...the séance...

Last weekend, I went to a séance. Let me clarify, I went to see “Humbug: The Great P.T. Barnum Séance” at The Branch Museum of Architecture and Design. Magician, storyteller, and professional humbug artist, David London describes himself as someone who “presents original interactive magical experiences.” Yet, the fact that he has worked as a curator for a museum struck me as quite interesting; with the advertisement noting that he was bringing actual artifacts from P.T. Barnum himself, well, that’s was what sealed the deal. 

The Branch Museum

Last year I completed my graduate study in Public History where I continually focused on the intersection of education and entertainment. I bought Inner Circle tickets so that Babushka and I could sit at the séance table. It was double the price since only twelve tickets were available so that along with our lead Spiritualist there would be 13 at the table. It was completely worth it especially when those at the séance table were able to select one of the artifacts to bring to the table with us. Calm down! Everyone in the audience was required to wear white cotton gloves to handle the collection.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The first part of the show had everyone sitting in rows as Mr. London shared the story of P.T. Barnum’s life. London used a few magic tricks to share aspects of Barnum’s life. If you ever want to be pulled out of the audience to act as an assistant to a magician, wear a veil and look a little spooky. Remember, that happened to me in Eureka Springs when I attended the Illusionist and the Medium show at Intrigue Theater. Honestly, I just like veils but it works every time! While holding up an old picture and a clipping of hair of Annie Jones, known as the bearded lady, who also happened to hail from Virginia, I was completely duped into selecting just the right cards although supposedly I was channeling Annie Jones. How did the trick work? Magic!  

London looks spooky during the intermission.

I’m not exaggerating when I say this is probably the best spooky event I’ve ever experienced in Richmond. Real history, mystery, theatrical storytelling, and showmanship. David London was amazing!

The second half of the show included the séance table. I have to admit that that was not only a dominating feature in the room at 9 ft. in diameter it was the part that I most looked forward to. That says a great deal considering that Mr. London had already shared a miniature wedding album of Tom Thumb, Charles B. Tripp’s fountain pen, photos of Barnum's Living Wonders, and even a copy of Barnum’s autobiography that was even owned by Barnum himself.

Spirit horns

Many of us dabbled with Ouija boards as children. I admit that I was always the one with the short attention span who would have rather been watching a horror movie so admittedly, I moved the planchette. I’m sorry! I admitted to my friends later but I’m just not the type of girl that enjoys sitting around waiting for the dead to communicate, which many of you know from my posts about paranormal investigations and whatnot.  In the mid- 19th century, the spiritualist movement had begun to experiment with Spirit communications through table-turning where the alphabet was inscribed on a table. Mr. London’s table did not include the alphabet but it did turn making it exceptionally cool.

The Inner Circle guests sat at the séance table where we selected artifacts from the first half of the show. Babushka selected the miniature wedding album of Tom Thumb while I selected Charles Tripp’s fountain pen. Behind us there were twelve council seats for members to observe the séance. A good amount of the activity occurred near the council seats so everyone was close to some type of encounter. The artifacts were used to summon the spirit of P.T. Barnum or possibly those from his Living Wonders show. There were bells, smoke while London manually maneuvered the table in order to put the artifacts into the center. Who did we summon? Well, I’m not going to spoil his show here.  

The seance table with artifacts carefully placed.

Harry Houdini and P.T. Barnum were among the prominent sceptics of Spiritualism. While I consider myself a sceptic and even a cynic sometimes, I also seek out magic… and the magicians like when I had the magical adventure to see Magician Howard Thurston at Green Lawn Abbey, which is rarely open to the public but I lucked out that a conference trip was at the same time as a fundraising event. Wait, was that good timing or Magic?

Whatever you believe, know that this was good fun. We could all use a bit more magic in our lives even if it is just the magic of story. 

The last show is tonight at 8pm.

...tree magic and ice storms...

It started as a pretty fantastic morning. Today was supposed to be my first day back to work for the new semester and we were having a snow day! Yes, even professors get gleeful about canceled universities. Washington, D.C. has much more snow than we do in the Richmond, VA area, where we have mostly ice. I woke this morning early because even though my fella was teleworking, he needed to be up-and-at-em. 

