Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine, Fl
For Carl Jung, spirit contact fell under the larger umbrella of synchronicity. Jung had several experiences himself with spirits, which he recounts in his autobiography. I’ve always wondered, though, what he would think of the ghost and the straight pins.
During my (Trish) last year in college, I lived in a small apartment on the third floor of a spavined building in Utica, New York. My roommate, Linda, and I, shared our cramped living space with a tabby cat. Early in the school year, Linda’s grandmother passed away. One day not long afterward, Linda’s mother found a straight pin on the grandmother’s tombstone. A few days later, our tabby, Tigger, was about to jump into a chair where I was reading when she suddenly did a 180 in midair and tore into the bedroom. Linda and I just looked at each other, wondering what that was about.
The next morning, I found straight pins scattered around the living room – a pin stuck in a couch cushion, pins laying on the rug, a couple more straight pins on the kitchen table. This began to happen consistently. When Linda mentioned it to her mother, she sort of laughed and said it was Linda’s grandmother. “Nana G loved to sew. I’ve been finding straight pins all over the house, even underlining passages in the bible.”
I didn’t have any problem believing in ghosts and was certain that Tigger had seen Nana G the night she did that 180, but straight pins?How did a ghost manipulate physical matter, even matter as small as a straight pin? But one weekend when we visited Linda’s parents, her mother showed up the straight pins underlining passages in the bible.
“How does Nana G do that?” I asked Linda’s mom.
“I have no idea,” she replied. “But isn’t it amazing?”
The straight pin phenomenon continued consistently for several months, then gradually stopped. About ten years later, I was visiting St. Augustine with Linda and her mother. We were in that fort featured in the photo, Castillo de San Marcos. The Spanish began construction on this fort in 1672 to protect the city. It’s the only existing 17th century fort in North America. This is what it looks like inside:
Within its empty hallways, our footsteps echoed. The whisper of the past was everywhere. But everything was bare – the thick walls, the well-worn floors, not even a piece of trash in sight. So the three of us were moving through the interior, marveling at how cool it was despite the summer heat outside. I happened to look down and stopped, incredulous, staring at a single straight pin.
I picked it up and showed it to Linda’s mother. “What’re the odds of finding a straight pin in this place?” I asked.
Her mom smiled. “I’ve been feeling Nana G around.”
“Looks like she wanted to tour the place with us,” Linda said.
“So is this an apport?” I asked.
Neither of them had an answer. But to this day, an apport – the paranormal transference of an object from one place to another – seems to be the best explanation.
So then the white features are truly your contact with spirit. That's wonderful and comforting. I'll have to do some research on white feathers and bereavement. Thanks for sharing this, Mike.
wow – the WV for this? scarr
Trish and Rob: There was no significance to white feathers previously with out daughter. They first started to appear after my mother died. Then my best friend and our daughter died unexpectedly as well (a tough time). The feathers came following their funerals and when we 'needed' them. I had read before though about white feathers and bereavement.
barbara – an intriguing story!
Mike – were white feathers of any special significance to your daughter? I remember your other story about white feathers. This must be deeply comforting to you both.
I guess any item can be used that is meaningful to the person who has moved on and their family. For my wife and I it's white feathers we see when we feel someone we have lost is about – we found one in a glass vase last week, just after we had visited our daughter's grave.
Some time ago I lived in a house that had been moved from another property where jars or cups left on the kitchen counter would slide back and forth by themselves every night. When that happened the living room would get frigid while the temperature gauge read 73F. I would be able to see my breath in the room, yet in the kitchen it was warm.
I've often wondered the same thing. But this deal with the straight pins was just beyond weird.
I wonder if it is trickster ghosts that take things and hide them, only to reveal the items whereabouts when they are ready? I find that to be so strange. You put something down and it disappears for sometimes long periods of time, only to turn back up in some obscure place. I've always thought it was the work of ghosts. Especially when the item is car keys. Maybe they don't want you driving right at that moment for some reason?
There's another fort in florida (can't recall which one) that has that same damp, oh yuck feeling. I recall we walked into a what had been a cell area and I had to leave. It was totally creepy and unsettling.
I love this one. Especially when the cat went psycho…poor Tigger. 🙂
It's amazing how spirit can communicate. They are often humorous & quirky. But, then , so are we humans!
The TV show "AMERICA'S MOST HAUNTED PLACES" filmed several shows inside our fort. (And inside our Lighthouse, which is definitely haunted by a little girl who is very visible to locals and tourists alike. She roams the halls of the Lighthouse house adjacent to the tower.) The TV show findings at both places were pretty significant! One doesn't even need to be psychic to feel the energies within those old walls of the fort. Lots of
"stuff" trapped there. There's one particular cell that most tourists, and even the tour guides, choose to avoid if possible. That dirt-and-stone cell feels really heavy and dense, and on the hottest summer days the temperature in there is cold, unlike the other parts of the fort. There's quite a history there. I love it that NanaG left a straight pin in there! She must have been a real pistol when she was still in the body, and continues to be! She had to have a sense of humor….straight pins can pick locks so why not leave one near the cells! What a treasure she is! cj
even more incredible that you never met her! a feisty thing, i think, she was/is, too!
Simonbuc – have heard of insects and birds as spirits, but never a fruit fly! Pretty cool.
Connie – yes, could feel the haunted parts of that fort.
Gypsy – the odd thing is that I don't think I ever met Nana G.
fascinating, absolutely fascinating! love the use of a physical object by the spirit! she sounds like quite a spirit – in all meanings of the word!
Trish, there are certain cells in our fort that are genuinely "haunted". Did you feel them? Nana G really had some powerful energy, didn't she? And lots and lots of love! She chose a way to physically manifest her presence that could only relate directly to her. What a gift from Spirit! HO! Take a look at this WV: "reawlyst" ! Realist?? cj
A former girlfriend of mine was convinced that her elderly father (who died when she was a little girl) manifested in her life from time to time in the form of a fruit fly. "Yeah, sure" you might say, except that when I was with her I several times saw a single fruit fly hovering around in the most unlikely circumstances – e.g. the middle of winter, in a super-hygienic restaurant, and on a train.
I don't know – who does? – but why shouldn't the love of the departed for their living relatives be powerful enough to manifest some physical presence?