A land spirit?

[Claudia]

My style of polytheism is usually deity-centric but I thought I'd share a story with you about a possible encounter with a land spirit. Whether it was a spirit or not, the experience has certainly inspired me to do more research around the subject.

A year ago I was living in central Birmingham (UK), in a Victorian terrace house. The house was rented and the garden was a complete mess. When we moved in it was concreted over, with a fence falling down, and all the previous tenants junk - including a bed and washing machine - dumped in the garden. The neighbours blamed us for the rat infestation and we soon found one dead by our back door (rat not neighbour!). I hated going outside to hang out the washing. It was a dark, ominous place. In fact, I'm not ashamed to say I was a little afraid of going out the back alone.

Eventually we'd had enough of waiting for the landlord to sort things out. We got the junk picked up by the local council, smashed all the concrete and took it to the tip, and got the fence fixed. We then re-turfed all the lawn area and painted the fences a light clay colour to brighten the garden. One day towards the end of our little make over, I was finishing painting the last fence panel when, out the corner of my eye, I saw a strange cat staring at me. I carried on painting as I didn't want to frighten it off. It occurred to me that I hadn't seen this cat before and, having worked for the Cats Protection, I'd been making a point of remembering all the local cats.

Then I realised the cat was staring at me with purpose. I also noticed it's ears were far too large for a normal cat. It looked rather like a fennec fox! I eventually turned to talk to it but the cat wasn't there. Due to the layout of the gardens, there was no way it could have scampered without me seeing where it had run to. It just vanished.

I later spoke to my husband and we both wondered if something had come along to say thank you for our hard work restoring the land, or just to see what we were up to. He is Church of England but believes in the existence of other gods (but he doesn't worship them) and land spirits/wights. What are your thoughts? Did I see something or could it be a trick of the mind?

[Lee]

That sounds exactly like the kind of thing you might expect from a land spirit. Keep an eye out, keep the garden doing well and think about making offerings - either literally in terms of food and drink, or think about planting thing whihc improve the garden; bee friendly plants, bird boxes etc - and you may find that you see the Fennec Cat more often

[lorna]

That sounds like a significant experience. It's certainly common for land spirits and a number of other types of spirit to take on animal and animal-like forms. It seems important that it appeared after your make-over and also that it was cat-like in relation to your work with cats. The sighting could be an invitation to develop a relationship as Lee suggests.

[Heron]

Whatever it was I'm sure it appreciated all your good work on the garden Claudia. May it watch over your house and be a positive presence in your lives.

[mrpasserby]

Hello Claudia, I wanted to add insight into your good fortune. I can do no better then mention a article by John Beckett called:

So You Had a Religious Experience – Now What?

"You felt the Stag God breathing down your neck. You had dreams of dogs, keys, and crossroads. Crows keep showing up in places where crows rarely are. You stared up at the moon and you were overcome with a powerful feeling you can’t describe.
Context helps you relate your experience to other experiences and to your ideas about the world. But you still have to figure out what it means."

The whole article is at: www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2017/05/religious-experience-now.html

[Claudia]

Thank you everyone. I no longer live in Birmingham but am in a lovely flat in Buckinghamshire. There's a small protected woodland opposite our building and I can see it from nearly every window. My experience back in Brum opened my eyes/mind and I'm sure there's something in the woodland. I feel very empowered living here, particularly on windy days. Do you have any recommendations for offerings or should I go on instinct?

[Heron]

May 11, 2017 12:23:05 GMT -1 Claudia said:

Thank you everyone. I no longer live in Birmingham but am in a lovely flat in Buckinghamshire. There's a small protected woodland opposite our building and I can see it from nearly every window. My experience back in Brum opened my eyes/mind and I'm sure there's something in the woodland. I feel very empowered living here, particularly on windy days. Do you have any recommendations for offerings or should I go on instinct?

I'd say you have to go on instinct and that an appropriate response from you will develop from a devotional approach to the place. Woodlands have always been special places for me and sometimes seem to have multiple presences.

[lorna]

I'd agree that you have to go on instinct. One of my very basic offerings for the spirits of the woodland of my local valley is picking up litter. Simply being there and paying attention are appreciated. On occasion I will offer mead (or cider to the apple trees we planted on the green) or bread. I quite often pick up objects that get incorporated into my devotional practice on my spirits of place altar at home (such as feathers) that will pick up some of those energies that I then gift back when the time is right.