Day 20: Sparkling Cherokee Spirits, not cider...
Pre Script: This is an entry that I sorely needed an actual keyboard to write it on as opposed to notepad on my iPhone. I was not able to do today justice with my phone. But I did my best. Thank you guys so much for being patient as I work with what I have.
Cave 1: Mammoth Cave
Mammoth Cave in Kentucky was a great experience. It is the longest known cave system in the world coming in at 400 surveyed miles. And that is just what's been explored.
The Historic tour was two hours long but I could have stayed in there all day. It was very cool.
Names were written on the ceiling of the cave with lantern fire that dated from the 1800s. And some of the names were of fine calligraphy which is remarkable since each letter had to be made up of many individual burn marks or dots from the small flame of a lantern. Initials were more common since they were obviously easier to write, but one that caught my eye and that the tour guide pointed out was the large full name arching over a prominent section of the cave "Isaac Newton"! Obviously it wasn't THE Isaac Newton that wrote it but it is still interesting to note that someone either with the same name or someone who liked Isaac Newton enough found it in their interest to trek into the dark and mark his name on the ceiling. I found myself just wanting to explore the names and see who else had it in their mind to burn their essense into Mammoth Cave from hundreds of years ago. Perhaps, had I enough time, I could have found my own initials. It's very likely. There were a lot.
There was more recent and admittedly less interesting graffiti all over the place but it is a federal offense to write your name now, as it is seen as vandalism--as opposed to historic art. There is something obviously intrinsic in the year 1970 that transforms graffiti in the cave from historic art to vandalism. I couldn't tell you what it is though...
The early arbiters of the cave, post Native American inhabitants let their African American slaves guide interested parties through the cave system in the mid 19th century. And a certain Steven Bishop who is credited with discovering and mapping nearly half of what Is currently known of the cave was the first person to cross "the bottomless pit." The pit was a sheer drop off of a hundred or so feet of which the bottom couldn't be seen. My group walked over it with ease since there is now a steel walkway traversing it. But Bishop originally managed this by extending a plank across the void and hanging the lanterns he needed in his mouth while shimmying across it. Not only did falling into the pit mean certain death but losing the lantern was nearly as deadly since there is no outside light that deep into the system.
We had the opportunity to turn all the lights off deep within the cave. Even though it was only for a few moments, the blackness to me was strikingly remarkable. Obviously losing your light altogether could easily spell certain death so far into the cave but given my privileged and quite safe advantage in this circumstance, that moment of utter darkness, to me was almost heavenly. I felt a moment of pure delight as I waved my hand in front of my face and saw absolutely nothing. For a moment I wished that there was no one else around me so I could just lie down and take in the grand silence while I entertained the avenues of thought that so easily came into mind as the absence of light rested upon me. I'm not certain that I've ever experienced such a sensation as vivid as this darkness was. It was grandly beautiful.
Steven Bishop learned how to read and write from allowing his tourists to write their names on the ceiling with the burning flicker of lanterns. The spark of light in the human soul perseveres in the darkest abysses, both temporal and spiritual. It's people like this that inspire me to take advantage of all of the blessings that abound in my life. Thank you Steven Bishop.
Cave 2: The Bell Witch Cave
*disclaimer. This section might be frightening to some. The Bell Witch is a demonic entity that terrorized and brutalized the Bell Family in the early 1800s.
This cave has been on my mind for years. And it was only an hour and a half away on the other side of the Tennessee boarder line so I took advantage of the opportunity and went. Unlike Mammoth Cave this cave is on private property and the tour guides are a sixteen year old girl and I'm assuming her mother. Upon entering the premises I was notified by a single finger point and, not so much as a glance in my direction to a sign that said "no less than two must be on a tour." I was the only one there...
Determined to visit the cave I waited around for about a half an hour trying to make small talk with the man of the property who I'm assuming was the father, but I just got the silent treatment since all my questions "would be answered on the tour" that it appeared I wouldn't be able to go on.
Finally a car rounded the bend of the old country road and a family got out. I had my tour group, or so I thought. They got to the desk, looked around and apparently just then decided that crawling into a cursed cave haunted by the demonic witch spirit of Kate Batts who was responsible for terrorizing and brutalizing the Bell family for years vowing to return in the future wasn't exactly a family appropriate activity... To which I responded privately--how did you even make it this far than? We're in the middle of nowhere!
So my hopes were dashed. That is until another vehicle pulled up a few minutes later. And this one was an even happier and nicer looking and younger family. I didn't have much hope with this one and once again they entered the visited center, looked around and left, much to the chagrin of the man behind the desk.
"I have never seen that happen before." He said puzzled.
I sighed.
But then a few minutes more went by and another car pulled up and two people got out and they walked straight up to the desk and paid for the tour. I was in!
