Ron's Site
or How He Became an Old Man,
and Some of the Things that Happened Along the Way
First, to understand me, you have to realize that all of my adult life I have accepted the idea of reincarnation— that we go through this life as many time as it takes, to try to learn our lessons, and get things right, changing gender and/or race as often as necessary. I have always felt that was the explanation for why we are here that makes the most sense. This time around, I was born, on October 21, 1938, in Gadsden, Alabama. When I was in the first grade my family moved to the White Springs community, down Rainbow Drive, where I grew up, but my early childhood years were spent in various parts of Gadsden.
After I was born my family first lived in a house across from the Forest Cemetery. My Aunt Esther, my father’s sister, lived with us, and helped care for me, and, later, for my sister. During those early years I had a recurring dream, during which I would start screaming in my sleep, and from which my mother and Aunt would have to awaken me, and console me.
My memory is that I was running across a desert-like landscape, being chased by something that seemed to be coming down from the sky, although I never looked up to see what it was that was after me. I do not know at what age these dreams started, but it must have been before I could talk, because I knew that I was running, but was not able to tell anyone what was pursuing me.
I eventually grew out of having the dreams, but have always remembered that I did have them, but have never actually remembered what was after me. About 50 or 60 years ago I did the painting shown here, to try to capture the troubled feeling of the dream. The painting looks like a storm, with dark, angry clouds, but the dream did not feel like a storm, only like something coming down after me from above. I have always felt that it was probably something I brought with me from a past life.
PAINTING OF THE DREAM
In my teens I had started reading various kinds of spiritual material, and at some point later I began to go to readings that a wonderful psychic woman, named Elaine Ulrich, would conduct at Unity Church when she was passing through town. A group would be assembled, and Elaine would “read” for each of us, one at a time, with everyone observing what was being said. One of her “message circles” made a particularly powerful impression on me.
When my turn came on that particular evening, Elaine pointed out that there was a woman standing by me, and described her. It seemed to me that she was describing my paternal grandmother Countryman, Nannie, my father’s mother, who was born in 1872, who had been living with my family when I was born, but of whom I have no memory, since she had died in 1940, when I was a baby. I still have a photograph I inherited, of her, standing and holding me, a babe in arms, perhaps made not too long before she died. Elaine asked me “Do you know whether she lost a child in infancy? “ I said “not that I’m aware of, but she did lose a daughter, who was a young adult.”
Elaine then said “She’s holding a baby, and she’s telling me that you are the child she lost in infancy. There’s a bond between the two of you that transcends this one experience, and that she is often with you in your house.” Then she said a few more things, including that she was worried about my sister ( who was by then confined to a wheelchair), then she finished my reading by saying as she always did, “I’ll leave that with you,” (meaning you can research it).
A little while later I went to the restroom, and everything came clear. Standing there washing my hands and looking into the mirror, I suddenly remembered. I have ancestors buried in at least two cemeteries in Alabama: Mount Hope in Etowah County, and Hopewell, in St.Clair County.
During all my growing up years, when we would visit the Hopewell Cemetery (Where Nannie is buried) I was always fascinated with the tiny grave of a baby, near Nannie’s grave, in which little Ozell Countryman was laid to rest on January 20, 1911, having been born January 9, 1911. If Elaine is correct, and I believe she is, by this reckoning I would have been named Ozell, and had I lived, I would have been my (now) father’s brother.
(When I was next at work I told my co-workers all of this, and one of them, Darrell, put it in beautiful perspective for me, “So you weren’t there for your brother’s birth, but you were there for the birth of his son.” Nannie was born in1872, and died in 1940. I was born as Ronald (Ronnie) in 1938.
At the time of Elaine’s reading for me I had already begun to see lights.That night, when I got home I went to my spot, in the dimly-lit hall sent out a thought aimed at Nannie, In the form of a question, that asked “were you there tonight?” and saw the hall practically filled with lights. She had, indeed, been there.
NANNIE HOLDING BABY
GRAVE MARKER OZELL COUNTRYMAN
The Coming of the Lights
I had adopted a Ginger kitten from the Humane Society. I suppose I must have done that after the cat that I had then had died. The Society had an open house, and I went down to see who might be likely. I had been looking at a little white one, then noticed the little ginger fellow. A volunteer came over, and said “Here, I’ll get him for you. I tried to decline, but she picked him up and handed him to me. As she did that, the little fellow grabbed my shirt and clung to it, crying “Me, Please!! Me!! I relented, and took him in my arms. He clung to my shirt, laid his little head against my heart, and promptly went to sleep. I obviously had no choice but to take him home with me, and was always glad that I did.
