Spooky Stories for Spooky Season
Last year, I got kicked out of a theater by a ghost. This year, I’ve had my content stolen by spirits.
I’m not joking. Weird shit has been happening. Let’s get into it.
If you missed my story last year about getting kicked out of a theater by a ghost, here’s the quick and dirty version:
I attended a spiritual retreat in Savannah, GA. We did a tour of a historical theater that’s still operational today. There was a ghost-hunting component to the tour. A voice very explicitly stated to GET OUT. When we asked who it wanted to get out, my device lit up like the Las Vegas strip. For the full story, go check out episode 111 of my podcast. It’s literally just called “I Got Kicked Out Of A Theater. By A Ghost.”
There are many aspects of that trip that I’ve not shared publicly. For example, the chakra awakening I experienced after hearing, very clearly, two distinct voices say, “They enter us through our bodies.” And, “You can always say no.” I literally did not sleep that night because my entire body was vibrating. If I hadn’t been cocooned in a mountain of blankets, I would have sworn I was levitating all night. And just like the ghost/theater experience, I’d think it was bullshit had it not been my actual body that was involved.
Many of the spiritual components of my life, I have no interest in sharing publicly. And, honestly, that’s become more pronounced since I went to France this year because Mary Magdalene will not let me share her photos.
Seriously. I know this sounds fucked up.
My birthday is at the end of September. (Shout out to all my September Libras!) And I like to claim the whole month. This year, I started my birthday month in France, and just after the end of my birthday month, I went to New Orleans. Both trips had weird shit involved. Let’s start with France.
I went to France for a spiritual retreat. And if you want more details on that, you can listen to episode 155 of my podcast, “I’m Going To France,” and episode 157, “Visiting The Mary Magdalene Caves In France.”
My connection to Mary Magdalene goes back to childhood (and my maternal grandmother’s name — for more on that, check out episode 127, “Reclaiming My Name.”) And this trip was bucket-list-level for me. While hiking up the mountain, climbing the stairs built into the cliff, and visiting the cave sanctuary itself, I took photos and videos. My baseline intention was to share these photos and videos with two retreat attendees who couldn’t make the hike that day. A bonus was being able to use some of it for a small amount of content.
This is what happened instead:
I sat at the altar and heard, “Stop giving everything away. This is all for you. It was always all for you.” I had some responses to this, which I talked about previously, but regardless of my responses, every single one of my photos and videos on my phone disappeared.
Like, not just the hike and the cave. Not just France. Everything.
This disappearance was temporary, but it didn’t just happen once. It happened a couple of times in the forest, but I didn’t realize it was EVERYTHING until I got onto the shuttle back to our villa and tried to ask our tour guide a question about something I saw. The photo wasn’t there. No photos were there. No videos were there. My storage was empty.
Once we got back to the villa, everything came back — until I would try to show a photo or video to someone else or upload it all to the Google Drive folder one of the attendees created for us to share. Then everything would disappear again. (And before you ask, no, my phone storage is not running low. I pay for a lot of it.)
After getting home from France, I uploaded photos and videos to TikTok and Instagram, sharing some of my trip as content. It was so fun to re-experience the trip in that way, distilling it down to poignant moments.
But when I got to the day of the hike, the videos would not upload. They would time out. The app would crash. I’d get error messages. Or it would just be a blank screen despite it looking fine during the creation process.
When I shared the content about my trip as a podcast episode and long-form Instagram multi-post, I tried using photos from the hike and cave chapel visit, but they wouldn’t send to my assistant and wouldn’t upload directly to IG.
The message I received in the cave was to stop giving everything away. That it’s all for me. And she wasn’t kidding.
I’ve tried to share. It’s just…not allowed, or whatever.
Consent is sexy, and she does not consent to me sharing her photos. 🤷♀️
That said, you can go look up photos of Ste. Baume if you want. It looks like that. And I’m considering putting together a rustic pilgrimage to go back at some point. If you want in on that experience, hit me up, and I’ll let you know when details get settled.
So September was kinda weird. Photo and video content disappearing and such. Then New Orleans tried to steal my rings. And instead, it stole my work.
