Friday, August 7, 2009

Martha's Vineyard Osmosings



Sorry, dear readers, but I'm on vacation, and thus brimming with bloggerific potential! Read up, thirsty souls, for ye have not imbibed for too long...

Yesterday my parents and my sister and I went on a "Martha's Vineyard Ghost Tour" in the town of Vineyard Haven, formerly Holmes Hole. Our leader was none other than the author of Vineyard Supernatural, a Ms. Holly Nadler, who has spent decades researching the former lives of spirits who haunt the Vineyard.

Now. I am pretty comfortable believing in things people can't see. I like astrology, (as former entry will show) and I'm loosely spiritual. I also like reading fiction, and fantasy novels which, though it is hard for me to believe, some people don't. I'd like to think I also believe in ghosts.

But you see, any time I get close to people who really, really believe in these things to the point where they're preaching one thing or another, I recoil, utterly turned off by the bullshit.

So, as you can imagine, the ghost tour initially held promise, until, of course I realized that this bat actually believes in all of this crap. It's such self-important BS to think that humans have some sort of privilege that allows them to exist after nature says you're toast!

Granted, as Holly explained, I may not be one of the 20% of the human population that is considered "by psychologists" to be "extremely sensitive" to the "osmosings" (yes, osmosings). But, regardless of my physical sensitivities to the spiritual world, the stories she told failed to incite any level of pity or curiosity or actual belief in me. Holly explained that Vineyard Haven was victim to an imbalance in spiritual negativity; in fact, she was even able to identify a Negative Vortex on the site of the MV Bank, where some 17 year old boys had been abused by a nasty old man. She grimly stated that she felt sorry for the people of Vineyard Haven, because they were in really deep. "Things happen here." Give me a break. I mean, listen. Spirits of Holmes Hole: I'm sorry if you were struck by lightning in 1790 or if your infant child died in 1840, but get OVER it already!

(This callousness may be a bi-product of my trip to Poland just a year ago, where every block you walked about 40+ people were at some point or another shot dead under one tyrant or another. If you were "sensitive" and born in Poland, well, good luck, tortured soul!)

The best part probably came when she explained some extremely disturbing experiences she had at home (with her high-school aged son and EX-husband) after having used a Quija board to contact a dear, departed aunt. Apparently the week after, she:

1) Was unable to lock her door properly

and

2) Discovered a weird unidentifiable drawing of an Indonesian demon which somehow moved mysteriously from her desk to a neighboring chair one day when she decided to vacuum her place.

She concluded, based on these happenings that it must have been the Quija board. Apparently an evil spirit had impersonated her aunt and had successfully infiltrated their safe haven. She proceeded to put the board in a box, and put that box into a pillowcase and then stowed it in her basement. I could just imagine her then-husband and son having a real field day with this crap...

I don't think anything more needs to be said. I don't think her beliefs really threaten me, but I guess I needed to say something after respectfully listening to her half-baked stories for an hour. But in case your interested, here's a picture I took in front of the Negative Vortex. Apparently, with digital photography, "orbs can be detected." It didn't work for me, but it was worth it for this creepy pic.

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...

"Osmosings?" Now that is the most ridiculous word ever! That alone makes her utterly ridiculous. Osmosing is what my plants do!

But still, it probably beats the human creep show that is Lucy!

L said...

Haha, totally! I feel like after all of this crap with she-who-will-not-be-named, I'll be able to stare the creature from the black lagoon in the eye and have a hearty chuckle.

With that:

Osmosings (ahs-MO-sings) n., pl. - (rare, obs., nonexistant) Ghosts
Ex. If one should utilize the verbal colloquy, "osmosings," in reference to anything other than plantar happenings, undoubtedly one might be considered a veritable dunderhead.