Plymouth is not quite what it appears. Here, for example, on the horizon is a classic example of what they call a Dragon's Back in Feng Shui; a ridgeway along which the dragon's vein runs - in other words, a ley line - and the church marking a significant power point.
Magic is not quite what one associates with the city. Indeed, this particular area was named the worst in the UK for traffic violations; the recent riots figured on the national news; and I've never seen as much dispossession and loneliness even in places like London. Frequently I come across people talking to themselves in the streets. Strangely, also, I overhear lengthy conversations on phones about food, one person talking for ten minutes about a pasty he had just eaten. Yet the more I observed people like this, I was reminded of stories by people such as Neil Gaiman or Charles de Lint, depicting fairies and other magical entities trapped in human bodies, appearing sometimes as punks or schizophrenics but secretly being much more. I have also experienced firsthand how some individuals struggle with their sensitivity to the unseen, and take to drugs in order to cope - not the best option. They would be better off with meditation.
Exploring the rather nice and community-minded area where I'm now based, I realised that there are numerous such oases in the city, places of calm and great beauty, tended to by people who enhance them with beautiful artwork on walls or through environmental mangement. Not only that, but they are often linked by green pathways so that you can walk from one place to another without spending much time on busy roads.
I also started to dream about fairies a lot, as if they were trying to convey something urgently to me. In Cornwall, I often heard of people's encounters with the little people. In Devon, never. Yet these dreams, and the paths that seemed like echoes of ancient trackways, were suggesting that we are surrounded by something other even in these urban surroundings. The fact that these pathways have been preserved is remarkable in itself. Most building worldwide since as far back as 1850 has just covered the natural 'ley' of the land. This implies a sensitivity acting here that is highly unusual.
Other experiences seem to support this. Take a look at this picture taken one gloomy evening in my neighbourhood from a high vantage point outside. I was wishing to capture something of the otherworldly atmosphere I felt all around at the time.
At first, seeing the shot on my camera screen, I thought I had captured some orbs, which people often get very excited by, believing them spirits or something. Indeed, I have known interesting cases where these orbs appear only around certain individuals or at particular places. I have examples that I took one full moon night at the Acropolis. Yet the x-dimensional sceptic in me was whispering that this wasn't the case here. To experiment, I took a second picture without flash and the following was the result.
My inner sceptic was right. The 'orbs' were simply the flash reflecting off dust and water particles in the air. Yet just like the end of a movie where everything seems explained and is nice and logical in a materialistic sort of way, there is a twist.
Chatting with neighbours, they were telling me how one family had to move out of their house recently because of nightly visitations from an unknown entity. They had assumed it was the spirit of a person who had lived in the house before them, and died there. They got people to cleanse the house but it made no difference, so they moved out. Then another neighbour told me how he was getting woken up regularly by someone knocking on his door at three or four in the morning. It had been going on for years, and he had never been able to catch anyone no matter how fast he got out of bed. In Devon and Cornwall, one of the subterranean little folk is known as the Knocker, for obvious reasons. The Knocker, or coblyn in Wales, is a benign goblin that alerts miners to where a vein of mineral lies, but it can also be mischievious - a Trickster.
In a later conversation with a neighbour, I had been seeking an explanation for a loud smacking noise I heard during daylight hours on the outside wall of my first floor apartment. It could happen a couple of times a day. Investigations showed no loose cables or any other likely candidate. He told me it was almost certainly the vent in my window during windy weather. This seemed very credible. Satisfied with the explanation, I returned to my flat and went inside to be greeted by a loud SLAP on the wall, and scarcely a breeze outside.
I am going to continue to take pleasure in exploring these hidden ways, which lead to surprises where even a chiropractor's building can look like a fairytale castle, ordinary paths have something special about them, and a Sleeping Beauty can be present in a car park.
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