Wednesday, November 9, 2011

100 Year-Old Orphange

The Waverly School 1931 - 2011
Energy Shifters has been asked to work with Green Light to Developers to help prepare a remarkable property for its new life as a cooperative community in the heart of Portland's inner southeast neighborhood.  The Waverly School, was built as an orphanage in 1931 on the site of a Victorian mansion that had also been an orphanage since 1894.  The developers have planned a community of 20 family homes on the site.  Soon it will be time to tear down the structure and make way for the new, Waverly Commons.

Waverly Commons Plan
 Obviously Waverly has a complicated history, filled with sadness, trauma, loss and abandonment.  The developers understand this, but weren't sure what to do about it.  They wanted to honor this place that had (on the bright side) given shelter and education to thousands of children for more than a century.  And, what if there were spirits trapped at the school or negative energies that might cloud the future of the community or compromise the safety of construction? Green Light contacted the builder of another community, Cully Grove who referred them to Energy Shifters, as we had performed the same services for their start.

We knew this was a big undertaking, so we started by doing a walk-through with the developer.  The space had only a few obvious, weird spots.  It's a huge space - over 60,000 sq.ft.  Right as we went in 
We felt a stubborn hovering spirit; one that was there to protect.  We explained what was going to happen to the building, that there would be new families there, ready to start new lives. We asked its name. "I am Jose," it said, "but call me Joe."  We worked with him and persuaded him that his job here was done and that it was time for him to crossover.  He understood and departed.  
As we moved into the foyer, the reception/intake area, we were drawn to the room on our left.  We discovered that this was the waiting area for new admissions and for family visits.  This area was our focus for several visits.  Yes, this project continues to engage us.
                                                                                                                                                                                                     




Sunday, October 23, 2011

Antiques and a Presence of the Past (Tough Sell)


I got a call from a gentleman in Vancouver, Washington.  He wanted to sell his house.  He had been showing the house for 6 months and nary a nibble.  "Something is wrong, something is driving buyers away," he said. We arrived on a beautiful, early fall day.  The house was fabulous, a custom-built home about 12 years old. The landscaping was entrancing and archetypically NorthWest. The owner is an antique dealer and a distinguished, published author of numerous books dealing with American silverware.  Who could resist this wonderful home?

After a tour of the home he explained that while there had been many showings, no one had made an offer.  After some questioning we learned that the previous owner had been extremely possessive and a very reluctant seller. The client felt that she might have an influence on potential buyers. 

We crisscrossed the home and the yard, but I kept being drawn back to the entry.  There was a resistance, a block immediately upon entering.  There was a grand staircase opposite the front door.  I started up the stairs and stopped at the first landing and sat down.  The obstinate spirit was here.  I felt her presence.  This was her house, she said.  She resented the present owner and was asserting to anyone that dared to enter "her" home that they were unwelcome.  This was not a lost, departed soul, this was someone who had imprinted her personality throughout the house.  It seemed that she had centered her presence on the staircase and a closet beneath the landing.  I sat with her for a long time and made it clear that the home was no longer hers.  She finally agreed and retreated.  The atmosphere immediately cleared.  The owner was amazed at the change and very pleased.

We checked back about two months later and asked if the owner had been successful in finding a buyer.  He said, "No." The house felt so much better that he he had decided to stay... and he is still there.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

HELP! I see ORBS in my childs bedroom

I received a call from a women who was very nervous and concerned because every night when she went into her son's bedroom she would see orbs, orbs of light passing across the child's room. She told me her dog, who was very old and to whom she was very attached, had passed away recently.  The dog had slept in the room by her child's crib.  Could these orbs be related to the dog?  If not, what? She also felt other strange energies in the house.

We went to the house and began our investigation, there were many things going on in this house. There was an energy vortex near the child's bedroom and very strange unsettling energy in the parents' bedroom. The whole house felt like it was tingling.  When we went upstairs there was very strong pervasive energy that was difficult to pinpoint.

We moved outside and determined, after much dowsing, that there were some dry faults under the house and several energy vortexes. We closed the vortexes and worked on closing the dry faults and moving them outside the house.  This session resulted in eliminating the orbs and light forms in the son's room and a marked improvement in energy throughout. 

Several months passed and we received a call from the woman again, saying that some of the disturbing energies had returned and could we come back for a second session? It was the holidays and the rainy season here in the NW, so we couldn't get back to her until late winter. In the interim she had contacted in turn, a psychic, a feng shui practitioner and a geomancer.  The psychic scared her and told her there was no fixing the angry spirits.  The feng shui practitioner had her move furniture around and add some plants, to no avail. The geomancer came to her home and did his consultation from his car.  He then planted some steel rods, wound in copper, at various points around the foundation of the home.  None of this seemed to help, in fact, things felt worse, our client told us when she called asking us to please come back.