I peeped out the window to see if we had any more snow. What’s that big blob in the yard? Oh no, a fallen limb. It was much too dark to see how much damage there was but I quickly headed out on our front porch to survey the damage in the dark. I could see a large branch had snapped from one of our pines. As I headed over to the side of the house through the garage, I discovered another large branch. Later in the morning, I saw that a third large branch had fallen from another pine and crashed down on our picket fence and new baby crape myrtle. Oh no! Yet, aside from the snapped branches, there was no damage. Just.Like.Magic.

These branches were too heavy for me to move alone. Not only were they large but they were blocks of ice. My fella and I worked together to move them off to the side of the yard. Fortunately, we had a tree service out just last week to remove a few ominous too-close-to-the-roof branches. We will have to have them out again because now we have some dangling broken limbs. Friends and family have advised us to chop down the trees. Not happening, kids. Do you know how long I waited for my very own piece of land with trees! What I have not written about yet is the magical copse in our backyard. Well, in my …blood, sweat, tears, and black mulch… post, I shared that we have 0.35 acres of land, a third of which includes a copse of trees: tall pines, an oak, two sweet gum trees, crape myrtles and shrubs as large as trees including red tip photinia and Rose of Sharon. I added two baby crape myrtles including a red dynamite and an ebony and ivory. When we purchased the property, the backyard copse area was filled with ivy. I worked as long and as hard as I could; honestly, I’m still pulling up new vines and killing the stuff that is coming back even after we hired landscapers to clean out the poison ivy and English ivy that had overtaken the backyard copse. The ivy had wrapped itself so high up the trees that I feared they would smother. The vines on all of the trees were cut up to 6 ft and the vines above slowly died and are falling off the trunks still.

Backyard copse ivy and all.

In August, only a month after moving to our new home, a storm blew in and while I was sitting on our back porch, I heard a loud crack and watched a tree come down... perfectly in our copse. It dodged every other tree and shrub landing inches from the Rose of Sharon by the road.  Talk about magic!

I love trees. For my 18^th birthday, one of my friends gave me a tree because she knew it would be the best gift ever. It still lives on in the yard of my childhood home. When I walk through our copse or in our front and side yards, I touch the trees often. I talk to them always. “You okay? Did that mean ol’ ice hurt you?”… and, “aren’t you a beautiful tree.” They are living beings. Some of them will outlive me. I want to be kind to them just as they are so good to us.

My fella shoveling the secret brick path.

We will trim branches to protect ourselves, the trees, and our neighbors; and, we will make sure that those branches that snapped are tended to. We will not remove trees unless we absolutely have to.

Also, that magical copse, well, we knew the copse on our property was magical. We had no idea that it was brick-path-magical though. My fella shoveled and raked to free part of the bricks only to discover old solar lights, a lattice, and more brick borders. We ended up with a trail right through the woods. Just like magic.

...mixing history and an old stomping ground in the woods...

St Peter's Parish was established in 1679 with the church being built in 1701 and officially being in use by 1703. Today, St. Peter’s is the oldest parish in the Diocese of Virginia and the third oldest in Virginia.

Martha Dandridge, later known as Martha Washington our nation’s first- first lady, was married by the rector of St Peter's Parish, the Rev. David Mossom. It is uncertain if they were married at this church or at her home nearby and you can see how these two historical signs become a bit hysterical placed right next to one another.

Constructed of brick laid in Flemish bond, St Peter's Parish Church is one of the few Jacobean structures in America. The 1740 stump tower is also rare. The graveyard includes colonial tombs as well as modern graves.

During the American Civil, Union troops stabled their horses in the pews and carved their names in the brick exterior.  General Robert E. Lee, whose wife was Mary Ann Randolph Custis (Martha Washington's great-granddaughter ) wrote on October 23, 1869 that “St Peter's is the church where General Washington was married and attended in early life. It would be a shame to America if allowed to go to destruction.” Lee’s son, General William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, supervised the work of restoring the church.

