Got a gift of natural homemade soaps from my friend Christina and have been intending to post about them for some time. I am sensitive to fragrances, but these soaps are really mellow and mild. And check out how perfect they are for my house:  The bar soap is named “Positive Energy” and the samples are “Under My Spell” (my favorite!) and “Santa’s Pipe,” which I found out last night has tobacco in it. (Certain that the hint of pipe tobacco fragrance appeals to Leon.) The soaps are available at: www.faithsoapsandlove.com.

In either spirit or cat news, the African violet in the picture has been moving! I’m kind of a control freak and keep everything in its neat and tidy place. I started to notice a week or so ago that the violet was often in a new corner of the woodbox. At first, I attributed this to me moving it when I watered it, but then I become very deliberate about putting it back in “its” corner. Twice since then, I have come into the room and found that the violet had wandered again! I believe it is possible that one of the cats is moving it, but it seems odd that it is always in the same new spot and has not ever tipped over. Also, I have not seen the cats paying attention to the African violets in the past.

I have been trying to learn more about the energetic correspondences of plants, so am planning to study up on African violets as something is drawing my attention to them!

And speaking of positive energy and spirits: We still have room for two or three more guests at the April 25th class, “Feng Shui Essentials in a Friendly Haunted House.” Join Lea Ann Paradise, me, and the house spirits and discover how to use Feng Shui to optimize YOUR home’s unique energy!  Details at the link below. Email me (annie@anniewilder.com) to sign up.

http://anniewilder.com/wp/?page_id=774

 Signs of spring at our house: Hardy daylilies are the first to arrive, poking through the last leaves of the autumn (the ones that fall after the raking is done). Dudley starts getting the gardens ready for planting, with rich black soil from our backyard compost bin.

And, for the last few years, each spring some determined bird tries to build a nest above our backdoor. (The one time I saw the attempt at nest building as it was happening, the bird was a robin.)

This is not a great spot to raise a bird family, as it’s our main entrance into and out of the house! The way we most often discover the nest-in-progress is by getting a “nest shower” of dried grass dumped on our heads as we leave the house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posting this photograph, taken by my sister a few weeks ago. Do you see a ghost over the bed?

The photograph was taken mid-day, and the intention was to photograph the French doors.  Neither my sister nor I noticed the image over the bed when she took the photo, and she didn’t notice it when she sent it to her friend from whom I purchased the salvaged French doors. Her friend is the one who asked us if there was a ghost in the picture. That’s when my sister and I took a close look at it.

I thought the image was pretty spooky, actually, both because it looked like an old bony face peering out from a hooded cloak and because of where it was — who wants a ghost floating above you while you sleep? Before posting this, I decided to take a picture of the bedroom myself. In this one, it looked like there were TWO bony ghost faces, both as ominous as the faces in the first picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, in the picture I took, I also noticed something not visible in my sister’s picture — a curved edge. It occurred to me that the big round vanity mirror in the sitting room outside of the bedroom might be causing a reflection in the glass of the French doors. I removed the silk flowers from the top of the vanity mirror and took another picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No ghostly images, just the outline of part of the mirror.

I do believe that mirrors can actually be powerful portals and divination tools — but I have to admit that, in that case, I was glad to come up with a mundane explanation for the menacing images. For the most part, the spirits haunting my house stay in the hallway and other rooms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll be talking about ghosts, astral attacks, time slips, haunted houses, screaming entities, and more when I join my friends Dave Schrader, Tim Dennis, and Mallie Fox for a Darkness Radio​ event at the Palmer House in Sauk Centre, MN on March 28. Love Darkness Radio events, because they’re always a lot of fun ~ the Army of Darkness (fans of the show) are really into learning about the paranormal and sharing stories of their own strange encounters.

The Palmer House has been featured on a number of TV shows, including Ghost Adventures. This haunted event, which starts Friday night, March 27 and ends on Sunday, March 29, is almost sold out, so if you want to be part of the fun, you’ll want to get your tickets soon! (One-day passes are also available.)
http://www.darknessradio.com/#!palmer-house-event-2015—march/cu1i

 

Today’s topic: Annie Wilder’s Spirited Schoolhouse!

If you have not yet visited this section of my website, I invite you to take a look when you have a minute. In response to the many requests I’ve received, my new website has an event calendar and LOTS of information about Haunted Tea Parties and each Spirited Schoolhouse event.

Spirited Schoolhouse events are hosted by me and held at my house, and feature a variety of accomplished expert guest co-hosts: psychics, mediums, and practitioners of various metaphysical arts. The house spirits are invited to every event, and often drop in for a visit. (Please note: spirits have free will and may or may not make their presence known.)

This season, I am offering Spirited Schoolhouse events on the following metaphysical topics: Feng Shui; Ghosts, Guides and Guardians; Animal Communication; and Spirit Message Circles, each led by an expert teacher or practitioner.

The first Spirited Schoolhouse event, FENG SHUI ESSENTIALS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE, will be held on Saturday, April 25^th, from 1:00 ~ 3:30 p.m. featuring Feng Shui expert Lea Ann Paradise. The cost is $39.00. (Details on how to register and pay here.)

Lea Ann was a guest at a haunted tea party last year and the other guests were so intrigued by her observations on my house’s energy that we asked her to come back and teach a Feng Shui class here ~ this is the result.

