#thin places

[funeral]

Celtic tradition holds that the earth’s geography contains “thin places.” Heaven and earth are only three feet apart, the adage goes, but in such liminal zones, the distance is even less. Thin places are thought to be those areas where the temporal and spiritual converge, where the invisible and visible worlds coalesce. It could be a mountain or a river, some geographic axis, some threshold of rock, earth, or water, some pleat in the river or fold in the land that has the capacity to advance human spirit. It might be a place that becomes the site for a temple or monastery or shrine, but it could just as well be the snow settling on a frozen lake, an eclipsed sky, an unexpected conversation. Thin places refer not simply to geographic features but to how these allow people spatial and psychic realignment.

Akiko Busch, How to Disappear

[merymoonbeam]

Mist and shadows

I talked about how Elriel might be connected to mist and ley lines in this post and then I remembered another quote that has mist in it...

“A bird of burning feathers,” I said. “Firebird by day,” Rhys mused, “woman by night … So she’s held captive by this sorcerer-lord?” Elain shook her head. “I don’t know. I hear her—her screaming. With rage. Utter rage …” She shuddered. Mor leaned forward. “Do you know why the other queens cursed her—sold her to him?” Elain studied the table. “No. No—that is all mist and shadow.”

This is about vassa and why the other queens sold her to Koschei.

You might ask how this connects to ley lines...

Look at this quote describing what ley lines are.

“No,” Aidas agreed. “But Helena knew that Midgard possessed its own magic. A raw, weaker sort of magic than that in her home world, but one that could be potent in high concentrations. She learned that it flowed across the world in great highways, natural conduits for magic.” “Ley lines,” Bryce breathed. Aidas nodded. “These lines are capable of moving magic, but also carrying communications across great distances.” Like those between the Gates of Crescent City, the way she’d spoken to Danika the day she’d made the Drop. “There are ley lines across the whole of the universe. And the planets—like Midgard, like Hel, like the home world of the Fae—atop those lines are joined by time and space and the Void itself. It thins the veils separating us. The Asteri have long chosen worlds that are on the ley lines for that exact purpose. It made it easier to move between them, to colonize those planets. There are certain places on each of these worlds where the most ley lines overlap, and thus the barrier between worlds is at its weakest.” Everything slotted together. “Thin places,” Bryce said with sudden certainty. “Precisely,” Apollion answered for Aidas with an approving nod. “The Northern Rift, the Southern Rift—both lie atop a tremendous knot of ley lines. And while those under Avallen are not as strong, the island is unique as a thin place thanks to the presence of black salt—which ties it to Hel.” “And the mists?” Hunt asked. “What’s the deal with them?” “The mists are a result of the ley lines’ power,” Aidas said. “They’re an indication of a thin place. Hoping to find a ley line strong enough to help her transfer and hide Theia’s power, Helena sent a fleet of Fae with earth magic to scour every misty place they could find on Midgard. When they told her of a place wreathed in mists so thick they could not pierce them, Helena went to investigate. The mists parted for her—as if they had been waiting. She found the small network of caves on Avallen … and the black salt beneath the surface.” (hofas)

So it veils and mist is about where ley lines are at most...veiling is also important here bc Im gonna use it compare and add why elain used "mist and shadows" as an explaination why she couldnt see it.

We are gonna use the fourth dread trove and what nesta saw in acosf

A fourth object lay on the altar, veiled in shadow. But she couldn’t make out more than a gleam of age-worn bone—

This here I think connects to leylines bc the fourth dread trove was in crescent city so Nesta couldnt see it... only that it was veiled in shadows and what ley lines do? Veil the space between the world.

So...veil...mist...shadow....it is all connected.

And now shadows...I think it is pretty obvious. Azriel. Shadowsinger. And this connection I added in my thin places/ley lines post. Im adding the link again. You can find all the parallel quotes to this 👇🏻 in there.

Azriel didn’t give them a chance to exchange another word before murmuring shadows swept around them. Nesta couldn’t help clinging to Azriel, gleaning on some innate level that if she let go, she would tumble through this space between places and be lost forever.

And how Vassa connects to this...

I talked about Vassa and Elain connections in this post about the swan lake and how Sarah might use it for Vassa's storyline.

And another thing about Vassa and Elain is this...I connected it to book of breathings. You can read it here.

