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‘This is very long so please bear with me!! A few months ago I started seeing owl symbolism everywhere. In dreams, shops, scrolling Facebook, in books, advertisements, everywhere were pictures of owls. Then one night at work (my jobs are cemetery assistant, running paranormal investigations for groups and running tours of an old cemetery and the catacombs below. This particular instance was during my ‘ghost job’) I went outside alone to get some air and on the fence was an actual owl watching me. We looked at each other for a while and I recorded it and showed some friends the footage, who noticed that around the owl wind was blowing as the surrounding foliage was moving wildly. This was a very hot, dry night during the recent heat wave, which is why I was outside, so no reason for the wind to be blowing like it was in the footage. Someone else then came outside and the owl flew away, towards the moon. I did some reading and divination on the experience and without going into that in huge detail, it led me to a part of Sherwood Forest where I often go to collect items for magick, balms, blends etc. I have been going to that particular wood since I was a child but this time I couldn’t get there! I kept getting turned around and even when I used my Sat Nav it took me somewhere else entirely. So I decided to go to a different wood, also one I’ve been going to since childhood. I’d done a lot of reading before going, and had a small incantation/phrase that I said when entering the woods that was to do with Gwyn Ap Nudd. This is a wood frequented by dog walkers but there was nobody there at all. I’d brought with me a small bottle of wine, milk, honey, cakes and a blend that I made from carefully chosen flowers, herbs and items that I’d collected from woods previously. I was walking trying to get a feel for where I should place these and at one point, I looked to me left and saw a clearing in the forest that looked ‘different’ for want of a better word. It was lit up, gold and green, and looked tranquil and inviting. When I tried to get there however the way through was via an arch created by the branches of two trees intertwining. I stepped up to pass through and noticed that the arch was fully crisscrossed with spiderwebs, with spiders sat in the middles of them. Spiders are my biggest phobia, so my initial thought was: ‘Is this a test? Should I just break them and go through?’ But then I thought that would be destroying something made by the creatures of the woods and would be extremely disrespectful. I stood there for around fifteen to twenty minutes trying to decide what to do, during which time two brown butterflies danced around each other and went behind the arch and then sat on a branch on the other side. I looked at the clearing from the way they went around, and it just looked ‘normal’, so decided not to go that way. I moved into a different part of the wood and found a log that felt right to leave my offerings. A couple of nights later I went to my local canal in the early hours of the morning, which I do pretty regularly as I like the feel of the place. I sat with my feet in the water for a long time like I usually do and traced a symbol for Queen Mab in the water a few times that I had seen in a book a couple of days before. When I got up to leave, I had the distinct feeling that something was behind me but the words ‘Like Orpheus’ suddenly popped into my head, so I thought, okay, so I guess I shouldn’t look back. I walked back up the hill from the canal to the main road, desperate to look back as I could feel a presence there, and when I got to the top a fox appeared in front of me. It looked as surprised as I was, looking left and right as though it had been dropped there unexpectedly. I tried to follow it, but it had disappeared. On my way home there is no real way I can think of to describe the experience. I could feel and hear everything. Not from the mundane – a bicycle went past, and I couldn’t hear that, same with a car, but I could hear a mouse in the undergrowth, I had to touch all of the flowers and trees on the way home, it was as if I’d taken a drug which was absolutely not the case. The night after that I saw something in my room out of the corner of my eye. When I tried to focus on it, it had gone. It was about twenty to thirty centimetres tall, brown and looked as if it was covered wooden feathers. I’ve seen it again twice since, again for milliseconds and I can never look directly at it. A hairclip I lost ages ago appeared next to my foot a few days ago and before that, a bracelet I do not own and would never have bought was on the desk I use every day when I went into my workroom in the morning. I’ve heard my name called quietly a couple of times, keep feeling a light pressure on my bed at night, like gentle footsteps, and have twice heard a sort of chittering noise in my room when I’m trying to sleep. Nothing about any of this feels threatening. I’ve been leaving cinnamon milk out for a few nights now. Weirdly since all of this the owl symbolism has vanished and been replaced with crows. Sorry I realise all of this sounds hugely unhinged, but it feels really good to write it all down! I’ve done a lot of divination since and it all seems to be leading back to the wood where I left the items, but I haven’t had the chance to go back yet.’ ‘A chittering noise, squeaks and my name being said, but heard in my head and not my ears.’ ‘Brown, around twenty to thirty centimetres tall, covered in what looked like wooden feathers.’ Fairies are ‘ancient folk that have always been here but exist behind a veil that is rarely opened’. ‘In my jobs I experience ‘ghost’ activity regularly, but this felt completely different. More tangible, encompassed more senses, no fear at all.’