Episode Seventy-Six: The Byte-Mairi Luthin

What haunts us? For Mairi, the hauntings are literal. Hear how her childhood in Maine was filled with ghosts, things that went bump in the night, and houses that held secrets. The magic in the world calls to Mairi, and she is learning to listen.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 76 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

In this episode,

I get to interview Mari.

On her Instagram,

They describe themselves as moving and grooving.

And if you take a look at her social media,

You'll see that it's filled with pictures of the natural world,

With whimsical images,

And it's so very clear to me,

At least,

That when I look over her photos,

It's clear that connection and community are what they are all about.

This episode is about many things.

In the course of all my interviews and the course of my life,

I've run into so many people who are operating at a different level.

Not a superior level,

But just a different level than humanity.

They can sense things that others cannot.

Whether it's emotions,

I've certainly gone to healers,

Who,

When they work on me or give me a massage,

It's so very evident that they're tapping into something that I can't describe.

And my guest this week,

Mari,

Is definitely tapping into something that most of us cannot.

This episode is really about what haunts us.

Because we're all haunted by something.

We're haunted by our pasts.

We're haunted by our presents.

We're haunted by what we ate for dinner last night.

Did we eat too much?

What someone said to us on social media.

We're haunted by the legacy our ancestors left for us.

And indeed,

There is such a thing as literally being haunted.

Growing up in Maine,

Mari was absolutely in the center of a lot of that kind of activity.

And our episode is about a lot of that,

But it's also about what you do with the gifts that you're given.

What you do when you discover who you are as it slowly unfolds.

As things become revealed to you,

Life gives you opportunities.

Life gives you blessings.

Life shows you who you are.

And then you get to decide,

Do I embrace it or do I run from it?

That's kind of what this episode is about as well.

And so now,

Without further ado,

Episode 76 of Bite Sized Blessings.

Not long after,

They still hadn't moved the door out.

It had only been like two months,

Honestly,

Since the cleansing.

They started hearing pounding coming up from the basement at night.

They started to hear the door moving.

They started to hear someone banging around in the basement.

Andrea was like,

I can't do this anymore.

I'm moving out.

So they got a new house.

My little cousin Kate is getting older.

I go visit her.

She's like four now,

Like a little,

Little girl.

And we're hanging out and I'm talking with Andrea.

And I'm like,

So does Kate have any memories of the house?

And she's like,

Oh,

She won't go in.

Well,

Like,

Because,

You know,

They were renting out the house to other people.

They hadn't fully sold it.

It's a hard house to sell because it's so far out.

And when they would go and check on the property,

Kate would say things like,

I see a scary monster in the window.

And she's like three,

Not even four.

I think she's between three to four.

My cousin Elizabeth said that one time she was just playing with Kate and was,

Hey,

I want you to tell me what this is.

And she holds up a little baby walkie talkie.

Like,

You know,

You're playing with kids.

You're like,

Explain to me what this is.

What is this?

What toy is this?

What is this used for?

And Kate goes,

I used to hear scary voices coming out of that at night.

There were numerous haunted houses in the family.

There was a notorious one.

And this is this,

Like,

I tell people about this house.

And I was young with my experiences with this house.

I was,

I was like a little kid.

I was like between seven to 10 and it was my mother's brother.

And he actually passed too.

So he was living there with a woman that he remarried and she was very sensitive.

And she had a lot of experiences.

It's also interesting how people who have these experiences somehow meet other people with these experiences.

I think that's really,

That's really telling.

You kind of just orbit each other.

This house was beautiful.

It was at the end of this country road in rural Maine.

And it was so stunning.

So Andrea was a great resource in feeling comfortable talking about things that scared me in these realms.

And her house was scary.

It was,

It was,

I have never been in a scarier spot ever.

It was a two story farmhouse.

There had been a couple additions made,

But it was,

There had only been like a handful of family families that had lived there.

I think they were maybe the third or the fourth.

It was across from a giant potato fields.

It had many acres of land.

You would have to walk a good distance to the neighbors.

It was so rural that one of their neighbors was an Amish family with like hundreds of acres.