[thinplacesradio]

a staircase ascending upwards, framed pictures on the wall to the right. a pink haze over everything. the image is distorted by VCR static. white text reads:

[028] THE CURSE. A CALLER RETURNS TO A DARK PLACE. THE HOST DOES TOO.

listen here, or anywhere you find your podcasts. transcript under the cut:

[static, radio tuning]

[Traveling Sales Rep: Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, after these short messages.] [static, radio tuning]

[click]

Hello and welcome to Thin Places Radio. I’m your host,

and it is the middle of the night. But don’t worry. You’re not alone.

[Thin Places theme] 

[background thumps and buzzing]

I’m coming to you apprehensive from my studio, which is what I like to call this long, long staircase, built from decades-old creaking wood, descending down into the darkness below this antique store. I know I’ve been here before, even if I’m fuzzy on exactly when, or exactly how. Those memories I can look at out of the corner of my eye, if I don’t turn my head too fast. If I just let the road lead me back through my own mind, I think I’m getting somewhere. I’m its supplicant. I follow. 

[creaking footsteps] [thumping]

If I turn around now, I can see the rectangle of light above and behind me, the first eight and a half steps down, the splintering railing and a few shelves. A mouth. But now I’m lost to the sensation of nothing, the damp, woodsy chill that’s engulfed me.

[feet scuffing]

There is a kind of dark so absolute it makes you forget you exist as a thinking, feeling creature. You are nothing more than a heart beating in your own eardrums. If I listen very carefully I can hear it speaking with a voice of its own. But I don’t know what it’s saying. The dark. I have to wait for my eyes to adjust to it. But I know they will. You can adjust to anything if you give it a little bit of time. 

But it’d be nice if I could find a f***ing light switch down here instead. 

So… what is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you’ve got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.

Is your new pet a ghost? 

Does something bad keep happening to you when you pass through a certain place?

Are you trying to navigate a galaxies-long-distance relationship? 

When the veil between worlds is thin, we get closer than ever to the strange and the unexplained - and also to each other. Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.

[click] [voicemail:]

Hi - first time caller, long time listener, love your show. Thank you. I was wondering: do you think that a place can be cursed? Or that somebody can be - I don't know, like, when someone goes through a place that it can affect them in a negative way. The reason I ask is, I am sitting in Waco, and Waco always seems to be a weird place for me when I drive through. So I'm sitting here, in the middle of the night. It's been 3 hours. I'm sitting behind a car wreck. And people go up there and don't come back and it's just been a long time we've been waiting. But, anyhow, this first happened probably 30 years ago. I was driving through Waco, and we stopped at McDonald's, and we're eating our meal and look out the window and a trailer is literally being backed on top of my vehicle. It like, actually climbed up on top of my car. And it was just like so weird. So we kind of avoided Waco for a long time. We had like several other incidents where we got in accidents or almost got in accidents just in passing through Waco off of a particular stretch of 35. So my question: Are places cursed? Can a person be cursed in a place? Thank you.

[click] 

Hi, caller, thank you so much - it’s nice to be thought of. The answer to your question is exactly what you think it is.

Yes. Of course. 

It’s hard to imagine a place with darker energies than Waco, Texas, but everyone has their own personal cursed places, the places that pull them in again and again to get them stuck and to vanish them and to eat cars. Sometimes you don’t even know where that place is until you pass over it, again, and your body remembers that something happened to you there.

[searching music]

Sometimes what happens in a place curses it; sometimes, you keep carrying out the curse yourself.

And sometimes, when something cursed happens somewhere, it primes you to keep looking for the curse – to keep your ears pricked and your eyes peeled for another stretch of bad luck. When you’re stricken with a curse, that very first time, it’s really hard not to always be ready for it to come back to you. You want to be ready for when it hurts you again. You learn to expect the pain.

Pain will always find you. That’s not something that your mindset can fix. It always comes back to you, and you'll keep carrying it with you. But that’s when it becomes more important than ever to search for the blessed. The relief. The strange small beauties, even in a place like Waco, Texas. The gift of three hours to yourself, in the dark, in a place you didn’t want to sit and think in. The energy of a McDonald’s meal. The saving grace of a near-accident that wasn’t an accident. The wildflowers on the side of the road. The person in the passenger seat next to you.

You’re still allowed to take another route home next time, though. That’s okay, too. 

[click]

I could stay down here, you know. That’s what it’s telling me.

[echoed thudding]

In the dark you can be anything, and everything, and in the dark, it does not matter if you do not remember your name. It does not matter if you have a mystery to solve or food to find or a life to live. The forgetting lives in the dark, where there is no difference between sleep and waking. [buzzing, echoed words:] It wants me to stay. It would love me as a sponge loves water. There would no longer be a me. 

