TOUR DIARY 36 –The Blue Ridge mountains – The Road Runner goes crazy with a flashlight – (no, just the Brown Mountain lights!) – Linville Falls, labyrinths and YES another restroom story….

TOUR DIARY 36 –The Blue Ridge mountains – The Road Runner goes crazy with a flashlight – (no, just the Brown Mountain lights!) – Linville Falls, labyrinths and YES another restroom story….

We left Charlottesville and another great talk given by Steve in a wonderful church environment.  Although I am totally anti ..organized-religions I am always so drawn to the wonderful energy to be found inside our churches and Cathedrals.  A great many of them are built over Ley Lines so perhaps it is these that  I am drawn to.  Once again so many people came up to us after the talk to say how much hearing Steve’s words had inspired them or made them think deeply about how they could make a difference in the world generally, although one strange old lady was only obsessed with pinching his cheeks and telling him what wonderful dimples he has… It takes all kinds and I am amazed at the patience I see Steve exhibit with all the strange questions, statements and weird behaviours people come up with.

We then headed out for our Motel in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are in the Northwest of North Carolina or is it South… I am becoming very disorientated…

These are spectacularly beautiful forests and they derive their name from the fact that oxygen given off by the trees (aren’t we so lucky that trees breathe in Carbon Dioxide and breathe out Oxygen)  from our human point of view this has to be Natures best ever plan!  So the Oxygen appears to have a blue haze due to the ingredients in it coming off the pine trees.  This haze hangs in the middle of the ravines.

To go to see the Brown Mountain lights, which are seen from one side of the ravine across the other it was a pretty difficult route up off the highway.  We were told that the road was in really good condition.. all I can say to that is I would have hated to see it when it was not taken care of.  I shared a car with my friend Gary who is a celebrated teacher, winning National best teacher of the year awards many times over, so I had a good narrator of the history.  I love to get with the people who know all about their neck of the woods as they are usually so enthusiastic in relating all the little stories about the area.  Apparently as long ago as  5,000 years or more before, the ridge path was walked by the Native Americans who viewed the Mountains as very sacred.  The ridge itself is very narrow in effect and so when the settlers followed in their covered wagons,  the route they could see the Indians had taken, it was a pretty risky venture They could easily have pitched sideways into the ravines and I bet the road was a lot more rugged than it was on our Saturday night venture.  I tried to imagine the Native Americans hunting and walking through the trees and as always the wildlife was once prodigious and is now sadly very sparse.  Bears are hardly ever seen any more and I believe all the wolves have gone and the Eagles.  But I have been talking with people about the monitored re-release back into the wild of both these creatures.  Apparently the wolves are doing quite well, but the Eagles did not make it.  But the experiment continues so that is good.

We arrived at sunset and were given a mini talk by our host of both Steve’s talk and for our expedition, into the tales of the mountain lights.  Our Host Don has been 55 times to watch the lights and is obviously fascinated by them.

The reasoning behind their appearance ranges from ‘Spirits of Ancestors’ which is the Native American take on them and is why they do not live in these regions only visit to hunt…  ‘UFO’s coming out of the mountain is another one…  ‘Earth lights’ is the most popular theory. 

Mine is that the Road Runner is on a mad spree with a BIIIIIIGGGG flashlight running up and down the mountain.  My theory was crushed when one of the lights went way up in the air and moved across sideways for quite a while…. 3 times in a row.  Even the Road Runner when he ran out of mountain top to run across and would hover there for a heart-breaking second or two could not have held up in the air that long, so that was my theory out the window. 

Back to the drawing board for me then.

The unfortunate thing was that so many people had turned up for the tour as they were combining it with Steve’s talk the next afternoon and would then make their way home straight afterwards.  I was amazed at the distances people had traveled to get there. So it was vastly oversubscribed….

(The next evening when Don took the tour up there again there were only about 6 people, we should have gone then instead). 

As it was there was an ‘overlook’ which gave a complete advantage viewpoint but only about 15 people could get on to it, so the rest of us had to just find a perch of some sort and try to see from there.  This was with an obstructed viewpoint of trees etc.  Steve was petrified as I was perched by the side of the overlook but was standing on a rock outcrop, which had a very, very long drop if I walked forward by about 3 foot. 

O.K. in the light, but very dodgy in the dark.

I chose this spot because I was very ‘drawn’ to a single spot on the opposite mountainside across the way about half way down and I just ‘knew’ that the source of the energy was coming from this place….

