Wading Through Uncharted Waters (or Is There Any Water and Are We In Fact Wading)

NOVEMBER 26th, 2015

By LANA CARBON

I remember back to when we started writing our blog and thinking that if anyone at all (outside of family) even read it, I would be amazed. This was something that John and I wanted to do primarily for ourselves. It was just a fun way to keep track of our little trips, vacation time and the interesting places that we might pop into along the way. We enjoyed the adventure of not only reaching our destination but the actual journey itself. We are intrigued by the paranormal and so we threw in a little of that. We added a few little tidbits about days that were special to us…the holidays, Remembrance Day and, of course, Hallowe’en.

We joined social media with our new aliases and started chatting with a lot of interesting people and out of the blue one day; I thought it might be an interesting post to have an interview with a real life paranormal investigator. John was a little surprised, to say the least, having the news of our impending interview sprung on her. (Sorry John.) We had no idea what we were doing and it was so unlike what we had been posting up to that point… but we did have a lot of fun with it. Our horizons were slowly expanding. We hoped to do more interviews some day (after we had time to recover from this one of course).

Time passed and we continued writing about the things we love. Our social media accounts kept growing at a slow but steady pace. We had no idea, however, that the friendships we were building online would lead to such an interesting month as the one we have just had. It is no surprise to our readers, that we are huge fans of the Haunted Walk and we try to support them in any way we can. They contacted us to help them out with their Hallowe’en Haunted Talk podcast episode with their guest, psychic/medium Chris Medina. It turned out we were invited on the episode to receive a (truly accurate) reading. There was only time for one of us on the episode and I somehow managed to coerce John into being the one because I knew she would do an excellent job…much better than I would have in my opinion (despite John’s fervent disagreement to this point).

When our spooktacular friends Diane Student and Denise Moormeier from the History Goes Bump podcast were putting together a research crew, we knew we would like to help them out. In September, we joined our hosts and a few other new researchers to record the anniversary round table episode. Just this week, another episode we worked on, Ottawa’s Carleton County Gaol, was released (which we happily discovered featured an interview with the Haunted Walk’s Jim Dean - also host of the podcast Haunted Talks - and an actual excerpt straight from our blog).

Finally, due to our 31 Movies and 31 Songs in 31 Days of Hallowe’en article, Patrick Keller of the Big Séance podcast asked if he could interview us. He had been following our progress every day as we would post which movie we had watched and which song we had listened to. We couldn’t believe it… Someone actually found our little project entertaining and interesting enough to want to share it with their listeners. We are still flabbergasted. The Big Séance episode should be out within a few days of us posting this entry. Patrick was gracious enough to be our second guest for the blog, allowing us to interview him as well. (Watch for that interview in an upcoming post.)

For two introverted bloggers getting their feet wet in a sea of wonder, it has been a roller coaster ride of nerve wracking, sweat-inducing, butterfly-in-the-tummy craziness…and I, for one, wouldn’t have traded it in for anything. So thank you very much Patrick, Diane, Denise and Jim for giving us an adventure of a new kind. We can hardly wait to see where the road takes us.

National Theatre Live: Hamlet at the Cinema

NOVEMBER 23rd, 2015

By LANA CARBON & JOHN LILIES

[Lana] Sherlock Holmes, Imitation Game, Star Trek: Into the Darkness, The Hobbit…

Frozen, Excalibur, The Woman in Black, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows…

Alice in Wonderland, 28 Days Later, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo…

American History X, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Water for Elephants…

What do all these movies have in common?

They all featured one of the actors from National Theatre Live’s recent presentation of Hamlet. 

I know, when most people think about the works of William Shakespeare, they let out a groan. In their minds, they see prim and proper actors like in those old movies we saw in our English Lit classes (if they aren’t simply stuck with an image of the words jumbled together on the page as they struggle to find meaning in those words). 

I understand it, to a point. The old style English can be challenging when you aren’t used to it and a lot of people find the old black and white movies cheesy these days. At the same time, who isn’t at least a little familiar with some of these great lines from this play? 

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet 

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“This above all: to thine own self be true.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

While I am not like one of the people I mentioned above (I quite enjoy reading Shakespeare and have no difficulties sitting down to an old black and white classic), I think that seeing a play at your local theatre will open your eyes to the masterworks of The Bard. 

