Not Quite Getting My Feet Wet Yet...

...but I am standing at the edge of the pool in my swim trunks! :)

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

I am officially a member of Texas Sprits Paranormal Investigations now! YAY! :D

I'm not up on the Team Members page yet, but then I've only recently received my team email address and calendar of upcoming investigations and stuff. I'm one of a decent-sized group of newbies and there is a lot of administrative things that must be happening all at once right now.

I EVEN SIGNED A CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT!!! :D

Now, you may ask why I, a writer/blogger/general storyteller would be so excited to sign a document that distinctly and legally restricts me from creating fiction based on or blogging about my experiences on cases with TSPI. But the answer is simple:

It makes it all real! :)

When you're 15 or 14 and your dad let's you drive in the parking lot of a Walmart, you don't really feel like A Driver because you don't yet have a drivers license. You know what I mean? Sometimes it's the restrictions, the boundaries that makes an experience feel authentic.

Like watching Ghost Hunters: If every time TAPS investigated a case they came away with video of a clear, full-body apparition, the show just wouldn't have that ring of authenticity. It wouldn't feel real. The fact that in actuality, sometimes TAPS comes away with nothing, or next to nothing, makes to easier to believe the evidence they do gather and present.

In fact, if entities were seen/heard/felt by anyone and everyone, there wouldn't be "ghost hunters". It's really the elusiveness of the experience that captivates us, I believe. The "restrictions" or "boundaries" of the paranormal experience, if you will. (Otherwise, it would be simply called "normal".)

So signing a confidentiality agreement was kind of cool! made it all feel just a little bit more real.

It's so exciting!!!

Plus, I have a couple of long-time friends who have something going on in their houses, and they've both said that Brian and I can investigate sometime. So if I need inspiration I can draw from them.

But I doubt I will. There is a universe of characters and themes and situations to explore -- paranormal and not -- that exist all around us. Plus, the best stories are often the personal ones... Like Michael Crichton's Travels...

So I've also been voraciously filling my consciousness with information. I can't seem to get enough! I've read all 3 books in the Conversations with God series (which I highly recommend to anyone contemplating matters of spirituality), then I picked up and have been re-reading Michael Crichton's collection of essays called Travels, all the while keeping up with my paranormal podcasts (too many to link to) and the concepts contained therein.

AND, I've made a friend who has a lot of experience with Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) and Instrumental Trans Communication (ITC)! She has her own meetup group at The Austin Audio & Video ITC-EVP Meetup Group. She -- Surreal, the creator of the group -- has been very generously answering my questions and sharing her insights with me via email. :)

So I just keep receiving more and more information to stuff into this hungry mind of mind, hee-hee. :)

Jumping back and forth between paranormal studies and spiritual studies, I noticed an odd truism: It appears that Truth best serves us when we disbelieve it.

What I mean is that it seems the best way get to the truth of a question is to have the skepticism and willingness to not believe it that causes one to poke and prod and measure and contemplate, while possessing the open-mindedness to accept the eventual answers, however fantastical or unbelievable they may turn out to be.

An easy illustration is the TAPS approach to paranormal investigation: TAPS (and all TAPS Family members) set out to debunk claims of paranormal activity. Debunk.

Why? If an organization hopes to document and capture evidence to prove that the paranormal exists, why actively try to debunk it?

Because if you go into a "haunted" location and try to disprove every experience that may be considered paranormal, and you come away with evidence of a few things that you simply can't disprove, no matter how hard you try, then you just may have actual evidence of the paranormal!

And I believe the same can be said of all matters that Science has yet to classify and quantify. It seems that when we find something "supernatural" in our lives, rigorously trying to explain it away through normal occurrences doesn't always make the experience go away. In fact, it seems that the more we try to explain away some experiences, the more wondrous and awe-inspiring they become!

It seems to play into that whole theme in human existence that the reality of a thing seems to be somehow defined by its limitations or boundaries.

Or, it seems that way to me, anyway, lol. ;P

Speaking of wondrous and awe-inspiring phenomena: Shout out to my lady love, Her Great And Awesome Gnomey-ness!!! :D xoxoxo (Btw, she said it was okay for me to go into haunted houses and hunt ghosties, so YAY!)

And I hope that your day presents hundreds of reasons for you to scratch your head in wonder, and maybe even provides evidence that there is more going on in this life than we can yet explain!

:)