[buzzing builds, then stops abruptly]

But - no. No, there was someone on the line, just now. Someone that I was someone to. There’s a job I have to do. And there’s a lamp on a desk somewhere, back here. I remember. There’s - 

[steps]

There.

[lamp clicks on]

Oh. There’s nothing here. There’s nothing here. 

That was weird. I’m gonna get out of here. 

[lamp clicks off] [footsteps leave]

[click]

Thank you for listening, callers, and thank you for calling, listeners. I hope you feel a little bit lighter. I know I do. As always, our number is 717.382.8093. That’s 717.382.8093. Until next time. I’ll be here.

[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides - the - road - provides -]

Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal.

Tonight’s voicemail was left for us by Kelly. Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme, by Miles Morkri, and Umeed by RANA. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at ‪(717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.

[Thin Places Theme outro]

[ofruinsandmyth]

There is in Celtic mythology the notion of ‘thin places’ in the universe where the visible and the invisible world come into their closest proximity. To seek such places is the vocation of the wise and the good—and for those that find them, the clearest communication between the temporal and eternal. Mountains and rivers are particularly favored as thin places marking invariably as they do, the horizontal and perpendicular frontiers. But perhaps the ultimate of these thin places in the human condition are the experiences people are likely to have as they encounter suffering, joy, and mystery.

— Peter Gomes

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

E. A. Hornel and George Henry - The Druids Bringing in the Mistletoe, 1890 :: [One of my favourite paintings by the Glasgow Boys]

* * * *

“Someday you will want to know and I might not be here, so this is how you were made. . It was a soft night near the back of June, clear, for a change, no rain. . Old women were out gathering healing herbs, fennel, dog rose and rhu. . Bonfires burned on all seven hills, drunken young men leapt through the flames. . Down in the bogs the foxfire glowed, will o’ the wisps edged the meadows. . In our bed my wife laughed out loud at the loving pleasure of being a woman. . Like any man, I suppose, I was proud, and we fell to our sleep both smiling. . You were created of passion and magic, in Scotland, on Mid-Summer’s Eve. . Here in the North, that augers you special, your mother and I believe.”

— Young Dawkins (via paynehollow)

+

“The ancient Druids are said to have taken a special interest in in-between things like mistletoe, which is neither quite a plant nor quite a tree, and mist, which is neither quite a rain nor quite air, and dreams, which are neither quite waking nor quite sleep. They believed that in such things as those they were able to glimpse the mystery of the two worlds at once.”

- Frederick Buechner Whistling in the Dark [thanks to Whiskey River]

[lailoken]

My husband and I recently saw a place known locally as "The Three Arches" (there are two more natural stone arches in this stone outcropping, though they're not visible from this angle.)

It was a truly wisht location, and felt to me like a "Thin Place", betwixt the veils of worlds. It was long ago made illegal to visit it for the sake of preserving the wildlife there, and I frankly think that's for the best. But my oh my—what I wouldn't give to experience this location up close.

[jludeau]

Patron at The Sentinel in Marfa TX. July 2023. Photo by JLudeau. This guy oozed Jett Rink energy.

[tiptopticketyboo]

Mary Oliver Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting– over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

[earraigh]

home is a thin place

maigh eo, ireland - august '23

[deerhoades]

Exploring Thin Places: St. Patrick's Spiritual Journey

I have always been a huge fan of St. Patrick’s Day mostly because of my Irish roots, but until a few years ago, I knew almost nothing about St. Patrick. I am not Catholic so I had really no reason to know anything about him. Of course, I knew the legend of him running snakes out of Ireland, but that was essentially it. Then, my loving mother-out-law (don’t you love that!) went to Ireland and…

[birdmenmanga]

they are putting yaoi in the city art museum and censoring nsfw content with heat-responsive material so you have to put your hands on it to see dick

[uncanny-tranny]

I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.

I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:

Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)

Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)

Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often

Eat dessert first

Celebrate well, and often

Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)

Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.

Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate

Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)

Walk without having a specific destination or goal

Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.

I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.

[merymoonbeam]

Thin places – The Void – Cauldron – Elriel

So in hofas we learned about thin places...

