Dead Languages, Silliness & Songs (Saints & Haints, Chapter 18)

 

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On August 24th and 25th, I might have done a stupid thing. I gave myself a crash course in Egyptian hieroglyphics. I did a little reading, and then I downloaded an app called English-Hieroglyph Dictionary by Damien Daniel O'Neill. I had determined that "hieroglyphics, let me be specific," meant that A wanted me to use hieroglyphics instead of tarot cards, because they might allow for more specific messages to be communicated.

Just looking at the glyphs, I could definitely see how they could work as tarot cards. Each symbol means something; possibly several things. It is very confusing; but at least that symbol means one of those things, as opposed to absolutely anything one could imagine from looking at the picture. I could see how using hieroglyphics might narrow the margin of error in interpretation. I thought, therefore, that he must have something awfully important to tell me, something that I absolutely had to get right.

I was actually worried for a while, thinking that I might have to learn an entire ancient language. Then I realized that, no I didn't, because I could have a cheat sheet. I wasn't worried about him having to learn it, because he is a genius. Everyone on the otherside is, I swear! It's something demons told me a long time ago; but I wasn't certain until, well, until I saw tarot card magic, and until I got an amazingly creative hour-long vision message. They're smarter now, however that happens. Personally, I think that the functioning of our skin suits uses up a lot of brain power.

So, I was going to cheat, and he's a genius. That much was solved. Still, there was the problem of selecting my words, and finding the most correct glyph to represent that word, since there are often many to choose from. After struggling with glyph selection for a while, however, I realized that didn't matter either. I didn't have to choose the exactly correct glyph. The glyph would mean what I said it means, and he would know; because he can read my mind, and because he could see my cheat sheet as I was making it. So, all I had to do was choose my words.

I was excited about this experiment. This time I would assign the meanings. I would teach him my interpretations this time, but it would still be our shared language. Of course, I had to make the cards. I carefully selected 52 words. I took a deck of regular playing cards and covered one side of each with plain white address labels. Then I drew the 52 glyphs which I had selected to correspond with my chosen words or phrases. It took a long time. It was quite possibly the nerdiest thing I've ever done. It was a labor of love.

I tried very hard to choose words which would enable at least a rudimentary basis of communication. I thought back to school-Spanish, asking myself what were the first words and phrases I learned for basic conversation? With that in mind, I included subject words, like "I" and "You," instructional verbs, like "Do" and "Don't," and a selection of common nouns. I also included several words or phrases which might've been important considering our specific circumstances, such as "the living," "the dead," "Heavenly beings," and "marriage."
I noticed that many glyphs translate to an entire concept more so than to a single word. I really think I'm onto something about the reasons why that language was created.

Because of the 52 glyph limit, in some instances I tried using multiple meanings for one glyph, thinking that I'd easily figure out which meaning was intended. In retrospect, that wasn't the smartest way to have done it, because deciphering his intentions proved more difficult than I had anticipated. I used some common words more than once; for example, I made 3 "I" cards. Also, I discovered that there is a glyph of a donkey which literally means "ass." It was too funny not to use, so I drew that one too. It occurred to me that the lack of punctuation would make these messages more difficult to read, and that I might not know when the story had ended; so I decided to make the ass card useful. I instructed A to use the donkey as the final card, or a period at the end of the sentence, like an "ass end of the conversation."

My demons were quite impressed with my diligence in creating the glyph cards. At one point they commented,
"Look at that... resurrecting a dead language for him. What devotion!"
I sensed that A was excited about it too. I felt a happy, almost impatient, energy, sort of like,
"Hurry! I can't wait!"

During those days, I kept getting pictures, or very short animations, in my mind, of what I understood was supposed to be "Heaven," but it didn't look right to me. That actor from "The Chosen" would be in them, playing "Jesus," and he never looked happy. These images were almost-photorealistic. The backdrop was a neighborhood in what looked like a farming community, perhaps; or like a neighborhood from the past, with old two-story farm houses lining either side of a dirt road. These images of Wrong-Heaven were creepy. I decided that they must've been demon-tricks, because in one of them, "Jesus" was standing at a crossroads, which was a reference to the old adage about selling one's soul at the crossroads. In addition to that, I wouldn't have expected to be shown pictures of what Heaven actually looks like. In fact, it occurred to me that perhaps A had used chalk drawings in his vision message for that very reason; because perhaps he was not allowed to show me real pictures.

