Day: May 23, 2025

When I lived in the Philippines superstitions abounded about the mysterious
Siquijor Island, a province of the Philippines.

Some believed if you visited there, you might never come back and never be found.

And shape-shifting vampiric creatures called aswang roamed there seeking human prey. If you see one, you’re dead.

Cursed belette trees inhabit the island, which are said to be the dwelling place for supernatural beings, like the tikbalangs, half-horse, half-human creatures who like to cause travelers to get lost.

And evil witches, God forbid if you run into one of them!

Fireflies populated the island too, thought to be the souls of dead young women.

What is true about about Siquijor is many respected spiritual healers live there
and many seek their help for all manner of medical complaints.

And the island just might be a bit mystical.

Bob Boyd

Before my four year stint in the Philippines,
when I was in my mid sixties,
I used to see a beautiful elderly woman, who appeared
to be in her early seventies,
taking walks alone not far from where I worked.

She was always dressed in fashionable dresses and
had beautiful gray hair she wore in a long wavy hair style.

She was easily one of the most beautiful elderly
women I had ever seen.

I never saw her with anyone. I believed
she had a husband who preceded her in death,
and that her long walks were not only for exercise
but also to ease her grief over losing him.

I never saw her on her walks when I retired from
the Philippines and lived near where she walked.

I thought she had perished and felt a little sad that
she had died.

But a few months ago, eleven years later, I saw her
taking a walk.

Her hair had grayed more and become as if frayed
by age; she had put on weight, and looked close to
dying.

I was sad to see her in such a state, but then I felt that
if what I had believed about her had been correct, her
having a husband that died before her,

she would be young again and reunited with him in
the afterlife and be happier than she ever could
have been in this impermanent life.

Bob Boyd

I put no credence in palm reading
but I’ve always found the idea that
futures could be found in peoples’
palms fascinating.

And that by lines in one’s hands
futures could be revealed: Live lines,
fate lines, heart and head lines,
Mercury and Sun lines.

Whoever dreamt up palmistry must
have had an ingenious imagination.

And it always made for a cool scene
when a palm reader in a movie,
got a terrified look on her face
while reading some doomed soul’s
palm.

And though palmistry is labeled a
pseudoscience, I find it fascinating
and amazingly imaginative.

But not enough to ever have my palm
read. Besides, I’ve lived far enough
into my future that all the tales
have been told.

Bob Boyd

Some claim we astral travel in dreams
Some say it’s our consciousness that
travels in the netherworld of dreams.
I’m not a believer in these claims, but
what they believe could be right.

And sometimes dreams take place
in otherworldly surreal settings
or strange wonderland scenarios.
So I can see some attributing that
to traveling astrally in those strange
dreams to astral plane destinations.

But even in the most bizarre dreams
I’ve ever experienced, I’ve never had
the sense of leaving my body.

I have wondered if sometimes my
dreams have intersected with the
dreams of others, especially in a
romantic dream with a woman
I’ve never met in the material
world.

Maybe that could be a form of
astral traveling, or maybe those
dreams where one meets others
are just dreams.

It is my hope that those who
have nightmares are not astral
traveling to horrifying places
and are just having unsettling
dreams.

Bob Boyd

when i was in the air force and attached to an army post in zweibrucken, germany

i was with some friends in a restaurant in another part of germany and surprisingly a waitress there couldn’t take her eyes off me as though i were a famous movie star

she wasn’t the waitress at our table and i hadn’t spoken to her in the little german i knew from 2 years of college german at the u of maryland that offered college courses on the army post

she was quite pretty and sometimes i wondered why i didn’t talk to her and possibly had a serendipitous romance with her and if that lovely german waitress could have been the love of my life

i’ve had other situations like that i never pursued
maybe missed opportunities

i think it’s because i always preferred to know a woman a little instead of blindly pursuing her

and i never cared for trying to pick up a woman i didn’t know

or maybe i wasn’t bold enough to take that kind of risk for love
though i did like the female attention and was always surprised by it

bob boyd

i once had an acquaintance who was a carefree
good looking guy with a good looking girlfriend
who died in a car accident when she was with him
one horrible night

the guy went a little crazy after that and seemed
to find comfort in collecting nazi memorabilia
and hating jewish people

i never understood that terrible transformation
it was like a doctor hyde became a permanent
jekyll

or as if he had become possessed by the spirit of
a dead nazi

i’ll never know what made a great nice guy
turn to something evil and change so radically

i only know when he handed me a nazi sword
it felt undeniably evil

bob boyd

romantic love doesn’t appear to last
breakups and divorces
clearly attest to that
it seems temporary even in a marriage
of many decades after
when one of the spouses
passes away and love
appears done
the till death do
us part

in some cases the surviving spouse
marries someone else
and revived romantic love
becomes temporary once again
when one of them dies

but it may not be temporary
when in deathbed visions
a surviving spouse
sees the deceased spouse
in a vision
when the surviving spouse
is dying
as if the spouses are
joined together again
in the afterlife
as if romantic love might
be permanent
beyond this life

as if deathbed visions
possibly are proof
that romantic love lasts

bob boyd