“No,” Aidas agreed. “But Helena knew that Midgard possessed its own magic. A raw, weaker sort of magic than that in her home world, but one that could be potent in high concentrations. She learned that it flowed across the world in great highways, natural conduits for magic.” “Ley lines,” Bryce breathed. Aidas nodded. “These lines are capable of moving magic, but also carrying communications across great distances.” Like those between the Gates of Crescent City, the way she’d spoken to Danika the day she’d made the Drop. “There are ley lines across the whole of the universe. And the planets—like Midgard, like Hel, like the home world of the Fae—atop those lines are joined by time and space and the Void itself. It thins the veils separating us. The Asteri have long chosen worlds that are on the ley lines for that exact purpose. It made it easier to move between them, to colonize those planets. There are certain places on each of these worlds where the most ley lines overlap, and thus the barrier between worlds is at its weakest.” Everything slotted together. “Thin places,” Bryce said with sudden certainty. “Precisely,” Apollion answered for Aidas with an approving nod. “The Northern Rift, the Southern Rift—both lie atop a tremendous knot of ley lines. And while those under Avallen are not as strong, the island is unique as a thin place thanks to the presence of black salt—which ties it to Hel.” “And the mists?” Hunt asked. “What’s the deal with them?” “The mists are a result of the ley lines’ power,” Aidas said. “They’re an indication of a thin place. Hoping to find a ley line strong enough to help her transfer and hide Theia’s power, Helena sent a fleet of Fae with earth magic to scour every misty place they could find on Midgard. When they told her of a place wreathed in mists so thick they could not pierce them, Helena went to investigate. The mists parted for her—as if they had been waiting. She found the small network of caves on Avallen … and the black salt beneath the surface.” (hofas)

It is long but what we get from this is that

Ley lines are used for moving magic and...communication between worlds

Ley lines are joined by time and space and void

The mist is a big give away for thin places

So how all of this connect to Elain and Cauldron?

When Elain got out of the cauldron...the water was "smokey"

And as if it had been tipped by invisible hands, the Cauldron turned on its side. More water than seemed possible dumped out in a cascade. Black, smoke-coated water. And Elain, as if she’d been thrown by a wave, washed onto the stones facedown. (Acomaf)

Maybe it is not smoke but mist...as in Cauldron is a thin place?

When Feyre threw the book of breathings into the Cauldron...it went to Crescent City. How? We dont know. is it bc Cauldron being a thin place between worlds?

Also Cauldron has "void in it"

I managed to stand. To take one step before I felt it. The … thing in the Cauldron. Or lack of it. It was lack and substance, absence and presence. And … it was leaking into the world.I dared a step toward it. And what I beheld in those ruins of the Cauldron… It was a void. But also not a void—a growth.It did not belong here. Belong anywhere. (Acowar)

And who cauldron is obsessed with? Elain...a seer.

In my mystics&seers post I talked about the connection between void and elain more. But in the same post I talked about Mystics and seer connection and they seem to be the same.

In hosab mystics are described like this

The old male cut in, as if he hadn’t heard a word of their hissed argument. “Most astronomers and mystics have been put out of business these days, you know. Thanks to fancy tech. And self-righteous busybodies like you,” he spat toward Bryce. She snarled at him, the sound more primal Fae than she liked, but he waved that hateful, ring-encrusted hand toward the mystics in their pools. “They were the original interweb. Any answer you wish to know, they can find it, without having to wade through the slog of nonsense out there.”

And we know how one of the mystics "went" to hel and talked one of the hel princes.

what do we know about ley lines? 👇🏻

“These lines are capable of moving magic, but also carrying communications across great distances.” Like those between the Gates of Crescent City, the way she’d spoken to Danika the day she’d made the Drop.

So what if ley lines and being mystic/seer is connected? Did that mystic use the ley lines? As in they are the communication between worlds?

And we have world walkers...

“The black salt only repels the Asteri; the mists repel everyone else. But certain people, with certain gifts, can access the power of thin places—on any world. World-walkers.” Aidas gestured gracefully to Bryce. “You are one of them. So were Helena and Theia. Their natural abilities lent themselves to moving through the mists.”

Theia was one of them.

In myths theia is:

Theia (/ˈθiːə/; Ancient Greek: Θεία, romanized: Theía, lit. 'divine', also rendered Thea or Thia), also called Euryphaessa (Ancient Greek: Εὐρυφάεσσα) "wide-shining", is one of the twelve Titans, the children of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus in Greek mythology. She is the Greek goddess of sight and vision, and by extension the goddess who endowed gold, silver, and gems with their brilliance and intrinsic value.

Maybe sight and thin places/ley lines are more connected than we think?