When I shuffled the deck for the first time, for some reason, after I'd split it and flipped the two halves back together, I also cut the deck twice; like I used to, before A taught me his method. I wasn't sure why I did that, because I knew that wasn't the method A and I used. I didn't know why, but I just didn't feel as certain as usual. I felt as if the cards needed more shuffling. I still got a coherent reading; but I suspected that it was a little jumbled. I wondered if he'd had enough time to reorder the cards, once he'd seen that I was screwing up. From what I could make of the reading by choosing the most logical meaning for each card, he seemed to be telling me,

"My protection, not marriage.
The dead speak, the living do not.
House, think.
Write friend, his money, warrior.
Time work you."

He had used the ass card to end the story there. It was used every time I used these cards. Of course, I added those commas and sentence breaks, not knowing if I was doing so correctly. I seemed to be getting no confirmation. He wasn't helping me understand the meaning like he had before. I tried it again, just in case I'd messed up the shuffle. Something just felt... off. The second time, when I was certain I'd done it right, I got a very similar message:


"Bad you love.
Time work.
My protection. Money.
The dead speak the living.
House, think.
Kiss.
Fight, sweetheart.
Forever you.
Your yes/right friend, family, do.
After sex animals.
His about woman, together with, do not write.
We will.
Divine eye.
Heavenly beings."

I was not pleased. I still thought it was A, but for some reason he was telling me not to admit to anything more than platonic feelings for him. I didn't think it was really that way; I could see that he was saying, "Write it this way," not, "It is this way," but still, I was disappointed. One thing I noticed was a joke in the second message. It stood out to me, and I recognized it as a joke:
"Your yes/right friend..."
A joke; as in,
"Your 'friend' (haha, yeah, right)."
I saw that part also as an overlapping message. It also meant,
"Write that I'm a friend or family member."
He was substituting "right" for "write," in that instance, because of the limited word choices. I felt that I got that much confirmed, at least, as well as the embedded joke. A is hilarious, after all, so I could definitely see that as being something he would do. It was also a creative usage of the card that means yes or right, as well as creative word usage, and creative usage is another of his signatures. So, I felt assured that it was A whom I was corresponding with, but I didn't understand why he was requesting that I keep our relationship a secret.

I understood most of the rest of it, I thought. The "House, think," part had me somewhat confused. I wondered if it was a reference to the house in the video, the one I had also seen in the Spirit Mirror, but I didn't know because there was no thought-transference explanation. It could just as easily have been a reference to the fact that my own house is falling down. Later, when I looked back at the cheat sheet, I noticed that the meaning for the "house" glyph was actually "house or dwelling." I realized that "dwelling" and "think" could mean the same thing, as in "to dwell on something," so I decided that perhaps he was telling me to think, think hard, about something, but about what, specifically? The part about "his money" really had me baffled, too. I was like,
"What money??!!"
At that, my demons commented,
"Do they have pay-chances in Heaven? Demons didn't know that..."


The next morning, I woke up having a conversation and crying. I felt that A was asking me,
"Is it the house?"
As in, I felt that he was saying that it was his house that he'd been showing me, and he was asking,
"What's wrong? Why aren't you happy? Don't you like it?"
That was the only conversation of any sort that I recalled. I didn't understand why he was asking me that, because I thought that in Heaven, we could have any kind of house we wanted. They've got magic, after all, right? If I didn't like the house, he could just change it, or I could. It didn't make any sense. Maybe he'd thought I wouldn't understand that?

After waking up completely, I had this feeling that I was going to die, or that he wanted me to die, or something. No one was saying anything to me. There was no thought-transference; it was just a feeling I was getting, more like a concept. I was still crying, and I said,
"I can't leave my babies."
I said a prayer then, telling Jesus that I want to die, pretty much as soon as my last pet is buried in the cemetery; but not before then, if at all possible.

