A quest for understanding dips into the unknown and plunges into haunting coincidences.
Even though I’ve been meditating for quite a number of years, I also attend meditation retreats periodically. They are a wonderful time to get away from it all, deepen my skills and learn more about myself than I could in any other way.
And although I have been studying and investigating the paranormal for a very long time, I never made a connection between meditation and “things that go bump in the night.” That all changed when I went on an extended retreat near Brooksville, Florida.
Florida is notoriously flat, but our retreat center turned out to be on one of the tallest hills in the state. A beautiful place, built in 1842, it was originally a plantation, now turned conference center. That location is one of the few in Florida where you can actually look down on a sunset.
The administrative offices were located in the manor house, behind which were smaller buildings, guest quarters, meeting space and, of course, a cafeteria. The rooms where we slept were comfortable and the wooded surroundings were wonderfully peaceful.
While driving to the retreat from my home near Orlando, I smiled at the fact that the manor house of the plantation was built right after the end of the Second Seminole War. Why? Because of a series of three circumstances that came together to form an interesting set of coincidences.
First of all, I had just completed the first novel of my young adult paranormal/historical series titled The St. Augustine Trilogy.
The book, Sliding Beneath the Surface, plunges two teenagers back in time, right into the middle of the horrific battle that began the conflict, a place not far from the retreat center. Every year there on the anniversary of the Dade Battle, as it is known, reenactors stage an incredibly accurate portrayal of what happened.
So for me, staying at a place built during the same era as the nearby battle as described in my book made for interesting speculation about how all three things could fit together so neatly. You see, long before that day, I had concluded, as had Carl Jung in his theory of synchonicity, that such coincidental events often point to something deeper in the nature of our existence.
But as interesting as the coming together of those three things were, I had a retreat to attend. And before long, I became thoroughly engrossed in my meditations. Engrossed, that is until one day everything changed.
It started after breakfast, two days into the retreat. After each meal, we were given a period of free time, and on that day, I chose to take a leisurely walk around the grounds of the old plantation. My little jaunt started out on what had once been an old road with tall trees still on either side of it.
And as I studied my surroundings, I looked up at the trees all around me and noticed how each one of them had a lot of dead branches at the top. Immediately, I became afraid, worried that one of those branches could come crashing down and hit me or one of my companions.
Fear? The likelihood of being clobbered in that way was very low and I had walked under many such trees in my time. So why the apprehension? I asked myself, trying unsuccessfully to shake off that sensation.
Instead of giving in to such thoughts, I started wondering what the original owners of the surrounding plantation might think if they encountered such modern day intruders on their property. And true to my writer’s inclinations, I suddenly conjured up this vision of a man in period dress in front of me.
In my imagination, this gentleman and I then had an interesting conversation about the past Vs. the present. And at the end of that chat, the man said, “And remember. Suffer the little children to come unto me.”
What? Those words were so inconsistent with what was being said, that it totally blew my little day dream apart. My companion disappeared, and I continued walking, this time past the manor house in an area I hadn’t visited before.
But those words spoken by my imaginary friend still made me wonder. That whole conversation was just me talking to me in an imaginative way, right?
Yes, I was raised a Christian, but I had long ago found Christianity unable to fulfill my spiritual needs. In fact, my retreat was based on Buddhism. Why that quote from Jesus would suddenly popped into my head made no sense, but I let it go.
Looking to my left, I was surprised to find a small cemetery dating back to the early days of the plantation. Obviously, it was the final resting place of long forgotten family members, containing only five or six tombstones.
One of those stones lay flat on the ground. Attached to the top of it was a carved lamb. The inscribed dates showed that a child was buried there who died at the age of one year. And under the date were the words, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”
Okay then. That really made me think. In fact, it made me wonder if, when I was communicating with my imaginary companion, was I somehow tapping into something else?
Or, could it be . . . Nah, the guy couldn’t have had some sort of reality that I didn’t understand. Or could he? A ghost? No way.
Telling myself that I was l letting my writer’s creativity run away with itself because of the coincidental circumstances relating to the retreat location, I spent the rest of the day deeply immersed in meditation.
Then came dinner. And after dinner, I decided to just sit on one of the many benches strategically set between our cafeteria and living quarters. It had been a good day, even though part of it was a bit weird.
And, of course, my mind went back to my fear of those tree branches, the encounter with my ghostly friend, and the inscription on that poor child’s tombstone. What a strange set of events, I thought, just as something huge and heavy crashed to the ground about ten feet to my left.
When I say huge and heavy, I’m not kidding. The impact made the ground shake and immediately, one of my meditation friends came running over wondering if I was OK. Together, we surveyed the large branch that had fallen out of a tree. If it had hit me, I might well have been killed.
Did I have a premonition? And if so, why? I mean, did looking up into those trees and thinking how a branch could fall somehow influence me to sit on that bench instead walking under the branch that actually fell? I don’t know, but it certainly is food for thought, as are those other happenings during my retreat.
Could my meditations have somehow opened me up to such occurrences? Was there some sort of residual energy in that historic location ready to connect with me just then because of that openness? Beats me. Maybe.
Since that retreat, I visited the same location multiple times but without another recurrence of similar events. What I learned through those experiences though, was not to so easily dismiss those things I might normally consider as imagination.
The Dade Battle reenactment .
Oh, one more thing. The day the retreat ended, I felt compelled to visit the little cemetery one more time. And when I got there, a car was parked very close to the tombstones. A license plate on the front of the car said, “Seminole Wars Foundation.”
End of story, but if you are interested in premonitions, coincidental events, ghosts, Carl Jung and synchonicity, you might want to take a look at the book on your left.
I wrote it because I am fascinated by not only Carl jung’s theories but also by his own paranormal experiences. And in studying all that I decided to combine what I had learned with my own experiences and those of others. That’s the package.
You can find the book on most large online bookstores, but below is the link to Amazon.com where you can see the reviews by those who have read it.
Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences.
Sliding Beneath the Surface: Book I of the St. Augustine Trilogy.
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