The purpose of New Orleans was for a content creation session — photo shoot, video commercial for my website, and behind-the-scenes videos to use. (It’s an event called Strikethrough Weekend put on by Erin Brown, Holland Colvin, and Brandon Jones. They’ve done it three times. Go follow all three of them so you can be in the know for future collabs. If they ever do this again, sign up immediately.)
This content was all to have a witchy vibe. My wardrobe was mostly black, with a few white pieces. I took a few crystals and several Oracle card decks with me to use as props. And they actually gifted me with a new pendulum, which we used in some of the photos, as well.
I wear some crystals — bracelets and rings. And while I was at the shooting location, one of my crystal rings that I don’t wear often disappeared. I was certain I had it with me, but it was nowhere to be found. Thinking perhaps I was wrong and had left it at home on my desk by mistake, I packed up after the shoot, let the team know that if they found it, it was mine, and went about my way.
A bonus element to this trip was that my sister met me in New Orleans. She and I had talked about doing a sister trip to somewhere neither of us had been for ages, and when I found out this trip would be to New Orleans, I invited her to meet me there and hang out for the weekend.
I got back to where we were staying after my shoot and found the missing ring. Under ordinary circumstances, it would have just been fine. I clearly put it somewhere and forgot about it.
But I hadn’t put it anywhere.
The ring was inside a small velvet bag, with another crystal ring and my pendulums — which was inside of a larger velvet bag that had my other crystals inside. I hadn’t opened that bag since getting to New Orleans. I hadn’t even pulled it out of my suitcase.
So, since the ring went to New Orleans with me, it should have also gone to the shoot location with me. But it didn’t. That’s weird shit piece #1. (Well, aside from flickering lights and such that commonly get associated with spirit activity. That was a constant where we were staying.)
A little while later, my sister found another of my rings underneath my bed. This is a garnet ring my partner gave me many years ago.
I take my rings off when I wash my hands, but always put them back on. And I certainly don’t just throw them underneath furniture.
This ring is always on my right hand. When she handed me the ring, I realized a ring was also missing from my left hand — a basic hematite ring that I replace when it shatters.
My other rings were still on my fingers.
I assumed the hematite ring was just gone and planned to replace it the next day. My sister would be leaving, and I’d go walk around the French Quarter and check out a few witchy shops. Surely, I’d find a hematite ring. They’re everywhere.
But I didn’t find one. Not that they weren’t available. But in all the shops I visited, I didn’t find one that fit the finger I wear it on.
When I got home, I unpacked my suitcase to put away my props and do laundry. Then, a few days later, I moved my suitcase and compression packing cubes and out fell my hematite ring. AFTER unpacking everything and putting it all away.
New Orleans got jokes! Trying to steal my rings.
But the rings were just a distraction. What it actually stole? Content.
While at the Kansas City airport, on the plane to New Orleans, and on the plane back, I worked on the content for my new Fuck Shit Up Fridays email newsletter and blog. It comes out twice a month in accordance with the new and full moons. And it’s full of the best stuff: sex, self-care, business, sacred ritual, and snarky feminine rage against the political patriarchy.
Everything I had written during that time is nowhere to be found. We’re talking 6-7 hours worth of work.
When I got home, I focused on graphics and social media posts for Project Reclamation. But when I sat down to work on this week’s FSU email, the document was gone.
It was saved to my desktop. It is no longer on my desktop.
I searched for about an hour in every folder, every drive. Even Dropbox and Google Drive folders, just in case. (Yes, I used Finder. Many times. So. Many. Times.)
It’s just gone. No trace of it ever existing.
And I would think that maybe it just didn’t save at all, but I had it open and worked on it multiple times. So…it did save at one point.
“They” (whoever/whatever that means) gave me back my rings but took my work.
*Side note, as I’ve been typing this New Orleans part, the light outside my office — like, literally outside — has been doing weird shit. It’s 11:45 am. Broad daylight. Sunny skies. And the light coming in from the windows has vanished multiple times, for about one second at a time. (Yes, I know how clouds work.)
Each of these incidents in isolation? Fine. Not much more than a blip on the radar. But all together? Weird shit, y’all. Weird shit. Not QUITE as weird as the theater or the cave. But still weird.
If you feel so inclined, I’d love to hear stories of your own experiences with weird shit. What spookiness have you encountered? ‘Tis the season, after all. So tell me!
