I Remember A Big Sign

Full transcript of the My True Ghost Stories episode “I Remember A Big Sign.” Listen to this episode.

Hello and welcome to episode 16 of My True Ghost Stories. The episodes from the last two weeks have been about me as a medium, not being scared of ghosts anymore after a conversation with a friend in a restaurant and learning what these spirits want from me, which is assistance in crossing over or going up, and and me learning how to help them with that. And to be honest, I don't know the exact sequence of things that happened after that in my spiritual life. I know that I was talking to ghosts all the time, and I was sending them up left and right because I had figured out how to do that. And this was all pre-boundaries.

And it was exhausting, but it was less exhausting than being scared all the time and trying to pretend that I didn't see and sense these ghosts around me. And also very importantly, nothing spooky was happening. And last week's episode I talked about an angry, frustrated ghost who is moving stuff and scared the living daylights out of me. And in hindsight, I'm thinking that maybe that ghost moving things or the spirits moving things was just for emphasis so that I would believe that it was true. And it could be that the powers that be after that saw that that level of scary would not be effective in getting me to do this work.

So after that day, spooky stuff didn't happen anymore. No stuff rattling around. And although I said that I don't remember the exact sequence of things, I do remember that I was getting more in touch with my guides. And these guides would literally guide me, instruct me, tell me what to do next with the spirit, what to say, how to help. And also, I was beginning to get a feeling of protection, protection from negativity and protection from plain old danger.

As a kid, I was really superstitious. And it was not a comforting protection that I was getting being a really superstitious kid. Like it was, you know, if I don't knock on wood, I'll be punished. And it had to do, I think it had to do with being scared of the invisible spirits who were around me all the time trying to get my attention. And I was trying to counteract that with intense superstition.

But now, as a medium, sending spirits up and following my guides, I was connecting to a different kind of protection, a loving and tolerant kind. And it was during this time that I remembered a story from my 20s that really demonstrated this level of protection from danger and negativity. And this story starts, of course, with a showbiz story, because that's what I was doing in my 20s. So I was doing a six-month gig in Germany. And it was in a theme park in Germany.

And the show that I was in featured impersonators of American singers. And in the show, I was a dancer behind the impersonators. And we would do the choreography from all the music videos. We would like reenact them. So we had the costumes and the choreography.

And this show consisted of a series of impersonators and us reenacting the music videos as far as choreography and music goes. We didn't do music videos with like a plot. We just did music and dancing. So we did many shows a day. And we were somewhat exhausted, but we were all in our 20s.

So we were not that exhausted. So we would still go out dancing at nine, go to bars. And this theme park was near a city called Cologne. And I'm saying it like a New Yorker. I'm not going to try to pronounce it correctly.

It was in a city called Cologne. And they set us up in apartments in Cologne. The theme park set us up the performers in these apartments in Cologne. One was a truly haunted apartment, but that will be another episode. So we did all of our partying and hanging out in Cologne.

And one of my favorite spots to hang out was the Dome Cathedral. The Dome Cathedral is a Catholic Cathedral in Cologne. And it was the highest structure in the world until the Washington Monument was built. And this building had been through a lot. The site had a church on it since the fourth century.

And the present building was built in 1248. After the one before it was destroyed in a fire. And then it took 600 years to complete. And it had been occupied by soldiers in the French Revolution and was badly damaged in World War II. And just standing next to it, you could see in the cornerstones, like small craters and holes that were obviously from bullets and bombs.

So like I said, this building had been through a lot. And there was something really special about it. It had community, not just the congregation of the church, the whole site, the whole area around it. People were hanging out on the steps, playing music. And then people were doing art with this really cool art, with chalk on the sidewalks outside of the church.

And of course the inside was glorious. I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it was in there. I've put a link in the show notes to an article about the Dome Cathedral. So you can look at some pictures there. And there was a religious aspect to it, of course.

It was a spiritual place. And I could feel it. I loved going inside there. And I also really fell in love with the building itself. I had a connection with that building.

I identified with that building. Because like the Dome Cathedral, I had also been through a lot and was still standing. I would go there often, sometimes by myself and sometimes with friends from the show. And we sort of named the area we called it Dome. I'm going down to Dome, which the local Cologne people from the theme park that we worked with.

They thought that was very odd because it was not called Dome. But we had decided to call it that. And we went down to Dome all the time. And I was in love with that building and the vibe around it. So one of the perks of an American working in Europe is that it's really easy to travel around Europe.

And we took advantage of that on the days off. We saw Paris and Amsterdam and other parts of Germany. And we really toured around Europe. And in the fall, the show ended. And it was time to go back to New York.

But one other cast member and I decided to go to London before heading home. This trip entailed. A bus ride to Belgium, a late night ferry ride through the English channel to Dover, a port in the UK, and then a bus ride from Dover to London. And this was all on the evening of October 15th, 1987. Also known as the Night of the great storm of 1987.