The client told us that she was determined to sell the house and move, but she wanted to make things right in the house to facilitate a sale.  More importantly, the energy had become so unsettling that she had not been able to sleep in her bedroom with her husband for months.  The energy she felt was sad and angry.

First we dowsed around and under the house and found that the dry faults had become wet faults during the winter, but that the moisture was most marked under the home.  We dowsed the perimeter of the foundation and found the steel and copper rods placed there by the geomancer and immediately saw that they had been placed in such a way that they had "dammed" the flow of the fault, retaining the excess groundwater.  We removed the rods and performed some earth acupuncture with bamboo stakes in the appropriate points of the faults which drew off the excess moisture.  We still felt that there were other factors that we sensed but could not precisely place as to their origin or true nature.

We found some anomalies in the EMF (electromagnetic fields) in the house and the client called in an electrician a few days later who found and repaired some faulty wiring in the walls and a few switches.  Again, things were much better, but we asked to come back in a few weeks with some other tools and complete our investigation and the clearing.

On our third visit we went back to the upstairs family room that was a source of some intense energy.  We found a very large vortex that rose up from the earth through the garage and into a seldom used part of the family room (unused because of the eerie feeling.)  We took advantage of this vortex to introduce the client, and a few of our students we'd brought along, to the practice of controlling and moving the vortex energy.  We manipulated the vortex, "corralling" the energy with our outstretched arms and hands, then pushed it back into a narrow (6") column, then expanded it again, as far as we could.  After becoming comfortable with this process we again contracted the vortex and "created" an energy form of a rose quartz tube to contain the vortex and keep it from influencing the room and the family. This became fun, non-threatening and immediately effective.

We then turned our attention to the master bedroom.  This room had always seemed strangely inhospitable, sad and angry and not a relaxing space at all.  One by one we focused on the room, walking through and scanning it with our hands and allowing ourselves to be drawn to the source of the energy.  We found the source in one of the large bedroom closets.  As a group, we sat silently to listen and learn what the energy had to tell us.  It was the spirit of a tree, a very large Douglas fir that had been the mother tree to the hill top on which it had grown for almost 200 years.  This hilltop had been cleared less than 10 years before to make room for one of those developments of giant homes on big lots.  It had been home to thousands of birds, bugs, mosses and many, many living forms.  It sheltered animals and the native people long before Oregon was "settled."  It had been ruthlessly cut down along with her numerous "children" and neighboring trees and plants with no ceremony, no respect.  It was a murdered spirit that needed to be honored and released.  We gathered the client and our group together and gave ceremony for the release of the great tree's spirit.  The effect was profound.  The energy in the home was finally balanced and calm came to the house and land.









Golems in Portland


The team got a call from one of the Real Estate agents we work with about a house she had for sale that had, “… really weird energy.” She said the owner’s sons always felt like there was something in the basement when they were growing up. They thought it might be the ghost of the original owner, Dr. Dammasch, who had started one of the first mental institutions in the Portland area.

When we arrived at the house we were immediately pulled to the back of the house where there was a large tree growing at about a 45ยบ angle. This was odd because there was nothing blocking the tree from growing straight, when you stood near the tree it felt like you were being pulled downward.

We went inside a began walking around the house sensing, feeling and listening for what the house had to tell us. There was still this strange pull toward the back of the house and toward the basement. When I put my hand on the doorknob to the basement I got this message "Don't come down!" So I asked my partner, Lisa to put her hand on the knob and she got the same vibe! SO-O-O-O… what do we do? Well we went down to the basement to find out what was going on.  There was the spirit of a young girl, but she was of no real bother, just frightened, and had followed the Dr. home one night many years ago. But as we walked toward the back corner of the basement there was that amazing downward pull, like a vortex that you knew you were going to fall into; a real sense of vertigo.  I tried communicating with the rather large and stoic figure that was guarding the entry but it only wanted to speak with one of the guys, so Larry began to communicate with it and learned that it had been their since before the house was built, put there by someone involved either in the underground railroads or with the Chinese laborers in Portland.  It appeared to him very much like the legendary figure of a Golem.

We did a rather long releasing ceremony and closed the vortex, released the young female spirit and went upstairs to the second floor where we found an etheric pattern of Dr. Dammasch, cleared this and were all done for the day. I have to say of all the strange things we have encountered during clearings, this was one of the creepiest.