Soul Mates: I loved you before you were even born

Erin to Seth....

My spirit knew and loved you before we were born. Is it any wonder that I love you now? Even if you deny me, desert me, run from me... my spirit will reach for you. Until you find me.

Curses of the living and the dead

Seth writes . . . 

I don’t know if any of you have ever read the book Christine by Steven King, or maybe seen the movie. It’s about a demonically possessed car and I think King got his inspiration from James Dean’s Little Bastard. This is Seth writing, by the way. Finally. Erin has bugged me so much that I gave in. So here follows the incredible story of a very evil car. The trouble was it was gorgeous. A Porsche 550 Spyder, one of only 90 ever made. 

Who wouldn’t want that car?

 

It was designed as a racer, and it was the car that put Porsche on the road-racing map. Interestingly enough, although it was quick for the times – mid fifties – it was only as fast as today’s hottest hatchbacks. But that isn’t the real reason why the Spyder is remembered.

It owes its legacy to the Little Bastard that killed actor James Dean.

When James Dean bought the car, he nicknamed it the Little Bastard. His friends all told him he was crazy, not just because of the name, but because the car was bad. Real bad. Some said it had a malevolent presence about it. Alec Guinness even said it was sinister, and that if James bought it, he’d kill himself within a week. His buddies were right. But although James Dean seemed to have a premonition that the car might kill him, he still gave the Little Bastard to George Barris, the “King of Kustomizers”, to hot it up even more.

Then came the first race.

Dean and his mechanic decided to drive the Spyder to Salinas. They never made it. They had a head on with another vehicle. As you can see from the pic, the Spyder was totalled. James Dean died in hospital from multiple injuries. Incredibly, his mechanic survived.

So, where’s the curse, you ask? People die in car crashes every day.

Hang with me…

Barris bought the wreckage to sell as scrap, but clearly the Little Bastard didn’t approve...

• When the vehicle was delivered to Barris' garage, it slipped off its trailer and broke a mechanic's leg.
• Barris sold the engine to Troy McHenry and the drive train to William Eschrid, racing hobbyists. While racing at the Pomona fairgrounds on October 24, 1956, McHenry was killed when his vehicle spun out of control and crashed into a tree. Eschrid's car rolled while taking a curve, seriously injuring him. He later said that the vehicle 'just locked up' on him.
• Two tires (Looking at the pic, you can hardly believe that any tires survived) that Barris sold simultaneously burst, sending their car off road.
• Even thieves weren’t spared. A young guy tried to steal the steering wheel, but had his arm gashed open on a piece of jagged metal as punishment. Another guy was hurt while trying to steal one of the bloodstained seats.

By now Barris had had enough. He decided that the car would be safer in storage.

But who can keep a good demon down?

Even the California Highway Patrol were enthralled by the car’s potential to shock. They persuaded Barris to loan them the Spyder for a traveling exhibition. So the mangled remains of Little Bastard were taken to a garage in Fresno, and stored there before the road show started. A fire broke out in the garage, destroying everything, except for – you guessed it – James Dean’s wrecked car.

You would think that people would have learned by now that this car was bad news, but no… the show went on.

At a display at Sacramento High School on the anniversary of Dean's accident, the bolts holding the car in place snapped. The car plowed off its display and broke the hip of a fifteen-year-old boy who had been looking at the wreckage.

Still not convinced it was cursed?

En route to Salinas, the truck hauling the wreck lost control, causing the driver to fall out of the cab. Although the fall from the vehicle didn't kill him, the Porsche fell off the truck bed and landed on top of him. He didn’t survive.

In 1960, the Little Bastard’s tour finally ended.

Wishing now that he had never set eyes on the beast, Barris had the vehicle loaded onto a train in Florida. He sealed boxcar, and sighed with relief as the train headed out for California. It was a good day for him, although somewhat puzzling...

When the train arrived in L.A., the seal was still intact, yet the car had vanished. And it has not been seen since. You think I kid you. At the 50^th anniversary of James Dean’s death rewards were offered for a no questions asked return of the car. Nothing ever came to light.

So you tell me - was this car cursed or was this all just coincidence? Or is something else possible?  Was it James Dean himself who was cursed? And did he pass that curse onto all the things that mattered to him?

According to some, yes. Most of his closest friends also died under tragic circumstances. 

 So, if you believe this, who cursed him? It has been claimed that his erstwhile friend Maila Nurmi put a hex on him when he told her the friendship was over. So who was she and how did she get that much power? Maila Nurmi, aka Vampira, the glamorous ghoul, hosted late-night horror films on 1950s TV screens.  As Vampira, she played with her pet tarantula, gave gruesome recipes for vampire cocktails and bathed in a boiling caldron.

Picture taken of Wikipdia

She was also supposedly wired into the occult. So did she zing James Dean? And if she did, did his influence go on to curse all his friends? What do you think?

For me, it’s pretty simple. Having seen the power of curses in Shenaya, I have no doubt that it is possible to curse both the living and the dead.

Seth

PS. Thought I'd end off with a pic of Christine.... Great movie, if you like horror!