Also I have been fascinated by this all this time but we have "pocket" realms or any pocket related thing...theia can do it, rhys can do it, apollion and maybe...azriel?

With theia we see this:

By the grace of the Mother, she was paranoid enough about any new allies or companions that she hid the Horn and Harp. She created a pocket of nothingness, she told me, and stashed them there. Only she could access that pocket of nothingness—only she could retrieve the Horn and Harp from its depths. (Hofas)

with apollion we have this:

The seventh and most lethal of the demon princes of Hel was in his mind- “I am not in your mind, though your thoughts ripple toward me like your world's radio waves. You and I are in a place between our worlds. A pocket-realm, as it were.”

Acomaf rhys:

Rhys reached into a bag I hadn’t realized he’d been carrying—no, one he’d summoned from whatever pocket between realms he used for storage.

And with azriel we have this:

Azriel didn’t give them a chance to exchange another word before murmuring shadows swept around them. Nesta couldn’t help clinging to Azriel, gleaning on some innate level that if she let go, she would tumble through this space between places and be lost forever.

We always known azriel's type of winnowing is different...BUT HOW DIFFERENT?

Also side note...Fionn probably has Shadow powers bc Helena and Silene both have shadow and starborn power so them taking the shadow from fionn is possible. I went into more detail about elriel connection to fionn in this post you can read it there.

So...pocket realms maybe they can somehow access space between the worlds? Thin places maybe connected to it?

Also side note this is maybe kinda crack but elriel scene also has "space between"

I saw the painting in my mind: the lovely fawn, blooming spring vibrant behind her. Standing before Death, shadows and terrors lurking over his shoulder. Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two. The only bridge of connection … that knife.

Maybe Im reading into it but the fact that the only connection "the space between" them is TT...THE KNIFE THAT CAN UNDO THINGS...the knife with gwydion can create Void. The void that is connected with the ley lines/thin places.

The end. 🫡💜

[thinplacesradio]

stacked sound equipment and a radio with glowing green numbers. the image is distorted by VCR static. white text reads:

[026] THE SEEKER... A CALLER WAITS. THE SEEKER HEARS A VOICE ON THE RADIO.

listen here, or anywhere you find your podcasts. transcript under the cut:

[static, radio tuning]

[traveling sales rep: don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right b-]

[a high-register voice, not the Host’s:]

Car radio, yet again. Fixed, for now. It’s from a 2005 Honda CR-V, which I know is old, but, as you know, it’s been acting up for months now, um, and it finally just gave out on me. I don’t even know what worked to resurrect it here, but, well. [tools moving] The mystery of life, I guess. I’m sure it’ll start jumping stations again any day now.

[beep]

I could use a distraction so we are back to the transmitter. I’m building it from scratch instead of from a kit, uh, which basically means I’m just buying the parts that would have been in the kit separately, so I don’t really know if I’m saving money here or losing it. [tools clink] It’s pretty much kid stuff, but hey. It’s nice to go back to the basics sometimes, I guess. I think just to make it interesting I might take one of the old desktops to see if I can link it to some visuals? With different colors representing, I dunno, different letters, maybe? Maybe… make it so the words will show up as you tap the code in? Or I could just leave it with the binary, do kind of a black and white thing. I don’t know. [sigh] I don’t know.

[beep]

[phone ringing] [voicemail]

Hey, it’s me, you know what to do!

[beep]

[phone ringing] [voicemail]

Hey, it’s me, you –

[beep]

No one knows where she is, why does nobody know where she is. I - I think there’s something wrong.

[beep]

[phone ringing]

We’re sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected, or is no longer in service. To -

[beep]

I didn’t quit my job today. This isn’t really a project log, but I almost quit my job today, and I didn’t, and I, I think that deserves to be noted down, somewhere. I love what I do. But - doing it doesn’t seem as important anymore when I could be looking for her. I know I haven’t found a single thing, but that’s no reason to stop. I - [sigh]

I don’t know why I’m talking around it like this. Someone that matters to me is gone, and no one knows what happened, or why, or if - 

I wish she was just ghosting me, specifically. Like, that’s not something I want, at all, but I would take it if it meant that she was safe, living her life somewhere else. [sigh]

I don’t. I don’t think she’s dead. I really hope she isn’t dead. Sometimes I’d be at work glancing at the chat and there would be no new messages. Or at home with my phone on the table building myself a new desktop, and there would be no new messages. But I could still feel her on the other side, connected to me with that, I don’t know, electronic tether. Even when she wasn’t there, it helped knowing that she was somewhere.

