Visiting my neighbour to check out her garden and spirits in the garden.

I did promise the husband of the lady neighbour that I would be dropping by at their house from time to time. These two elderly neighbours are very nice and kind people who are very fond of gardening. The husband is an engineer who used to work on oil rigs for several years. With his experience and expertise, he has been on a contract with a company located in a coastal town with oil refineries. So, his wife lives all by herself in the big wooden house.

My gardener is a good friend of this couple and helps them with occasional jobs in their garden. The lady owner of the house is very keen on pot plants, orchids, cacti and succulents. Last year when she had more time for gardening, all the flower blossoms were quite impressive.

This year, the weather has been very erratic and she hasn’t much time for gardening as her son became ill and has been in hospital many times. So, the flower display in her garden has turned out to be much less colourful than previous years. But there are still more flowers in her garden than in mine.

I decided to drop by her house in late afternoon while my neighbour was watering plants around her garden. She allowed me to have a walk around her garden taking photos of her plants. I asked her how her health has been during the past few months. She told me that one day while kneeing down working with pot plants, she discovered that she suddenly couldn’t walk.

She couldn’t control her leg after she got up from the floor. Something like an accidental twist happened to her tendons and the whole leg became very stiff like a plank of wood. She had to see her doctor and got a steroid jab on the knee so that she could walk again. This month her family members are coming to visit her during Songkran (Thai New Year festival) so the house would become lively with people and kids again.

The lady showed me two new big bowls of newly acquired succulents. I had a look at her collection of cacti; some had just flowered a few days ago. She told me her husband was responsible for planting all the trees around the house. So he would never allowed anyone to cut down any trees in the garden. She wanted to remove some bamboo clusters which have overgrown and made the garden look dark and untidy. But her husband wouldn’t allow it!

She told me that her older sister, living in the next house, saw a lady (in her meditation) standing in front of the bamboo some months ago. She was the spirit with vengeful grudges on my neighbour’ son who was about to have a brain operation on brain tumor. In our tradition, we believe that some people whom we have wronged deeply could maintain life long grudges which wouldn’t let them to go to another dimension after their death. These spirits would seek out revenge on people who had caused them pain in past lives.

They could become obstacles to healing process during severe illness or they could send out bad vibes wherever they roam. We have special words for these vengeful spirits: ‘Joa Kam Nai Vain’. So, relatives of sick people would perform merit making ceremonies in temples to appease these negative spirits and assist them to travel to another dimension. They have been stuck in limbo because they couldn’t let go of their anger after their deaths.

My neighbour’ son had a very successful operation and his recovery has been quite remarkable. He didn’t lose any memory as anticipated by the doctor and he has been doing daily exercise. His parents were overjoyed by his complete recovery; the doctor was quite surprised by his speedy recovery too. The next door sister who did the meditation told me that this spirit was very vengeful and stubborn. She refused to go after all the relatives had performed merit making ceremonies to give all the energies needed for the jump to another dimension where reincarnation could take place.

My neighbour had to meditate again so she could see the vengeful spirit at the tree and told her to move on. They had a noisy negotiation, my neighbour had to threaten the spirit with curses. Finally this spirit decided to let go and make the most of all the merits packages for a better reincarnation. The future would depend on the spirit’s accumulated good and bad karma. The reason why the whole family was alerted to the spirit’s presence was the son who was in hospital. He saw this spirit I his room expressing hostile vibes and unfriendliness. He knew straightaway it was probably someone whom he had badly wronged on his past life. That’s why he asked for special ceremony to safeguard his safety.

I never seen this spirit in my neighbour’ s garden before. But several years ago when this house was left unoccupied with untidy garden. I saw a lady in traditional Thai costume sitting on the second floor veranda dressing in green clothing. I thought I was the only one seeing this Thai lady from some two hundred years ago. One day I asked the car driver with strange deep black eyes whether he saw anything inside this house. To my surprise, he described what he saw to me. So I realised that this driver with alien looking black eyes was also a psychic.

Once the house became alive with the elderly couple settling in after their retirement, I never saw this period Thai lady again. But I could feel a presence in the old tree with hanging plants. I could feel that someone was staring at me as I was taking photos of flowers. I assumed that was probably the land spirit who looked after this house. He was quite polite but inquisitive wanting to know why I dropped by. I showed him my good intention so he could become more relaxed about my presence. I never tell my neighbours about what I had experienced for fear of frightening them.

My gardener, over the years, has experienced directly my psychic ability so she has accepted that a city dweller could have psychic ability, apart from village mediums, healers and shamans. There used to be a powerful witch doctor in this village while a few old mediums could still perform during annual village ceremony. I was quite surprised that elderly villagers still live life in connection with nature spirits and land spirits.

They have ceremonies to show their gratitudes to all land spirits and guardians of the river. The old tradition maintains respects towards nature and sacredness of natural surroundings. So, people have to think twice before they want to exploit the earth and natural resources. I hope that younger generations of villagers would maintain this old tradition for a long, long time.

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.