Soul Mates: Finding your perfect half...

Erin writes . . . 

More soul mate quotes . . . 

 Someday someone will walk into your life and make you realize why it never worked out with anyone else.

Yes, I know, it's not Monday and Seth and I usually post on Mondays, but I just loved this, so I had to share it with you.

Were Amy Winehouse, James Dean and Superman cursed?

Erin writes . . .

Before Seth and I went to Shenaya I would have scoffed at the idea of curses harming people. Now I know better.

Take Amy Winehouse. Was it just alcohol and drugs that killed her, or was it something more sinister? Was she actually cursed to die at 27 years old? 

Yes, if you are a believer in the FOREVER 27 CLUB. 

The what club, you ask. Also known as the 27 Club, this is the final resting place for the talented and cursed. Composers, conductors and wild party rockers have all found their away into this elite club by dying at age 27. 

You don’t believe me? Check this out. Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Brian Jones and about forty other musicians, dating back from as far as 1892 to 2011, all died aged 27. How? Accidents, murders, plane crashes, drugs. The list goes on. Coincidence or curse? You tell me….

So Seth and my next couple of blogs will be about curses. Why, especially coming so soon after love? Simple. In Shenaya to love is a curse. A curse whose only antidote is . . .  you’ve got it. Love. That's why we have a real interest in curses. Maybe if we can explore enough of them we'll figure out how to lift the curse tormenting so many in Shenaya.

But, we've come to realise, curses are strange things. You either believe in them or you don’t. Sadly, whatever your view, it doesn’t seem to stop curses causing havoc in our lives if we stray into their orbit - as so many innocents have discovered to their peril.

I can almost hear your sceptism, and I wrote the book on sceptism. But to convince you let’s look at some bizarre coincidences which leave the rational mind reeling. 

Take the gorgeous JAMES DEAN.

(I know, I’m only 17 and I wasn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye when he was acting in movies like Rebel Without Cause, but he’s still hot with a capital H. See pic for proof!) 

Did he die in a car crash, or was it a curse that killed him?

 And what about the HOPE DIAMOND? Did it have a hand in the deaths of Louis XIV, Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette?

And SUPERMAN? Is there more for the Superman actors to fear than just kryptonite? 

What do you think? I'd love to hear your answers before I tell you what we've discovered.

Erin

P.S. Seth loves cars – especially fast ones – so he’s finally agreed to write a post. Watch this space next Monday when he reveals all about James Dean’s The Little Bastard, a Porch Spyder, otherwise known as the cursed killer car.

Soul Mates: The Heavens Brought Us Together Forever

By now you have probably gathered that I was a bit sceptical when I first heard that Seth was my soul mate. It seemed so insane. After all, he’s an American from New York. That’s about as far from Cape Town as you can get. What were the odds that we would meet? Probably nil. Except for one important thing: the promises we made to each other and our friends before we were born.

Yes, I know. That sounds as weird as a cat with three tails. Especially seeing as we have zero memory of ever making those promises. Unfair, you cry. I agree. But that’s what happened.

Seth and I knew each other before we were born. Or rather our spirits did, and I don’t mean in a reincarnation way. That was not our experience. We – and the spirits of a lot of other people we have since meet in mortality – lived for a very long time before this world was even created. Where, you ask. Right here, in our universe. It was there that Seth and I first fell in love. 

SOUL MATES

The Heavens brought us together forever

I will love you forever, in this life, and in the next

How do we know this? Simple. We were shown a vision of a weird, ethereal sort of place known only as The Mists of Time. It was there that we had the big reveal that we’d agreed to come to Earth at the same time. And, drum roll, we found out that we’d promised to find each other once here. To say we were surprised was an understatement. Seth is still recovering….

And if that wasn’t already shock enough, we also promised to help our friends be with the ones they love. It was that promise to help others which led to us finding each other. After all, true love, I’ve learned in my short life, is not about what I can get for myself, but rather what I can do for some one else. Profound, huh!  

But that’s why I will sacrifice my all to win Seth back…

Finally, because tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day, I want to share a few of my favourite love quotes with you… Enjoy!

Immature love says, I love you because I need you. Mature love says, I need you because I love you.
~Erich Fromm

You know it's love when you can't fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams. 

Dr. Seuss (One of my favourite writers of all time....)

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
~Judy Garland

A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we're safe in our own paradise. Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soul mate is the one who makes life come to life.

~Richard Bach

Have a fantastic Valentine's Day...

I’ve asked Seth to write something on our blog, but he didn’t look too keen. I promise I’ll keep working on him.

Erin 

 

The magical spark of soul mates. Do they actually burn in reality?

Yesterday I wrote about Plato’s idea that once they've found each other, soul mates don’t want to be out of the other’s sight for even a moment. Whether you agree with Plato or not, it’s a magical concept. But does it actually work? And is it good for a relationship? I’ve not had many boyfriends. Okay, I admit. I’ve had one. Other than Seth, of course. So that hardly makes me an expert. But I can and do read and I have to ask myself if I would want a soul mate if I ended up like….

