The Encampment

There are aspects of myself that, while not exactly a state secret, are things that I don't share all that often, as the sharing of them would create impressions and expectations that I really don't want to have attached to myself. So when I say that I am psychic I want it to be understood that, like most psychics, I'm not all that good at it.

I know things. I feel things. I meet someone and have flashes of intuition that are later corroborated when I make gentle inquiries about the individual. I have always done this, it's been a part of my life since I was a child. The trouble with it is that it comes unbidden and I have little control over it. So I have never had any aspirations about starting Ludi's Psychic Hotline and I can't tell you the winning lottery numbers or whether or not you're going to end up roasting in a fiery plane crash when you take your next holiday in Greece.

Along with my annoying ability to turn off street lights randomly when I'm depressed or pissed off, I have the ability to peer into people souls...sometimes. I can also get impressions of places and the residual moods attached to them...sometimes. I frequently can tell when I've irked someone and when they are doing their best to hide it...it's like a little black shadow that skitters over their face while they try to remain composed. Every so often I've asked the person if the last thing I said bothered them and invariably they answer in the affirmative. I've scored high in various tests...especially when I was young.

Crowds are difficult for me: I get dizzy by all the impressions and emotions being tossed about. They drain me...so I avoid them. It has made being a rock musician a challenging affair, and it's one of the reasons I have opted for recording over live work. Plus I hate games and politics. There is that too.

When I was younger I was kind of an open psychic wound and impressions would come to me fairly often and hit me over the head and leave me feeling battered...so I gradually closed myself off and put up walls that, due to other aspects of my makeup, were generally only partially effective. But it was something. It helped. Still does.

So having shut myself off as I have it's pretty rare for something to really beat me up anymore, which is why I was so stunned when I recently visited one of my best friends in Minneapolis to see a concert and hang out in general for a couple days.

My friend mentioned that we would be driving past a place called The Encampment...which is an area that the city (being more compassionate than most American cities) has allowed a large assemblage of homeless to live in kind of a tent city. He made mention of this and I thought “well...that sounds like a sad place” and thought nothing more of it.

As we approached the place on my right, I started feeling the old churning in the pit of my stomach. I figured it would end there. It didn't. I was hit with a wave of misery of such overwhelming strength that I had difficulty breathing. I teared up and it felt like my insides were being pulled out of me. I have not felt such a depth of despair since when I learned that my father in law had died unexpectedly.  It was indescribable. It was the soul's equivalent of a heart attack and I'm not exactly sure what it meant.

My friend told me that they have been trying to find housing for these poor people before it gets too cold. I really hope they do. This is a terrible situation for them and I'm unclear as to whether my impressions were due to the ongoing tragedy of being forced to live this way by an economic system run by the calloused and inhumane, or if it was a psychic harbinger of some massive tragedy to come. In either case, I felt that it was worth mentioning this event as I feel that it must mean SOMETHING. There has to be SOME reason why my semi-dormant psychic intuition chose THIS tragedy over all the others increasingly besetting our troubled species and planet.

So I'm putting this out there in hopes that Universe has a purpose for it, as I'm utterly without a clue at this juncture. I've not felt so gutted in years and I hope the city can find help for these folks before it gets deadly cold...and that's only a matter of weeks. If I could guess the lottery numbers I'd house them myself. I'd do a lot of things like that if I had that ability, I suppose.