I went to St. Peter’s last Saturday. In many ways, it has become a memory of a memory. You see, in high school my best friend lived just a few houses down from this majestic place. St. Peter’s is on a back road to a back road. Without the elaborate signage that they have now for a new vineyard, most would have never guessed that this church and its graveyard were there. Yet, my best friend and I walked there, sat on the steps, took gothy pictures, and, well, I made out with my first love at St, Peter's. I shared these pictures and my stories with my fella just yesterday. He smiled at my walk down memory lane. I had been in New Kent county visiting my folks and getting my oil changed. It was a beautiful 70 degree day in November and before heading home where my fella wouldn’t be because he was tending to his mom, I decided to go a bit back woods literally.

Driving there wasn’t a problem. Aside from the new round-a-bout (insert eye roll), it is all muscle memory. If the roads weren’t so weavey, I could probably close my eyes and make it there. Pulling up, St. Peter’s looked just how I remembered it. After all these years… I don’t think I’ve seen this place in twenty years. This time I drove in, parked my car at the top of the hill, and slowly walked around remembering. “I sat there”; “(former love of my life) took off his shoes there”… how many important brain cells were taken up with that memory? Sigh. I remember the leaves; I remember the windows; I remember the stoop. In twenty years, the place still looks the same. I suppose we can thank General Lee for that.

What a weird thing to grow up around so much history and have it mix with one’s own. I didn’t appreciate any of it then but I do so appreciate it now. Some say that you can never go home again. On this day, I have to disagree. When I closed my eyes, I was 16 and my friends were there. When I closed my eyes, I could hear every last one of them.  

 

...Halloween Gift Swap & Magic...

“I'm so glad I live in a world

where there are Octobers.”

~ L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

We’re not quite in October yet but the quote makes me think about how glad I am to live in a world with Halloween.

First, I want to write how grateful I am to Katarina at Ms. Misantropia for having the idea of putting together an International Autumn/ Halloween Swap. I had as much fun putting together a package as I did receiving one.

Part of the surprise was not knowing where one’s gift was hailing. My gift came all the way from Sweden and arrived on the first day of Autumn. My swap gift was from the beautiful and talented Linnea-Maria at linneapalandet.blogspot.com. She also runs http://alongthegreenroad.blogspot.com/ where she shares amazing recipes and gardening tips, and she even runs http://linneainthesnow.tumblr.com/ which I stalk for the pictures of nature close to her home, including a beautifully eerie spider web.

 

When I opened the package, I was so happy that I felt like crying! It was a hard commuter week with Pope Francis visiting Washington, D.C. The university shuttle bus didn’t run a normal schedule; trains were delayed. Everything took a little extra time that day but it was a beautiful day and walking to and from the train station and my university was quite pleasant. But, it was the perfect day to receive a surprise.

“A little magic can take you a long way.”

~ Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach

My fella keeps talking about how magical it was to watch me open the package. In many ways for him and for me, it’s a confirmation that we can find our people and our friends who don’t necessarily live in the same city, state, country, or even on the same continent.  

It was way past my bedtime (8:30ish PM) when I first opened the gift. The first thing that I discovered was this gorgeous handmade box with three bats on the cover. I gently opened each item while Halloween confetti fell everywhere. If any of my family members read this they’ll laugh because I went through a phase where I put confetti in every birthday and holiday card and delighted in that I placed it in a way that the confetti would fall out of the card as it was opened. My brother used to open his cards from me over a trashcan. I LOVE confetti! I have saved it all, along with the crinkly package filler, and I’m going to display it in shadow box it or something. Somehow I want to box this experience.

Everything is handmade and absolutely gorgeous! Even better, everything comes with a story. Linnea-Maria explained what was included in the items and why they’re special. She made ornaments transforming items like light bulbs and vintage bake forms; she made earrings using vintage crystals and clock hands; she made a brooch/ hair bow with a glittery spider; she made a candle from all recycled materials and added an antique crystal prism. There is a beautiful banner that I immediately hung on my grandfather’s handmade corner cabinet; she included some gift bags, paper cards, and a personal card that is not only beautiful but heartfelt.

There are so many details that I could describe but it’s the overall feeling that I get when I look at this gift. This woman really went to the effort and spent serious time and energy to send magic in a package.  I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.

Thank you again Blogosphere for bringing us all together.