Bella and Edward from Twilight. Obsessed with each other to the point that he stalked her night and day, and she launched herself off a cliff just so she could imagine hearing his voice in her head. No. Please no. If that’s what soul mates mean, then I’m not interested.

Or what about… Heathcliffe and Cathy from Wuthering Heights? Are you kidding? The two worst lovers in history. That book wasn’t about love, it was about revenge.

And Lancelot and Guinevere? They claimed to be soul mates, but their adulterous affair broke up the Knights of the Round Table. It was the classic love triangle. She was married to Arthur, but fell in love with his best friend, Lancelot. They tried to hide their affair, but you know the saying – truth will out. So even though Lancelot killed a few of his fellow knights to protect Guinevere’s honour and to hide the truth, Arthur still found out about it. He was about to burn Guinevere at the stake when Lancelot came dashing in and rescued her. Did being soul mates work out for them? Not likely. Lancelot ended his days as a hermit and Guinevere became a nun at Amesbury where she died.

Or the Beauty and the Beast? Okay. Now I’m listening. At least it wasn’t just mindless love at first sight with Belle and the Beast. He had to actually do something to earn her devotion – apart from just being sizzling hot. And we all know what the beast looked like! But if you still have doubts, then check out the movie Beastly. It’s a pretty good remake of the old classic – or maybe it’s just the beastly gorgeous Alex Pettyfer that caught my eye! But I digress…

I think most people would agree that Romeo and Juliet are the iconic soul mates …

The problem is, they were about as tragic as Seth and me. We also got drawn into a family feud. But, in our case, it wasn’t enough that the living messed things up for us, the dead had to climb into the fight too. Thankfully, since being in Shenaya, I’ve learned that love outlives the grave and can last forever. I’m sure Romeo and Juliet were delighted when they woke up in the world of spirits – the Fourth Dimension – and discovered that little fact. Talk about putting one over the Capulets and the Montagues!

Everyone has a soul mate. But what would you do if your soul mate would rather give his soul to the demons than be with you?

Tough one, huh?

That’s what happened to me. I’m Erin, by the way, and Seth is my soul mate. But as you can see from my by-line, we ran into a few snags once we got to Shenaya. Serious ones, which now require a huge amount of sacrifice to put right. But before I go into all that, maybe I should tell you a bit about myself. I’m almost eighteen and I live in Cape Town with my mom. (For those who haven’t travelled much, Cape Town is in South Africa.) My mom is going through her second divorce. Sigh. I think her miserable marriages are one of the reasons why I struggled with the whole soul mate concept when I first heard it.

Sure, I wanted to believe that there’s someone perfect out there destined for me. Who doesn’t? But what does that actually mean? (As you get to know me, you’ll discover that I’m not a take-it-on-face-value-type of girl. I like facts. Real ones.) And if someone out of the seven billion of us who live on this planet is destined to find and love me forever, then who controls that? Me? Him? Fate? God? Random chance? Do I – we - have any choice in this? And what did we do to qualify to be together in mortality? Doesn’t that presume we knew each other before we were born?  And what is a soul mate anyway?

The last question is the easiest to answer, I think. According to Plato in The Symposium (I promise, I’ll make this sojourn into ancient Greek literature quick and painless) when humans were created they had one body with four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces. And in that monstrous form lurked the spirits of both a man and a woman. Talk about being bonded! Thankfully Zeus didn’t like the idea much either. But for a very different reason. He was scared of their power so he split them in half. From that moment on people were condemned to spend their lives searching for their other half – their soul mate.

"And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight even for a moment."

Plato
2,500 years ago...

Wow. Quite a thought. So does that explain some of the very weird romances one hears about? You know the kind I mean. When people will go to any length and do anything for the one they love. Like I will for do Seth. 

But I'm not the only person in history who was willing to sacrifice all for my love. Check with me tomorrow when I list of some of the world's oddest lovers. Well, in my opinion. See if you agree with my choices.

Why Do I Write?

The answer is simple. Life as we know it is nowhere near as interesting as what happens in my head. I can lose myself for hours in my private world – and I do. But people in the real world always complain that I get ‘that unfocused look’ and they know I’ve slipped into my parallel universe. The only way to justify my absence is to call my daydreams work. (That’s a joke! How can something so enjoyable be work?) Lucky for me, I’ve found a way to make my ‘work’ believable. I write my mind-stories for other people to read. Mainly teenagers. But anyone who wants to get lost in a world where the unborn and the dead meddle with the living are invited along for the ride. So while other people slog away at boring jobs, I sit at my desk in my bedroom, overlooking my rose garden and the bunny cage, and type away on my Mac, creating a world called Shenaya.

In case you think Shenaya is on some distant planet, relax. It is right here on planet Earth, only it existed a thousand years ago. It took Seth - a hot eighteen-year-old American from New York (my favourite city in the whole world) and feisty seventeen-year-old Erin from Cape Town to find it. Although they’re both pretty smart – most of the time – they had some magical help. A diamond Seer-Stone which allowed them to time travel…