Seeing The Unseen

I'm aware of Halloween's rapid approach, due less to the costumes and candy, and more to the ever increasing closeness of the monstrous friends in my head. As the veil thins and the collective consciousness of the country shifts to embrace the paranormal and supernatural with its tightest grip, the journey to my otherworld grows easier until it seems I never leave.

Most around me would already attest to my fringe-mentality. I think in concepts and patterns that the “norms” do not, and wouldn't have it any other way. The difference is that now I see the paranormal everywhere all day long. The customer in line is obviously of werewolf stock, the woman behind him a prominent otherkin. The androgynous fae-blooded that served me lunch is cute and the pizza delivery guy just might be biting his customers in the dead of night by the mischief behind that grin.

Everything is everywhere and the best part is that I'm not the only one who sees it. Even the skeptics and the norms look a little closer, dig a little deeper, this time of year. They can laugh it off later as seasonal flight of fancy, but for the time being, especially this last week, they seek out the things that go bump in the night with open hearts. It's what makes the rest of the terribly mundane year bearable no doubt.

Of everything we look too, vampires, shapeshifters, ghouls and beasties, the most unifying phenomena seems to be ghosts. There's an old adage that we're all haunted by something. Perhaps this is truer than it seems. Perhaps in those days of wide-eyed childhood when we could see more than we ever shall again, we each glimpsed a truth. We each saw something that let us know there was more to the world than the eye could discern or that science could give name.

Some of us carry that truth our entire lives, never growing blind to that which dwells beyond the veil. Seeking it out in literature and visual media, in conversation and collaboration, in our experiences and the factual and fictional experiences of others. The lucky among us even embrace it in our working lives and get to share our visions with the world. But even more who see, forget. They look away and pretend, until what the world tells them isn't there...ceases to be. Of seems to. At least for eleven months out of the year.

For a brief window it's okay to see with unclouded eyes again. It's okay to sense what sight and sound cannot verify but what the heart knows to be true. It's no accident that Halloween is only behind Christmas in the money spent and time dedicated to celebration. We all want to see, even those who once looked away. And as for those of us who have always seen/heard/felt, we all want to share our truths openly, even if only for a few weeks a year.

So tell me...what do you see?

Thin Veil Ramble, Done.

~X