Category: psychic phenomena

Ireland, European travel, Australia, Cairns horse racing,, living with ghosts, Memoir, paranormal, psychic phenomena, women's stories

More Backstory

Arlene

ireland-graveyard
JANUARY 6, 2017 · 7:52 PM | EDIT ↓ Jump to Comments
More Backstory
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The photo is of the graveyard near the Hill of Tara, County Meath, Ireland. Newgrange is approximately a half hour away. A Nosegay of Violets. Probably the first time I heard of Tara (in this lifetime) was in reading Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell when I was in my early 20s. The Hill of Tara came to me many years later when I read Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley in 1991. I loved both books, feeling Ripley continued Scarlett’s fiery personality in her novel.

Angelo came home one day and said, “Let’s go to Ireland next month.” He always chose our vacation spot, but left the planning up to me. I had no clue (and the Internet was in its infancy) about where to go, no time to write for tourist information, and never went to tourist destinations anyway.

Ahhh! I had recently finished Scarlett. I took the book off the shelf, copied all the places she mentioned and marked them on the map. It gave me a starting point. Angelo was not a reader. He had no idea where my plan came from, just went along wherever I drove the car. I was determined to see where the High Kings of Ireland sat; where Scarlett was taking a handful of her Tara’s earth to mix with the earth in the Hill of Tara, Ireland.

As I stood there, I saw the tombstone’s off near a small church. I expected to find some really, really old markers. Genealogy was playing a big role in my life at the time, so gravestones were important to me. They hold a wealth of historical information. I found a few from the 1800s which isn’t considered old to me. Disappointed, maybe, but not in Tara.

Newgrange had deeply unsettled me. I was wary of walking into that narrow tunnel to get to the interior. I did it, not happily. I had to force myself. Something was going on there and I did not know what, only how it affected me. The Hill of Tara was just what I needed to restore my energy and self-assurance as a visitor in Ireland.

Memoir, paranormal, psychic phenomena, women's stories

Early Backstory

Arlene

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When I was a teen I planned to be a reporter/journalist for a daily newspaper. As soon as I graduated from high school, I would face the world, have my own apartment and report, write, and look for situations people wanted to read about.

Excitement built in me when I was accepted to work on the Hamilton High school newspaper. It was probably named The Hornet or something similar that escapes my memory because I never made it to my senior year. A year that I so looked forward to. A year that would be my early training for the career I craved.

My mother did some finagling that summer between my junior and senior years. She was grossly unhappy with my having a steady boyfriend, who took me to proms, football games, swimming, parties, and all the dreamy places a teenage girl could want. He even got me a part-time job waiting the counter in a luncheonette.  She decided he was not to be in my life any longer.

Then she met Ken at our neighbor Claire and Bill’s house. He was a friend of Bill’s.  Mom determined that we should meet and become a couple. That’s how it happened. It was all arranged. A backyard cookout was planned where he would not bring his present girlfriend. I was so naïve! I knew nothing of all this going on. Just pushed into attending.

Ken also took me swimming, dancing, to impressive restaurants, and cozy jazz clubs where the smoke hung low and chanteuse voices even lower. He was 6’ 2” wide in the shoulders, narrow in the hips, wore custom-made suits, sported anErrol Flynn mustache, and drove a fine-looking Cadillac. Two tone gray.  Very classy.

Mom coached me to order V. O. & water so I wouldn’t be carded. I was 16. The legal drinking age at the time was 21. Ken was 26, a handsome man with exquisite manners, consideration, and attendance.

At the end of the whirlwind summer, when it was time for me to return to school, Ken asked me to marry him. My stepfather Joe wisely suggested we wait until I finish high school. I think he knew this would blow over in time. I was just too young for a lifetime commitment. I was happy waiting although I considered that Ken would not be taking me to high school balls or football games. Besides being on the school paper, I was vice-president of the class. I was involved. It was expected of me to support my school events. I couldn’t see Ken’s going along with this.

It took me years to figure out that Mom was terrified I would become pregnant and bring shame to the family. She wisely knew, at Ken’s age, he would probably not wait for conjugal rights. He certainly was not gentleman enough to wait for me.  She didn’t know I had the determination and intelligence to not let that happen to me. She just didn’t know me at all.

So, I said ‘yes.’ My words, not quite my dream.  Surely this was only a detour. I didn’t know that then, but I knew, walking down the aisle in a white velvet gown in November, with all eyes on me, tears slowly overflowing my eyes under my tulle veil, that this was not the right place for me to be. But it was too late to turn back.

books, family, genealogy, general, Memoir, New book release, paranormal, psychic phenomena, women, women's stories, writing

PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE LINEAGE

Arlene

violets-3grandma-daniels   The photo shows Grandmother Elizabeth Urbanski Daniels (my mother’s mother) holding me approximately one year before she passed away. No stories have come to me about anyone before her in her birth line being psychically developed. She certainly was. My mother didn’t tell me about this until I was nearly 30 years old. I’d had some out of body experiences of my own, but Mom didn’t know that. She never knew it because I never told her. Mom had a habit of belittling me, so I wasn’t about to confide anything at all to her.

