#spritis

14

Medium: Watercolor on watercolor paper and photoshop.

I’ve been trying to catch up with my illustrations. Sometimes I have difficulty putting the idea I have in my head onto paper. This is one of those times. I could have done a much much better job.

When I tell people about my stories from school, they usually look at me in disbelief. I tell them about how I sucked honey out of the stems of certain flowers, played sports barefoot, and that one scar on my shin came from falling and grazing my leg against the sand pit. Those stories, of course, are believable. However when I tell them that we had a panther that killed off the pet dogs, and that some of the fruit groves were destroyed by elephants, and that in the himalayas, I had to cross a freshly melted glacier, they commend me on my imagination.

I follow these stories with an explanation. My school was a 110 acre forest that was used as an elephant corridor. When the school first got the land, it was barren, but years of tree planting had made it a beautiful forest with fruit groves, lakes, and thick bushes. They took us on long trips every year, showing us different parts of the country, and giving us stories that would last us a lifetime.

When we were seventeen, and in twelth standard, our school took us to a camp in Dandeli. Dandeli is a town in the northern part of Karnataka. After a day of white water rafting, and swimming, we sat around a bonfire, exhausted. We sang some songs, ate some food, and slowly began to filter away into smaller groups to talk about nothing in particular.

As we were talking, the topic of ghosts and spirits came up. People talked about Ouija boards, and mediums who call spirits. Personally, I don’t believe in ghosts and spirits. When people tell me about haunted houses, it only makes me want to visit it. A lot of my friends thought the same way. But the rest of my friends believed that spirits were not to be disturbed. They believed that if you awoke for spirit for no reason, it would have a terrible effect on your life. They told us that the spirits were best left alone.

Half an hour o arguing later, we non-believers decided that we would prove to the believers that spirits didn’t exist by calling a spirit of our own. We had all heard plenty of stories on how to call on spirits. It was not going to be difficult. We marched into a room, and sat in a circle. We yelled “coward” at our believer friends who decided to stay out of the room. We then put off all the lights and lit a couple of candles. We held each other's hands, and a friend volunteered to call on the spirit. She closed her eyes and called on a spirit. She called out loud to a spirit to let us know if he or she was there. She called over and over again. Then she would pause, and call again.

Two minutes later I was bored. It was dark, and my friend’s mellow, monotone voice was making me fall asleep. I looked across the room to see another friend rolling her eyes. She was bored too. We were wondering how much longer we would have to do this before we finally gave up and decided once and for all that there was no such thing as spirits. We looked around the room, to ensure that everyone was feeling the same way. Many people were looking sleepy.

STRONG BEER

“What do you think The bravest drink Under the sky?” “Strong beer,” said I. “There’s a place for everything, Everything, anything, There’s a place for everything Where it ought to be: For a chicken, the hen’s wing; For poison, the bee’s sting; For almond-blossom, Spring; A beerhouse for me.” “There’s a prize for every one Every one, any one, There’s a prize for every one, Whoever he may be: Crags for the mountaineer, Flags for the Fusilier, For English poets, beer! Strong beer for me!” “Tell us, now, how and when We may find the bravest men?” “A sure test, an easy test: Those that drink beer are the best, Brown beer strongly brewed, English drink and English food.” Oh, never choose as Gideon chose By the cold well, but rather those Who look on beer when it is brown, Smack their lips and gulp it down. Leave the lads who tamely drink With Gideon by the water brink, But search the benches of the Plough, The Tun, the Sun, the Spotted Cow, For jolly rascal lads who pray, Pewter in hand, at close of day, “Teach me to live that I may fear The grave as little as my beer.”

-- Robert Graves

New illustration, part of a compilation i’m doing 

warning: occult information ahead

There are a whole themepark full of spirit categories, much of them who do not matter while others are just plain troublesome.

Our forefathers were given the option to see such spirits and this gave birth to animism, where they started to worship the trees and spirits that dwell in the landscape.

In urban environments, not may of these nature type spirits could survive the pollution within a city, thus they retreat into human housing, finding homes in abandoned buildings.

Like all living creatures, they feed off energy. Some prey on human energy and these creatures causes ‘witch hag syndrome’. 

Now, I would like to point out that this hag syndrome isn’t the only result of sleep paralysis. There are many causes for this sort of paralysis and the hag isn’t the only one.

I speak of this from experience of course and having had the chance to witness this creature first hand, I must say that they are nasty but not deadly.

This happened one night while sleeping and I felt something sitting on my chest, and suddenly having the difficulty of not being able to breath. I could not get up so I opened up my eyes to see this creature, almost a translucent grey and hairless sitting with its back to me, it knew I was awake but he continued there confidently. Apparently, these creatures were using their bodies to suck your energy from your solar plexus. It was their way of feeding.

Of course this creature picked the wrong target. I called up an air strike and within a moment, there was a lightning flash in the room. He was toast.

Now, I can summon an attack from heaven as I am a sanctioned being. Humans on the other hand have no such abilities so please don’t ask me to how to summon an air strike.

Such creatures are found in urban dwellings, they move from house to house and will pick victims randomly. I have known cases where kids, as little as five years have seen them in cupboards,…hiding till night fall before they go out to feed.

I am not fond of them but I do know they can be a problem to others. Here’s a trick. If you suspect such creatures are hiding in places like cupboards or store rooms, just use rough sea salt to sprinkle it about. It’s a easiest way to rid them from their hiding places. Salt, burns them. Sea salt is best.