NOTE: We already have 4 or 5 guests signed up for this event, so please sign up soon if you’d like to attend!

Here’s a brief description of this fun and informative Feng Shui event:
Come celebrate the lovely month of May with us, while learning to enhance and transform your life with Feng Shui!

For more than a decade, Lea Ann Paradise has helped people make positive and powerful changes in their lives with simple Feng Shui strategies. Discover for yourself how easy it is to attract positive energy and get in the flow in such fundamental areas of your life as wealth, partnerships, health, creativity, family, life path, and more! Annie Wilder will share some simple May Day magic and traditions as well.

 

 

Had a rare winter tea party for friends and the spirits were happy! I had been wondering if the energy of the day would be late-winter serene or rambunctious spring, and it was the latter!

To start off, Leon showed up even before the party began. This is unusual and made me really happy ~ I’ve been working on spirit communication and have asked the house spirits for help with my new book. Leon made his presence known by gently swinging the chandelier above the tea table. I noticed it moving just moments before the first guests arrived, as I was standing at the kitchen counter slicing lemons. (I hadn’t changed or lit the candles for the party and had not touched the chandelier for weeks.)

Seeing the swaying chandelier made me feel like Leon was letting me know the spirits were present and ready for fun. I looked again a few seconds later and noticed that one of chandelier crystals had been flipped over the rim! I laughed and thanked Leon and told him we’d start the tea party in the kitchen so I could tell the story. While gathered around the tea table, two of my tea party friends told stories of ghostly experiences they’ve had here in the past.

We moved into the parlor, and after about twenty minutes of talking about Leon and the house itself, I started to tell the story of the spirit sisters. I told my friends that the sisters have had trouble turning the seed poster door spotlight off and on in the past year, but that I hoped they would let us know they were present by blinking the spotlight if they could. Shortly after that, one of my guests, who was sitting in a swivel chair, said, “This chair is turning by itself! Does it always do that?” We all watched as the chair slowly turned with her in it, looking a little nervous. I told her that I had never seen or experienced the chair turning by itself.

Someone said something like, “What is it turning her toward?” or “What does it want her to see?” (I’m sorry; I can’t remember the exact words.)

The chair stopped turning when my guest was facing the seed poster door. (It had been facing me, and I was standing in the big kitchen doorway.) I said, “Everyone look at the seed poster door!” Seconds later, the seed poster door spotlight shut itself off. We all clapped and cheered; it was very dramatic and fun and we thanked the sisters. Later in the party, when we were elsewhere in the house, the light came back on and stayed on for the rest of the party.

Last note: One of the other guests had taken a video of some orbs in the basement. There were people talking in the background, and I believe she was also describing what she saw while the video recorded. The day after the party, my friend and her family (who were her tea party guests) were in one room of their own house when they heard voices coming from another room. They went to see what was going on, and discovered that the cell phone with the orb video was playing the video, even though the phone was off and no one was in the room!

We do always end parties and events with a smudging and blessing, but I have had reports of guests’ phones acting up for a day or so after a visit.

 

 

 

 

 

Very pleased to announce that my new website is up! My thanks to friend Brian Sutherland for great design work and handling all the tech details. Thanks too, to my friend Brandi Benton, aka Internet Gal, for her help and expertise.

The new site, which is much more dynamic and personal than my former site, includes new sections that feature:
• Spirited Schoolhouse events
• Inkswiggler, my editing/publishing consulting business
• A place to sign up for Annie Wilder’s Spirit House Quarterly, my  free newsletter

You’ll also find excerpts, buying links, reviews, and press for all four of my books; videos and EVPs from my house (with more to come!); plus details on haunted tea parties. I’ll explore different sections of my website here in the next few weeks.

Last detail: I’m posting from my new blog, INFINITY in a Teacup. All blog posts will be shared on Facebook, so if that’s where you like to keep up on the latest news from my house, you can still do so.

I chose the name INFINITY in a Teacup for my blog because I thought it was a colorful and memorable way to convey the transcendent and strange aspects of living in a wonderful, magical old house, in which the spirits come and go and time seems to spiral around itself, while also honoring my “teapot on the stove and fresh flowers on the table” hobbit nature.

My next blog post will be about Saturday’s tea party, in which Leon made his presence known, and the spirit sisters did something completely new that delighted and shocked us all ~ please check back for details!

 

 

Noticed something unusual this morning when I walked past a mirror right after I got up ~ a large brown feather in my hair. It was sticking up from the back of my head, as though it were tucked into a headband and on display.

After an initial start(!); I laughed. Anyone who has read my books knows that feathers and birds have been portents in my life. The last time I came across a huge feather in an unexpected place (a big white feather that looked like a writing quill in my front yard), I was offered a job as a copywriter at Llewellyn.

So, I have something interesting to ponder today. The feather must have fallen from a dreamcatcher that is above my bed. I have been working with the friend who gave me the dreamcatcher on her just-completed manuscript, so it may be a sign about my friend or her book (a mystical, magical, and vivid fictionalized account of her life).

The feather might instead refer to new writing opportunities for me as, just yesterday, some new writing/consulting possibilities presented themselves via good friends.

Or it might just be that a feather fell from my dreamcatcher and happened to stick in my hair in a dramatic way. Will keep you posted!