Google Images

[John] I’m a huge fan of Shakespeare myself though I have not a drop of the dramatic ability that Lana holds and I cannot remember lines and character names in the same way. Despite this, there is magic within the world of Shakespeare and the privilege the audience is granted to watch and to enter that dynamic if for a brief few hours, is emotional, confusing, wonderful and exhausting. It can be compared to nothing.

[Lana] Let’s take the name Shakespeare out of the equation for a moment.

Picture, if you will, the son of a king who was murdered by his own brother…the brother then marries the son’s mother to become the new king. Enter the ghost of the fallen king to spur on the son to avenge his death; friends-turned-spies, madness, treachery and more murder.

It is a movie anyone who enjoys action films would love.

Photo by Johan Persson

Now add Ciaran Hinds who is no stranger to playing the villain. Add one of the hottest actors today in Benedict Cumberbatch to play the lead to perfection, and you have a blockbuster in the making…and it was written by William Shakespeare. 

Photo by Johan Persson

I am not going to say that the performance is for everyone but I would implore you, if you have never seen the play live, give it a chance. Who knows, you may just be surprised.

[John] You know, I’ve honestly never thought about it in that way. I have never placed one of his plays in a different light. I suppose I’ve never felt the need to look at Shakespeare from a perspective other than it simply being Shakespeare. What sense it makes to look at it as a story separate from the author. It really is just a story… a plot with characters that experience joy and loss and anger and success. Yet the name Shakespeare does instill a sense of fear and dread in so many people.

I was in grade six when I first read Hamlet. At eleven years old I know I did not grasp everything but I also know it hooked me. Hamlet was my first Shakespeare experience and it stuck. How many times I’ve read the play, I have not a clue. I’ve only see it performed maybe six or eight times and I’ve never been touched by its performance the way I was with this particular cast.

Photo by Johan Persson

[John] Hamlet made me cry this day. A performance so intense - so riveting that Lana was on the edge of his seat for most of the time and I cried.

This presentation of plot and human ability brought everything together for me and I gained a new understanding of the story. I don’t remember another performance allowing the words to form their own meanings and the pauses drawing their own breaths. I made an emotional connection and it sparked in me a new dimension of appreciation for Shakespeare.

Photo by Johan Persson

[John] I suppose it didn’t hurt that for a time, Hamlet wore a David Bowie t-shirt, Guildenstern had on running shoes with his tux and Horatio wore a plaid shirt while carrying a canvas backpack. Obvious subtleties that brought through an awareness of drama occurring throughout generations and helping one understand that family is complicated regardless of the era and location. We are born of specific times and certain experiences whether wished or disregarded. We react and plan and react again. We question and accuse, reflect and question some more.

We live. In whatever way we choose and however we feel we must. We live.

Photo by Johan Persson

An Introduction to the Paranormal: The John Version

NOVEMBER 1st, 2015

By JOHN LILIES

In July this year, Lana shared his first paranormal experience (a ghosty visit from his grandmother that kept him safe from harm) and I decided that it’s time for me to share mine. My experience involves my paternal grandmother and though no ghosties are involved, Lana says it qualifies under the paranormal umbrella.

My father’s mother began living with Ma, Pa & Sister Lilies before I was born and lived with our family until I was six years old. Those years with Grandma Lilies were incredibly important and formed a bond between us that tugs at my heart to this day. When I was eight, after some time ailing and deteriorating in her home country, Grandma Lilies passed away leaving a permanent hole in my heart.

Before Grandma Lilies died, I had already been feeling ‘things’ and knowing ‘things’ without understanding the source. To this day I have not wondered how or why I feel, see, hear or know ‘things’. It just is and it’s just me. My relationship with Grandma Lilies provided the first distinct moment that I can remember, when I felt and knew ‘something’.

It was January. I was eight years old, Grandma Lilies had been back in her home country of Trinidad & Tobago for a little while and I knew she wasn’t well. Ma & Pa Lilies had explained that Grandma Lilies might not be around much longer and so we planned a trip to visit her and say goodbye. It was my first trip on a plane, my first time outside of Canada and my first visit to this mysterious place from where my father emigrated. I was excited and nervous.

I have disjointed recollections about the trip because there was so much to take in and figure out but I remember that everything was different… so incredibly different. The food and music were the only familiar experiences and I was grateful for that comfort. Prior to this trip I had met and spent significant time with some of my relatives living there, but there were more to meet and spend time with. The weather was drastically different from the cold and snow we had left at home. The bugs were different… oh how they were different and so much bigger! Spiders were not the spiders I knew from home and it was on that trip when I saw my first ever cockroach – big and with wings! It was this place that spawned my love of bats and reptiles. It was here I decided I could do without any more roach encounters and I didn’t feel the need to live with any other bugs of any sort but how I so enjoyed the wee lizards running around everywhere. I felt like a complete outsider and I felt like I was at home.

