as nights grow long their strength
01:35:20.940within us ever strong winter nights a time to see the woven thread of ancestry that's beautiful it
01:35:28.140is gorgeous yeah those are long poems that he writes he does he's just a great writer and he
01:35:38.380does them every month he does the runestone yes you guys you guys gotta see the um so if you are
01:35:47.660interested in like nick's poetry um eric also writes really beautiful poetry but there's a
01:35:54.620poetry corner i believe in the runestone um nick producer nick are you can you pop on real quick
01:36:00.620tell us about that poetry corner and tell us how to submit to the runestone if you are a member of
01:36:06.060of the Astro Folk Assembly and you have poetry or things of that nature that you would like to submit.
01:36:12.220The runestone, sir, please pop in and let our folk know.
01:36:16.060Yeah. On the regular, it seems to just be the East Coast that writes the poetry.
01:36:23.740So the Thorshoth runestone for like two years now has had a poetry section
01:36:31.980where myself eric chris and occasionally aiden have submitted poetry um now that we have it's
01:36:41.980split between thor's off and phrase off there's technically two poetry corners now and the other
01:36:48.700districts could all have a poetry corner if people would submit poetry and like this month for
01:36:54.860instance we had miss jilly submitted one of the poems that we read tonight so it will be in the
01:37:00.620runestone coming up and yeah i've had one in it well once this next two runestones come out to
01:37:09.820finish the year it'll be for a solid two years straight um and if you want to anybody members
01:37:19.420can submit poetry or articles or artwork you want anything you want really if it would if it would
01:37:28.140be relevant to our folk um or interesting to our folk recipes craft projects if you're a small
01:37:38.940business owner or an entrepreneur and you've got something that might be relevant to our folk we
01:37:43.500can advertise that anything like that you can send to press at runestone.org uh for most any of it
01:37:51.580I'll probably run it by the Gothar, make sure it's good to go.
01:37:56.100But assuming it is, yep, just send whatever you want through and we will chat about it.
01:38:02.620Again, that is press at runestone.org or send it to myself or get you Sarah, one of the Gothar.