I leaned back against the overlook, Steve hung onto me for dear life and we waited.  Not for long.  Very quickly a bright light appeared towards the top of the mountain opposite.  Not where I imagined it would emerge as I was convinced that ‘my spot’ was where it would all come from.  Then there were lights appearing in the base of the ravine one a red one, which most people assumed was someone down there with a little fire going.  However, over the course of the visit, this red light would go out, get much bigger or move a distance or two and was also joined by a couple of other lights too.  We were told that some of the lights previously seen were as big as houses.

One stayed put for the duration of the visit and some moved about, but I had hoped for a much more dramatic display…  At least we saw them.  I believe they are to do with the earth’s energy shifting around….

The next day the hostess of the Motel - a lovely psychic and sensitive lady showed me a book about the Brown Mountains and other sacred and ‘energetic’ sites.  When I got to the page about the Brown Mountain lights the Author had stated that there is a vortex of energy going anticlockwise, which is pulled in above the ridge …passes through the mountain and emerges clockwise and goes up into the air… EXACTLY  where I focused the night before.  Luckily I had said to her whilst we stood on the ridge.. ‘This is where I feel it is all emanating from’.  Hence she gave me the book to look at…

Great stuff.

We also got to see another Cave system at Linville caverns and some spectacular waterfalls.  But for me the Mountains themselves were the stars…

On a short journey out we found a museum for weaving, which was fascinating.  Such incredible skills and patience the women had.  At one point the house burned down which was a disaster as the old looms were lost as well as the buildings.   But they got the children of the area to go out and collect stones and from these stones they rebuilt the house.  Some great old pictures to show this story…

When we came outside we could see at the side of the house was built a labyrinth garden and herb garden with a beautiful little stream.  On a bridge across the stream was a series of sculptures of a family crossing which was delightful.  But I was more taken with the labyrinth.  Since my friend Candace and Tom have decided to build one on their land I am seeing them everywhere.  In a church I went into there were pictures on two walls, of labyrinths and it seems like they have come into the public consciousness along with the concept of Portals of Energies and Vortexes.

What does it all mean?!!!

I’m sure we will soon all find out, hopefully it will all be for the good.

Lots of love

Annie

I’m writing this now from Charleston, where Steve and I are taking a well deserved little rest.  Unfortunately it is 105 degrees and I don’t think I have ever been anywhere so hot.  We love to just get out and walk cities and Charleston is very like Manhattan in shape and accessibility but just two minutes on the sidewalk and you literally start melting.. We realize that we have to do it by car which is a great shame, but otherwise we will end up hanging out in our room or staying submerged in the pool and we could do that anywhere…

Anyway here is a little gem to finish up on….

Charleston

I was almost giving up on a new restroom story when I went into the loos at the Charleston Museum.  To my delight there was a display cabinet in there with chamber pots in it.  That will do nicely I thought, but there was more to come.  On the back of the toilet door was a poster with ‘Toilet trivia’ on it so I had something to read whilst I tinkled.  I thought I’d better be quick as I had said …as I always do to Steve… “Shan’t be a mo”.  However, I thought if this is on the back of my door I wonder if there is any more on the other doors… Aaarrrrggghhh!!  5 doors and 5 different posters all to do with Toilet trivia!.  Thank goodness I am a really fast reader.

Steve, as always, was so patient, just inwardly groaned when he saw my face grinning as I came out 10 minutes later… He had found the original Charleston submarine, which he was filming so he had been occupied.  This was a submarine, which destroyed by means of a battering ram.  Haven’t we come a long way since then?  .. Anyway…

These are the gems  I gleaned….

Toilet is French and translates as shaving cloth – I can see no connection there!

Perforated toilet paper was invented in 1880

Toilets used to be made of wood and were hard to clean until some bright spark decided to make them in metal.

The original design of the hinged lid was an original design, which is still in use today.

In the old days ‘toilet paper’ could have been newspapers, old catalogues, letters (you were not happy to receive I would imagine!!), leaves, rags, corn husks (I promise you, this is true!), and flat stones…

The city fathers of Charleston got fed up with having to clear blocked drains, so they told people to stop putting down their toilets…

Dead Rats, cats and dogs… parrots, chicken carcasses, rags… pots and broken shards of cooking vessels, hamsters, bricks…

I was very disappointed it didn’t say dead bodies….

Obviously the children of Charleston were not that attached to their pets.  Straight down the loo for those deceased companions…Not like present day bereavements with day long ceremonies of burial for them, with all the family involved.. flowers.. little grave heads being made and many songs being sung by all as Mum performs the dead-rites for said parrot, cat, dog or hamster… oh, and bucketful of tears with no amount of reassuring that they will get over it, being believed. 

Mums that is not the kids…

After all this wonderful trivia, the chamber pots palled by comparison, although there was one there that was huge and I had to try to steady my mind as it wanted to try to envisage the bottom which fitted the pot…..

Lots of love

Annie