Also known as the worst storm to hit the UK in 300 years. And here's some information about that storm from a site called the Met Office, providing forecasts for the United Kingdom since the 19th century. A powerful storm ravaged many parts of the UK in the middle of October, 1987. It was the worst storm in almost 300 years. With winds gusting at up to 100 miles per hour, there was massive devastation across the country and 18 people were killed.

About 15 million trees were blown down. Buildings were damaged by winds or falling trees. Numerous small boats were racked or blown away. With one ship at Dover, being blown over in a channel ferry was blown ashore near folks town. And I spent this night, the night of the great storm of 1987, the worst storm to hit the UK in 300 years.

I spent this night on a small ferry in the middle of the English channel. We took our bus ride to Belgium and as they were bringing our luggage to the ferry, it was very windy and no one seemed disturbed about this. So I thought, well maybe it's always very windy on the shore of the English channel. And the trip started off fine. Apparently the weather report had called for heavy rain.

And after about an hour, it got a little rough. And over the next few hours, a little rough turned into howling winds. Huge waves hitting the sides of the boat, hitting the front of the boat. The boat leaving the water and crashing back down again, over and over again. At one point, the staff came down and started checking the ties that would release the life jackets.

And they did this right in front of us. They made no attempt to hide this activity. And they knew that we knew that this was bad, really bad. And I spent most of this time, because I am prone to motion sickness. I spent most of this time in stall number three of the bathrooms getting very sick.

And between trips to stall number three, I would lie there on one of the benches in the center of the boat, trying not to get sick in absolute terror. Now there were windows on all sides of the boat, but it was pitch black outside. We had left at night, and now it was even darker. And all you could see was the waves hitting the windows, and all you could hear was the howling wind. I would occasionally sit back up and hope to see some sort of shoreline or something, but it was always pitch black, because we were really in the middle of the ocean.

So I would just lie back down or run back to stall number three. So here's what happened. I had chosen this one bench, and it was of course near a window, and it was near my fellow traveler. And I was trying not to look out the window. After hours of waiting to see a shoreline, I was starting to accept that we were still very far from land.

And I could tell that the storm was getting worse, and that I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't even know if we were going to survive. So I set up from my bench for a peek out the window with this hope that maybe I'll see some some land. I'll see some lights. And I looked out the window, and right there in the middle of the ocean, far from any land and isolated as if on a tiny island illuminated and still I saw with my eyes.

In the middle of this deadly storm, I saw the dome cathedral. And this was not a dream. It was a vision. It was a message. It was a statement.

And the statement was, you will survive this. Just like that cathedral surviving for centuries, I would go through this and still be standing. I closed my eyes for a minute to process this vision and this message. And when I opened my eyes, it was dark outside again. But I knew what I saw and I knew that it was real.

And the dome cathedral, my friend and comrade, my fellow survivor, my sister was right. I survived. I arrived with the dozens of other grateful to be alive passengers at the cliffs of Dover at dawn, about five hours later than we were supposed to arrive. And I was able to look out the window and see not just light but land. And the water was still rough but nothing like the night before.

And we were anchored and safe. We spent six hours floating there waiting to dock while I stared at the white cliffs of Dover. This was a site we were maybe going to visit. But there was no need now. I stared at them for six hours while one boat at a time docked in these rough waters.

And I was still regularly visiting stall number three because the water was rough. The boat was rocking. But we eventually docked. And we got on the bus and we traveled to London and we got to our hotel. And the next day we toured around looking at filled trees and smashed cars and listening to news reports about how there had been no warning to the public about how severe this storm would be.

I guess if they'd known they would have not let small boats venture across the English channel. And now luckily we have radar and the internet and dangerous weather warnings are easily received. So I would not probably ever wind up in a situation like this again. And I realized that I and everyone else on that boat we are lucky to be alive to have survived that storm. And I know from the message that I was given by the spirit of the dome cathedral that I was destined to survive that storm.

She told me I always remembered that message from that experience. And I began to put it into my daily life when I started this work, this scary work of dealing with trapped spirits because that requires courage. And I've learned to trust signs, big signs and little signs. Seeing the dome cathedral, a symbol of survival in the middle of the ocean during a deadly storm, that's a big sign. And that sign was sent to me.

And it encouraged me to have faith, to not give up, and to be brave. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you've enjoyed this episode, I would ask you if you can to take a second to review it and share it with a friend to help this show grow. And that's all for today. Thank you for listening to today's episode.

And if you think your house is haunted, want energy cleared from your space or need a custom spiritual ritual, I'm here to help. Visit jpclearing.com or email me at jpclearing60 at gmail.com. Don't forget to join me here every Tuesday for a new episode. Until next time.