That’s how it feels, still. I think she’s somewhere. I just don’t know where.

[voicemail]

Hiiiii, iris! Hi-riss! That’s nothing, sorry.  I texted you but I guess you must’ve lost track of time? I’ll just scale the building here and crawl in the IT window - you guys have windows, right? I feel like I imagine you in like a scifi basement most of the time. Anyway. I’m here, I’ll see you soon. Get down here before I bribe the security guard to let me in. I... yeah. See ya. I’ll be here.

[beep]

[morse code beeping] 

T-E-S-T. S-O-S. [pause] Where… are… you? 

Stupid, Iris. Just, stupid.

[beep] [equipment rustling, clinking, scraping]

It was, um, same company, different cities. I called her on the phone before I ported in to fix her computer, and she was – warm? Tired. Not exactly funny, but trying to make me laugh. I didn’t, but I thought about it, just to see if she’d laugh back? She messaged me on the company chat after, to thank me, and sent me a link to an article we’d been talking about while I worked on her desktop. I don’t remember what it was about even though it feels like I should. There are a lot of things I’m already forgetting. But I messaged back, and then we didn’t stop messaging. Until eight months ago.

I always want to know more about everything. Too much, probably. I can never stop digging. But she was the only one who really wanted to know more about… me.

I’m glad I got to meet her, but - I was supposed to keep meeting her - I - 

[beep]

[morse code beeping]

Don’t… be… dead.

[beep] [equipment moving aggressively]

Rob told me today that if I’m not going to go out for drinks with them after work anymore my only hobby can’t be looking for someone who’s been missing for a year. Really kind of insensitive, honestly. [huff] But I have been reading too many police reports, so today I will be starting a new project altogether.

[beep]

It’s the car radio, again, always the car radio. I should just buy a new one at this point, but then I’d never find out what was wrong with this one. Alright, okay, we’re trying scanning again, here we go.

[channels scan] [we hear the Sales Rep, and then the Host, cutting in and out:]

- Thank you for - feel - on - as always, our number is 71–

[Iris scrambles to stop the station but misses it. She tries tuning it back.]

Wait, wait wait wait wait. W-wait wait wait. 102 point 1. Oh my god. Oh my God. Wait. Hold on. 102 point - Wait, come back. Come back. 

I don’t – I don’t understand – [the road prov-] that’s Ha -

[beep] [keyboard clacking] 

I’m not the only person who’s heard her. There are people on subreddits talking about catching a radio call-in show on one frequency, exactly when they needed to hear it, but then not finding it again when they look for it, but just - How do I not need to hear it?

Here’s what I know about “the Host,” from what they know about the Host. Um, she’s always moving somewhere. She cares about her listeners. She’s experiencing impossible things, and so are the people calling in. And there’s a number.

Here’s what I know about my friend. She listened. She hated her job and always wanted a longer break. She loves pigeons and thinks that if aliens exist they’re single celled and acidophilic. She misses her mom. She was always reaching out for something. She was my friend.

[frantic music begins]

I know her voice, even if I haven’t heard it again. I know it was her, and I know I’m going to hear it again. I’m going to find the station. I’m going to find her.

[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides - the - road - provides -]

Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. 

The voice of Iris is Kaitlin Bruder. 

The voice of H[static] is Kristen O’Neal. 

Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music track you heard in tonight’s episode is: Junoon by RANA. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at ‪(717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.

[Junoon plays]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

November 2nd. All souls night. It's an old Irish tradition.

It is believed that as the veil between the two worlds is at it's thinnest at this time of year. Those who have left us can come back for a brief visit on this night. Your energy and love for them is the path they follow. The Candle is the light that guides them to your home, and two small vessels one of salt and one of water, represent the essence of life. the salt and water also represent the meal you would have prepared for them when they were on this side. As they pass through your home, they can leave their love and blessings, and take away your troubles.

[Love Ireland]

+

Samhain was considered to be the moment when the veil between this world and the otherworld  was it its thinnest.  Old gods had to be placated with gifts and sacrifice, and the trickery of fairies was an even greater risk than usual.  This was a liminal moment in the calendar, a time between two worlds, between two phases of the year, when worshippers were about to cross a boundary but hadn’t yet done so.  Samhain was a way of marking that ambiguous moment when you didn’t know who you were about to become, or what the future would hold.  It was a celebration of limbo.

~ Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

[musiconspotify]

#JasonHawkHarris Shine A Little Light