Later that day, was the first time I saw an animation, in a vision, which my demons and I would jokingly dub "The Animagus." It's a little cartoon of A. It looks realistic, though, usually, except that he sometimes makes unrealistic, cartoon-like movements. He sort of pops up "on the screen" in my mind's eye and tells me something, either through actions, or by silently saying it so that I can read his lips. We named him "The Animagus" because he's magical, so, he's a "magus," and because he's... well... animated.

The animation popped up and said silently,
"I was only kidding about the money."
I knew then that he had been poking fun at me at little bit with that comment, for being a strong independent woman who doesn't have any use for a man's money, and all that. I wondered then if this meant that I did, in fact, have a "friendly spirit guide," in which case, that would mean that I'd need to do some backpedaling, perhaps, because, in my first book, I strongly asserted that,
"You do NOT have a friendly spirit guide!
(...with the exceptions of saints and angels, and they don't talk to you)."
I decided, however, that even though A and I had found some very creative workarounds, my original assessment was still technically the truth. He wasn't "talking," and although he was a saint, he wasn't always friendly.

Later, that night, I was working on the guitar drawings, the ones I used as illustrations in the chapter about the first vision. Meanwhile, someone got "Somebody That I Used To Know," by Gotye, stuck in their head. Whether it was me or one of my demons, I don't really know. It's hard to tell sometimes. Anyway, a few minutes later I heard one of them singing,

"Now and then we like to draw guitars together..."

A bit later, I was thinking about some of the things I've experienced in the past few years. I was particularly thinking about how, before any of this happened to me --before I ever knew that I had a ghost visiting my house, before I did EVPs, before I was aware of my psychic abilities, before I knew anything about saints or haints, before I was Christian even-- I wrote most of a fiction novel, about the ghost of a man coming back to be with his sweetheart. I had just sort of "gotten the idea" one day. At the time, I didn't think it was all that strange to suddenly get a burst of inspiration, but I didn't understand telepathy, intrusive thoughts, and thought-transference then. Now I know that sometimes when we "just get ideas," it's because they're not our own. 

It was never lost on me the similarities between that fiction novel and what I thought happened with A in winter of 2020/2021, except that it wasn't A, it was actually Johnny. Now, some version of that story was presenting itself again, for the third time. My demons were chattering away, making comments about these thoughts, when suddenly, over them, I heard, in my head, Melissa Etheridge singing,

"Just to reach you... Just to reach you..."

After that, one of my demons said,
"I don't know if two people have ever done more for each other."

I had previously had the following theory about why Johnny had posed as A. I reasoned that he must have been snooping around in my mind, looking for something he could use to introduce himself, to get into my life; he must've been looking for a character to play. They can read our pasts too. Every thought we've ever had, and everything we've ever done. I assumed that Johnny had found a deceased former love interest and thought,
"Yes! That's perfect! That's the character I'll play!"
I reasoned that I must've started thinking about A again because Johnny had been grooming me for his performance by sending me thoughts about him.

A new theory was rising to the surface, however. What if...? Just what if Johnny didn't actually have to rummage that far back through my memories? What if A had been communicating with me back then, dreaming me that idea for the novel, and that was why I had started thinking about him again? And what if that, our much more recent thoughts about each other, was what Johnny had actually picked up on?

The female in my group of demons responded to that thought,
"I think he's been reaching out to you for a long time..."
And then, to the tune of "Somebody That I Used To Know," she sang:

"I don't wanna name any names,
but Catholic should have thought of that,
Because it's perfectly obvious
that is where the blame is at!"




Hieroglyphics Cards Word List

yes/right

no/not/wrong

rule/rule of conduct

written words/word of God/Divine decree

spoken words

family

friend/acquaintance

animals

the living/those living now

the dead/the damned

Heavenly beings

Divine/Divine eye

work/construction/craft/job

money

love/want/wish/desire/prefer

I/me/my

your

you

rest/sleep

do/make/act

do not

house/dwelling

sex

marriage

think/believe/feel/imagine/perceive

we/us/our

kiss

beware/watch out!

travel/go

fight/warrior

good

bad

before

time

after

love/my love/darling/sweetheart

forever/length/long

together/with

worship/praise/adore

wait

can/capable/strong

will/I will/you will

woman/some woman, not me

he/him/his/it/its/some man, not you

gift/offering

protection

number/count/the number on the next card is significant

about

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