My most vivid memory of this week was visiting Grandma Lilies in the hospital. There was some sort of gathering taking place outside – I remember a large crowd of people and a man with a megaphone. Ma Lilies tells me it was a church assembly but I only remember being afraid because there were so many people and it was so loud. I knew that at home we were to be quiet around hospitals so this group was worrying me – I was deeply concerned that the patients wouldn’t be able to rest with people yelling outside the walls. I was already nervous to see Grandma Lilies in the hospital, knowing she was dying, and now I was scared from the experience of this crowd.

Entering the hospital, I was struck by the smell and the layout. At home, I had been inside hospitals and they looked very different. Here, where Grandma Lilies was, everything was so open. The ward was housing so many people in one room – I didn’t know where to look and had I been left on my own I was sure I would never have found Grandma Lilies among the many sick & dying in this room. I remember a couple of nurses smiling at me and I couldn’t understand why they were smiling when my grandmother was dying. Ma & Pa Lilies pushed me to the side of Grandma Lilies’ bed and told me to talk to her, to tell her that I loved her. I remember looking at her and thinking that she didn’t look like the Grandma Lilies who had lived with us – who I knew so well and loved so much. I looked up from the bed towards the eyes I could feel on me and there was this woman – a patient – sitting on her bed staring at me and smiling. It wasn’t a smile that warmed me. It made me feel cold to my core and I remember immediately feeling like she was an empty person. She scared me and though I didn’t entirely understand what evil was, I knew that was the word that entered my head when I looked at her and I knew how scared I was. I looked back at Grandma Lilies and suddenly felt so exposed I didn’t know how to say anything to her. I actually don’t remember if I did say anything. I know in my head I told her that I loved her and I that I hoped she would be okay when she died but I really don’t know if any words actually left my lips.

The next few days are a blur. I remember a patient transport van bringing Grandma Lilies home to my aunt’s house to stay in her final days. I remember my parents discussing plans to return home – Pa Lilies had to get back to work but Grandma Lilies would probably not last much longer so what should we do, etc. In the end, we all came home. After a short three days at home we were traveling back for the funeral. Grandma Lilies had moved on.

The day that Grandma Lilies died hadn’t been an unusual day by any means. I don’t remember much about it until the end of the day when I was in my grade three art class packing up to go home. Without warning I burst into tears - uncontrollable, deep sobs. Everyone turned towards me in a panic asking what was wrong and all I could say was, “I don’t know… something’s wrong with my grandmother.” The teacher knew we had been away visiting my ailing grandmother and must have just figured it was the stress that was causing my episode but I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what – I just knew that something had happened. I knew something had changed.

Something had definitely changed significantly. Grandma Lilies had passed away at that same time and though she was 4,000+ kilometers away, I had felt her death. I don’t know how nor do I know why but I know how intensely I felt it.

Trinidad became a different place for me after that but I will be forever grateful that I had the opportunity to see Grandma Lilies in the days before she died and I am sincerely appreciative of the time I had with her in my first six years and the profound influence she had on me.

I’ve since had other incidences surrounding death and, I guess, premonitions of sorts. Though Pa Lilies will declare he doesn’t believe in ghosties or forewarnings or anything like that, his own stories and those about occurrences within his family make me think that my experiences (some people call them abilities but I don’t know how able I really am with it all) must come from the Lilies family. Perhaps that is what allowed me to feel my connection to Grandma Lilies change when she died, or maybe it was just a strong relationship between us that gave me the privilege to be a part of her transition in that way. Whatever the reason, it seems to sit outside the realm of ‘normal’ – well, society’s normal I guess. For me that’s just the way life is and though I’ve never delved deeply into it and I haven’t invested time to learn more about it or strengthen my ‘abilities’, I’ve also never questioned it or fought it. There might be a part of me that is afraid to learn about it – like I’ll lose the intuitive part of myself if I start focusing on it. I once had a dear friend who was also somewhat of a teacher for me when it came to this part of my life and though she is gone now I feel like she is still teaching me.  I suspect she has recently had a strong hand in placing certain people in my path… but maybe you’ll read about that another time.