There's No Place Like Home

Over my lifetime I have lived in many different places. It is true that the home is where the heart is, but only if the home has the right people living there. Our family is our first experience of unconditional love and giving, for most it is a source of comfort and reassuring acceptance. Though it has to be said that for others it can be a scary place and one of fear, doubt and abuse. We are not all blessed to have our heart in our home. We are not even all blessed with a home.

We all know that feeling we have, that connection with a special place, but it does not have to be our house, apartment, bungalow…whatever... Lots of people return on holiday to the same place over and again and this is where their heart is, even if only a tiny bit of it.

My earliest memory of home was in Castleview Road, West Derby in Liverpool. This was also my favourite home and you could say there is still a bit of my heart there. I was lucky enough to have my own room and the big room at the back, at that. It was in that room that my first ever spirit encounters occurred.

Every night I would lie in bed peeking out from the safety of my quilt at what looked to be a soldier, maybe of Roman origin. He had a leather pleated skirt, a sword and a shield. He never spoke to me, he just stood still and watched me. He was fierce and serious yet he brought me such peace and comfort that I would just stare back at him. He had a kind of sheen to him and he wasn't fully materialised like you and I. I never understood why he was there or why no-one ever mentioned him, but as he did me no harm, I also never thought to talk about him with others. It kind of felt like a very special secret.

At the age of about four or five, I remember sitting in a part of the room near to where this soldier would stand and sensing other people there. I knew that they weren't here or in our world, but from somewhere else. As I felt elevated by their presence, I would take in all the parts of my room and sense which had ‘good’ ones and which had ‘bad’ ones in it. I would see splashes of bright light around everything and the lights would often change colour. I used to call these “the luminous bones” as it looked like peoples’ and objects’ structures lit up on the outside edge of them. I now believe this to have been auras (the energy field around people and things), but I can no longer see them (since doing reiki this has started to return but very slowly). People would tell me not to be silly whenever I talked about the "luminous bones" and I quickly learnt that it was not something good.

I spent many an hour talking to these presences, telling them about my day and I would feel but not hear their responses.

There were a few occasions that I would feel scared by the ghosts and I told my parents whose response was “There’s no such thing as ghosts”, trying to reassure me, as any parent would. Eventually, two older girls who used to play with me told me it was the shadows of the curtains. I thought they must be right and tried to blank my spirit friends from my mind.

The day came when it was time to move house and I said goodbye to my friends and that sense of calm forever. I will tell you all about my next home and the experiences there in another post, so keep checking back for more.

What I will finish by saying is that anyone can communicate with spirit, it is not a gift as it’s so often referred to, but something we all have. We lose the ability due to a lack of acceptance. The very same acceptance that places your heart firmly at home. It is such a shame that there isn't more acceptance and less fear for this kind of thing. The key is in nurturing our youth and accepting them as they are.

Where is your home and where is your heart? Do you accept and give love truly unconditionally?

P.S. I was telling a very special and dear friend about my Roman soldier the other day and it turns out she too saw this ghost as a child. She did live in the next village (Croxteth) so maybe he was a lost soul doing the rounds?