Since he was a very active kitty I named him Burgin, after the T M Burgin Demolition Company, where I had bought some used lumber. He was my special friend for a number of years. l never forgot that Burgin had come to me pleading with me to keep him, and he was my dear friend until the end of his life. One if his duties was to wake me in the mornings. On special occasions, Christmas, for instance, I would buy Burgin a card for him to give to my mother, which he would sign, and ask me to take it over to her, which always pleased her, so he managed to have a good relationship with her, (easier than mine) and I would occasionally take him over to visit with her, and with my sister, who lived in the same building.
When Burgin’s final illness came I had wanted to take him over for one last visit with her, but I just finally ran out of time. Near the end he was just too weak to endure that much stress. I was distraught when he died, since it has never gotten any easier to let a beloved pet go when the time comes. I planned to lay Burgin to rest in the back garden, and was digging a grave for him, with tears flowing as I worked on it. At that time I was growing some beautiful Stargazer lilies and planned to pick one, and lay it on his grave. At some point I went back down to the house for something, and went into the kitchen. I had not yet picked the lily, since that was to be my final gesture, but as I walked out of the kitchen, to my surprise, I walked thru the scent of the lily. I was looking down the dimly lit hall, and it didn’t really register at first, but as I walked through the scent of the lily I realized that I saw a purple light in the dark hall.
That undid me, because it seemed to me to be Burgin’s light. I buried my little friend, and put the lily on his grave. The next day I went over to tell my mother and sister about the scent of the lily and the light. My dear, religous mother tried to help me by saying “Maybe there’s something wrong with your eyes, but I said “my eyes are fine, mother.” I was standing in front of my sister, who of course, was sitting in her wheel chair, listening intently to what I was saying, and suddenly I saw the purple light on her lap, and knew that if I had been able to take Burgin over for a last visit he would undoubtedly have been sitting in her lap, where I was now seeing the light. The two of us cried together (mother did not, though). after that I began to see the lights regularly. I found that I could go to the spot in the hall and see one, or sit quietly in my bedroom, with the blinds closed, to dim the daylight, focus my sight on a spot in the empty space halfway across the room, let my eyes go out of focus, and begin to see a purple light, which would come into view as it formed, be visible for several minutes, then would implode and disappear. It did not go anywhere, but simply vanished. The light that would appear to me in the hall tended to look like a candle flame suspended in the air in front of me. At that spot I might form a mental question “Did someone want to talk with me?” and get a light. I took this to be the essence of a non-physical being, who was letting me know that it was there, without using speech, or without my being able to have a dialogue with it. I never heard any speech, but I always knew that there was a conscious presence represented by the light. I had developed a habit of sometimes bowing to someone I was talking with by slightly lowering my head. I remember one occasion in which Mary Gros had phoned me one day, and during the call she began to channel to me, and she suddenly seemed to be channeling the lights, which said “We bow before you, as you bow before us, we salute you as you salute us.” Mary had not known that I would sometimes also bow to the light when I was seeing one, but at that point she suddenly seemed to be speaking to me from the perspective of the light.
There was also a period when I would also see light manifestations at night, either in the house, or outside, in the dark.
A further word about the lights. Joe and I once went to a psychic fair
in Atlanta, at which I had my aura photographed. The young man who photographed my aura, then interpreted what he had seen, and asked probing questions, for instance: do you see lights? and have you ever wanted to be a healer (yes to both questions). During the interpretation he said “I don’t often talk at this length, but I’m getting chills of confirmation that I should continue,” so he did. At the end he almost forgot to push the button to print out the interpretation.
I came away with an interpretation, and a photograph that looked rather like an elaborate Indian feathered headdress. I was very pleased to have both the photograph and the interpretation, but unfortunately have since lost both.
The summer the redbud bloomed
In 1993, by a relatively complicated process, I met someone with whom I eventually became friends: How we met, and how we eventually entered into an intense friends I have told at length in another spot, but for the purpose of telling this tale I will abbreviate it. I found myself so intensely interested in being friends with him, that I was thrown off balance, and finally realized that I had either developed an intense infatuation, or had actually fallen in love with him.
When we met I had given him a tour of our garden, during which we bonded, and I knew that I needed to see more of him. My feeling was so intense that it actually scared me. I thought “My god. I have fallen in love. What am I going to do?” I had recently finished my courses in massage, and I offered him a massage, which he accepted. We arranged that I would work on him, and then he would reciprocate, and work on me later. So, I gave him his session, then took a trip of a few days to Florida. He was going to work on me after I got back. but when I got back he did not show up at the appointed time. There was no word from, and I could not reach him.
Where I had been excited over the new relationship, I was now plunged into despair. I went into a state of deep depression. I could neither eat, nor sleep.