We met up with a few other people who were already on the tour and I felt a little out of place as the sixteen year old girl half hazardously walked us through some replicas of the original cabins trying, or perhaps not trying to scare us with the audio tapes of voice actors reciting the journal entries of one of the Bell sons who suffered through the original hauntings from the Bell Witch.
Honestly, at first, I thought it was really kind of hokie and I was almost regretting the $20 I dished out for this tour. But toward the end of the cabins tour the recordings began to strike me.
This Kate Batts creature seemed to be a real entity who really did appear to, speak to, and terrorize the Bell family. It seemed eerily familiar. She was reported to take on multiple personas, even at one time pretending to be an Indian from the burial ground they had built their cabins on. Her disembodied voice quoted bible passages to the family, and at other times she physically did harm to them, tearing blankets off of them in the middle of the night and pulling hair and other terrifying things. The son even reported that she could read their thoughts and make predictions about the future, even asserting that time and space had no bounds on her. He reported that she regularly appeared to him and to others in the family usually at night. And at one point Kate Batts even threatened to kill Mr. Bell.
Out of all of the terror it was made known to me afterwards by the other more seasoned tour guide that the Bell family reported her alluding to the Native Americans and saying things like how they and some other unknown cultures weren't as primitive as everyone thought and that if the scientists knew exactly where to look on the earth we would leap forward into new plains of understanding as earlier cultures had previously done. This is certainly a very odd demon.
After the final cabin I was a little bit more interested. But I think I was just excited to get into the cave.
We walked around a field and downward toward a stagnant body of water. Around some cliff faces we turned and you could see the entrance to the cave. There was an iron gate with a large lock on it just inside the entrance that made it look immediately intimidating as you descending down into it.
We started walking down a long natural corridor lit by flood lights lining the walls and almost immediately my left eye started twitching. It does that occasionally so I wasn't worried about.
After maneuvering through the rocks into the first open room the guide showed us the grave site of a Native American child. She began to tell us all about the history of it and how Ghost Adventures had been there recently and how they were able to get geologists down there to examine the interior. Petrified coral-reef stuck to the ceiling which had been there since the whole of this continent was under the ocean some un-remembered and ungodly amount of years ago. Countless geodes half embedded in the walls of the cave were smashed and used as flint arrows by the Cherokee as well.
While she was talking I kept seeing this odd red and sometimes white blip of light around the cave. It felt like it was inside my eye though, not exterior and my left eye continued to twitch. It was almost like a very brief twinkling light that appeared every so often. I ravenously took picture on my phone.
We got to the end of the cave(as far as we were allowed to go) and she discussed with us all things Bell Witch. She kept pointing the light at me because she was trying to point out certain spots in the cave and I was apparently too eager to explore them before she had gotten to them so I kept having to jump out of the way so the rest of the group could see what she was pointing at.
Finally, she told us of her experiences in the cave. Four times in the last twenty or so years since she's been there, she said she'd seen a rippling figure that she related to the mirage effect you see when heat rises off of a highway road, that not only blurred the light around it, but, you guessed it, sparkled with different colors.
I chuckled but didn't say anything. My eye twitched again. After awhile it became apparent that she was ready to bring the group back out. I rushed in front of everyone to the first room so I could be alone in there for a few moments. I saw the white sparkle blip high above the floor and near to where the cave extended upward into a higher room that a person could get to if a little acrobatic climbing were employed. I followed it as far as I felt like I wouldn't get reprimanded and looked up. Straining my neck to see further into the upper corridor where I last saw the white sparkle heading I reached farther upward and pointed my light in that direction. The rest of the group was still a ways behind me. And I squinted. Just as I thought I might see the the light again it hit me right in the face. In the left eye that is. A heavy water droplet landed directly into my left already twitching eye as I looked directly upward. It was the same one that had been twitching the whole time and that I'd been thinking the sparkling lights was being seen from. I stepped back and to my surprise the group was in the room and beginning to leave it actually. I let them continue so I could have a few more moments alone with the cave. I took several more pictures in the empty Cherokee grave room, looked around stoically and began making my way to the exit. I didn't see the lights again after the water hit me.
"Last one?" She asked as I exited.
"Yep." I replied.
I walked to my car and left.
My left eye is even more irritated now. It feels like there is gunk in it and it has that scratched eyeball feel to it. I'm not worried though.
Now, as far as I know, the reports of the Bell Witch are actual and true in the understanding of those who experienced the terror. I have no idea how much of it is played up to sound worse than it was but certainly this entire place has had an odd existence. The witch, the Cherokee burial mound, the sparkling ghosts. It was so odd even that Andrew Jackson made a visit to the property at one point. It is said that he was scared off and never returned.
My whole left eye twitching, seeing the sparkling lights and the water hitting my left eye after the whole thing was over is to me, kind of uncanny. But I'm not making a big deal out of it. It just makes me smirk.
It's time for bed. God bless.
