Secret #10: Photographing the Paranormal

Much of the day-to-day life of a traditional shaman is pretty tame.  I like to call it, "The Path of Common Sense," because much of what you do as a shaman is pretty much that.  Balance?  It often involves finding the sweet spot between relaxation and exercise.  Sometimes, "Going to be early and getting some extra sleep," is the answer to the problem that confronts me.  Traditional shamans are notorious for simply slowing down and letting things unfold while everyone else runs around and frets about the situation.  After all, we can only work with what's in our hands - or take a single step at a time.  Shamanism encourages us to simply breathe and wait for that single choice to appear.  Once it does, you pounce.  Until then, there's not much you can do - except worry about things you can't control.

And then there's the part of the path that makes it seem like your life is an episode of The X-Files.

For whatever reason - and theories abound - shamans attract the paranormal like picnics attract ants.  We don't talk about it much, but it's a semi-regular part of a shaman's life.

And my camera is never very far away.

The Awakening embraces the paranormal on countless levels and its sequels (A Tide of Shadows and Days of the Fallen) find the otherworld coming alive all around us.  The site that I mentioned in yesterday's blog (the recreation of a fictional small town), both expands upon The Awakening and offers glimpses into future books in the series through the posts and comments of the town's residents.  One of the posts is based around (and includes) a series of photographs that I took back in 2007.

I had spent the night at a friend's house and received a phone call from them the next morning.  As they went about their morning routine, they had discovered footprints on their wall that hadn't been there the day before.  Without giving away any more details than is necessary for the blog (the story is included in the site), those footprints were decidedly "non-human."  I went back to their house, camera in hand, and photographed the footprints, carefully measuring them as I did so.  They were approximately 3 inches (7.62 cm) wide.  Each had four toes with a large gap between the pad of the foot and the toes themselves.  I've taken the liberty of turning up the contrast around the print in this photograph so you can see it more easily and both the originals and this picture appear on the site.

The circle indicates the area where I increased the contrast to improve visibility.

With the exception of increasing the contrast to make this photo clearer, the photographs in this story have not been altered in any way and these prints were actually found on the bedroom wall of a very nice home.  Before you begin guessing what made the print, you should hear the whole story as some of the details are rather startling.  The site containing the story can be found in the pages of The Awakening (which publishes this Friday) and the prints foreshadow events that take place in its sequel, A Tide of Shadows.

My hope is that the photographs, stories, and accompanying Web site will make it that much easier for the reader to lose themselves in The Awakening.

The Awakening (May 13, 2011) sets the stage for A Tide of Shadows (May 2012), which in turn builds to the climax found in Days of the Fallen (May 2013).  You can read the first three chapters online for free.  The Awakening will be published on Friday the 13th in both paperback and ebook formats.

Secret One: Aleph (May 1st)
Secret Two: The End (May 2nd)
Secret Three: Angels (May 3rd)
Secret Four: The Bloodline (May 4th)
Secret Five: Heaven and Hell (May 5th)
Secret Six: What Does God Look Like? (May 6th)
Secret Seven:  Working Miracles (May 7th)
Secret Eight: The Four Horsemen (May 8th)
Secret Nine: Small Town Mysteries (May 9th)
Secret Ten: Photographing the Paranormal (May 10th)
Secret Eleven: Blood on the Threshold (May 11th)
Secret Twelve: Find the Thread (May 12th)
Secret Thirteen: How Does the World End? (May 13th)