Grandmother Elizabeth (as she was referred to, never Grandma) read tarot cards. She was good at it. My mother was developed as far as my two brothers and I was concerned. She always knew before I did, when I was pregnant. I’m talking about within days. With my brother Bob, it was instant. In her later years, she lived in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida but knew instantly when Bob’s car was in an accident in New Jersey. She called on the phone within minutes after it happened. The car was empty. Bob was in the house with me at the time.

booksigning, hauntings, living with ghosts, Memoir, paranormal, psychic phenomena, Warren Artists' Market, women's stories

The Launching of A Nosegay of Violets, a writer’s memoir of psychic awakening

Arlene

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From left: Thomas Park, Arlene Bice, Sterling Cheston, Anita Merriweather Williams

WAM photo by C. Myrick Hendricks

It’s done. It’s over. The Warren Artists’Market team, shown here, helped me to create a great evening to enjoy the delicious baked goodies, lattes, and pots of tea of Susan Long at Lloyd’s Bakery last night. We socialized to Sterling’s musical selections in the background, Thomas performed his always interesting literary references while introducing me to a great group of people, and Anita showed her support. I let whatever words about writing the book flow, incidences in the book, and a few strange synchronicities about the book.

My emotions ran high when I answered some questions. Talking about what I wrote means that I relive the moment again. Since I had written these emotions, when I spoke them this time, I was able to get through the drama with only a few glitches in my voice. That’s a big difference from being unable to speak of some tragedies and near tragedies, that I’ve lived through, over many years.

I am extremely grateful for the audience of last night. They were kind, gentle, and engrossed when I spoke. Love. It’s all around in so many different forms that it fits all of us.

 

American History, books, Bordentown, Ghost Walk, hauntings, living with ghosts, Memoir, New book release, New Jersey history, paranormal, psychic phenomena

more on A Nosegay of Violets, a writer’s memoir of psychic awakening

Arlene

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Waiting so long to write about the strange things that happened to me was a natural decision.  I first spoke about seeing a ghost while I was working in my bookshop in Bordentown, New Jersey. This came freely because I was conducting an annual ghost walk as a fund raiser for my business group. There were other houses on the tour that also had true stories of hauntings. There is a comfort and freedom when you are among your own kind. And people who lived with ghosts in their houses were my kind.

Once word got out that I lived with a little girl ghost in my house, others came to me with their stories. They, too, had not spoken of their experiences for the same reasons. One, who would believe them? Two, how many people would ridicule and make fun of them? Three, would the value of their homes drop? And more reasons followed.

Once houses were placed on the tour, they became, if any change at all, higher in value. People sought haunted houses to live in because they wanted that experience. It became cool.

Remember, Bordentown was settled in 1682, adding much Revolutionary War history to its stories. The earlier residents were practically still living to the present-day residents. We kept their personalities alive and familiar through the Historical Society and through fund raisers. One of which was a Friday evening garden party at the DeSantis house. Several of us dressed in our chosen Bordentown “hero/shero.” We had many to choose from.

The first year I wore all white as was the custom of Quaker Patience Lovell Wright. She was America’s first woman sculptor (mostly in wax) who spied in the court of King George in England, sending all the information she discovered to Benjamin Franklin. He was living in France at the time.

Once we entered the garden in costume, we became that person, staying in character, answering questions as that person would have done. It was great fun and imbedded history into our bones. I’m not quite sure about Ms. Wright drinking wine, tho she could have. No wonder ghosts came out of the woodwork!

books, hauntings, Memoir, paranormal, poetic narrative, psychic phenomena, women's stories, wormen writing

A Nosegay of Violets, a writers memoir of psychic awakening

Arlene

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Well, it’s finally here and it is a great relief! Writing this book, A Nosegay of Violets,  has been therapeutic, sending all those hidden secrets out into the Universe with a refusal of thinking “what if someone laughs at me?” or “what if no one believes me?” or “what will they think of me, knowing of the marriage I was in? “

Those questions no longer hold fear for me. I have survived the marriage and became stronger because of it. I have forgiven myself for decisions I made, (the hardest thing to do) believing they were the right ones to make at the time. And I have forgiven others who did me harm. They were just being who they were. And I had help along the way, from people-sometimes strangers-from friends, from family, and an Angel here and there when no one else was around to show up.  WOW!

You’d think those would be easy moments to talk about, but they were not. Fear of rejection held me back. When I overcame that fear last year, I pulled all the scraps of paper with notes jotted on them and poured over my journals to be sure I would get everything right. It meant re-living the entire experience over again and again and again as I wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote. Excuse me, while I allow myself to have this feeling of being wonderful!