By Patty Leon
When I was in my early teens, we lived in a nice and somewhat
new house in Miami in an up and coming neighborhood near Sunset Drive. One
night I was sound sleep when suddenly, I sat upright in my bed and looked
toward my bedroom door. There was something there. It looked like a white misty
film. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. It was more like a white translucent
figure. It appeared to be a female and elderly. I sat there frozen and watched
as it appeared to float right towards me. As it got closer, I laid down and
pulled the bed covers over my head. I
could no longer see whatever it was I thought I was seeing but I suddenly got a
strong smell of perfume. It was a familiar scent, one that my mom used to put
on me when we went to church or somewhere fancy.
Violeta Valencia.
It was a perfume my mom said her mother and
grandmother also used on her as a child and was a popular perfume for girls in
Cuba, where mom was born.
To this day I have no idea who that figure was or might
have represented. The house itself had no history of being haunted and it only
happened that one time.
While
we never openly talked about things of that nature or my encounter, my parents
were open to the fact that the spiritual realm existed, even though it may have
different meanings to different people.
My mom and dad were both born in Cuba and emigrated to
the United States in 1958 before the Castro regime took control of the island.
They were raised Catholic, but my mom was raised with many African Cubans who
taught her a little bit about Santeria.
Santería,
(Way of the Saints) is an African diasporic religion that developed in Cuba
during the late 19th century. It arose through a process of merging the
traditional Yoruba religion of West Africa, the Roman Catholic form of
Christianity, and Spiritism.
Mom
is a firm believer in the Saints and their powers.
That
one instance in my bedroom piqued my curiosity and as a nerdy teen, I dove headfirst
into the world of the paranormal. I read books on ghosts, spiritualism, religion,
the afterlife, ESP, psychic abilities, dowsing, seances and the metaphysical. I
read books by Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud on dream interpretation and the realm
of the conscious and subconscious minds.
My
mom told me stories about her neighbors using oils, herbs and prayers to remove
the “evil,” curses or spells or to help people.
Mind
you I started researching and learning about all this years before we had TV
shows like Ghost Hunters, Destination Fear, Ghost Adventures, etc, etc. Back
then we didn’t have the fancy infrared cameras; meters and all the neat
technology currently being utilized in the paranormal field. Back then we used
a Polaroid camera, cassette recorder, Ouija Board, dowsing rods and our
intuition and senses to detect changes in temperature, or smells or that “gut
feeling.”
Since
those humble teenage years, I’ve learned a lot.
I’ve
learned to pay attention to subtle clues and trust my intuition. I’ve learned
how to keep myself and others safe during an investigation. I’ve learned that
there is just as much evil in the spiritual world as there is in our current society.
There is also just as much good. I have fancy equipment now, but none of that
replaces trusting those “gut feelings,” while also being mindful of what you
are investigating and more importantly why.
I
don’t call myself a ghost hunter, because that sounds like I am seeking to
track and dispose of something. I call my self a paranormal investigator
because there is so much still unknown about this realm. If I can help others
deal with a situation they are experiencing, that is what I’m here for. If a
lost spirit is needing help to find its way home, then I’ll try and help.
A
paranormal investigator is much more than just seeking spirits. We seek answers
to possible unsolved mysteries. We seek to preserve the history and stories of
special locations. We seek to connect their world with ours, even if briefly.
We seek to learn from it and help create a better future by not repeating
reprehensible pasts.
The
thin veil, frequency and electromagnetic forces that separate their world from
ours is thin and penetrable and worthy of proper study and research. If you
need help to understand or deal with possible paranormal activity, send me an
email at: bumpinvestigates@aol.com