And when Andrea saw this house with her history of experiences and just like a very intuitive person,

Trusts her gut,

Makes decisions based on those feelings,

All of that,

She sees this house and she's like,

Oh my God,

This is my dream house.

So they're living there.

And my cousins at the time,

They still won't talk about the house.

The last time I saw my eldest cousin,

David,

Who lived in that house for much of his teenage years,

He doesn't talk about it.

He doesn't want to.

They lived there for a handful of years,

Newly remarried.

Andrea was pregnant with my cousin and they gave birth to this beautiful baby.

And experiences were like small at first in the house.

You know,

They would hear footsteps.

They would hear furniture moving that became a little bit more intense.

Andrea would be home alone with the baby.

Everyone would be at work or at school and she would hear furniture moving across the floor.

Upstairs,

When they began to remodel their kitchen,

They had tiles on the floor and they were thrown.

Someone had picked them up and was throwing them almost like little Frisbees.

My uncle Dan didn't believe any of these things until that happened during the remodel.

Didn't believe anything that had happened until a doorknob just turned in front of him and then turned back.

And I remember feeling incredibly,

Incredibly scared when I had spent time there.

Like I didn't sleep.

So eventually as the activity persisted,

My cousin Kate was a newborn and she was swaddled in baby blankets and,

You know,

To keep her nice and secure as you do with a newborn.

So she can't move very readily on her own.

Like she is a fresh baby and she laid to sleep in her crib.

And Andrea always set her facing the same way and goes in to check on her one night and she had been flipped.

There was a room downstairs.

They were aware that someone who had lived in the house was troubled,

Had like a lot of personal issues and struggled a lot.

And the office that they had had for Dan's,

My uncle's work was there was this door and it was graffitied from top to bottom.

Didn't think much of it.

Like a,

You know,

A teenager was in the room,

They graffitied the door.

But then in one corner you could see as if it was scratched in with a fingernail.

It said,

I will be back.

And then in my little cousin's room,

The same room that she had been flipped,

There was scraped on the door up there again.

And the rooms were right above each other as well.

There was scraped into that door.

I will be back.

Haha.

Oftentimes when Andrea was nursing Kate in the evenings,

She wouldn't have the hallway lights on.

She had seen many ghosts in her life and,

You know,

They presented themselves to her fully.

She would see figures walking up and down the hallway.

It got to the point where she was starting to feel threatened and so scared that they called an energy worker.

Before they called the energy worker in,

They wanted to call the priest.

Because,

You know,

My grandmother being the French Catholic woman that she is said,

You know,

You have to call the priest to bless the house.

You can't call this energy worker.

You have to go with the church.

God will help you.

God will be there for you.

We will exercise the spirit.

So they called the priest.

I get,

I'm getting chills again,

Telling this story.

They called the priest many times,

But the calls never went through because the line would go dead.

So this is like a whole,

I mean,

It sounds almost like a,

Like a haunted house movie and,

You know,

Of course I'm a kid when all of this is happening.

So I'm like,

Enthralled,

I'm invested and all the adults are like scared and don't want to talk about it.

And like my cousins who are in the house are scared and don't want to talk about it.

And I'm just like,

Tell me everything.

So this energy worker is like,

I'm scared.

I'm like,

I'm not going to talk about this thing.

So this energy worker comes in eventually because they can't get in touch with the priest.

And she starts going around the house and she's like,

Oh my goodness.

She's,

This is not just one spirit.

She says your whole property is infested.

She goes upstairs and at the very end of the hallway between two of my cousins room,

My little cousin,

The baby is at the,

At the start of the hallway.

Her cousins had rooms right across from each other and the portal she said that had been opened was at the very end of the hallway where my aunt would see the figures coming in and out.

She said it came open very likely when the young man that had been living in the house was there and was going through it.

She said that the door with all of the graffiti was a very negative piece and needed to be taken out.

Interestingly enough,

After she had said this,

They had put the door into the basement and she closed the portal.

You know,

She did what she could and activity was fine.

The door was in the basement.

Activity had just saved off.

I visited during this period and I will say it was a markedly different experience,

But I remember going into the basement because I was curious and I wanted to see the door.

That was so scary and negative and bad and like possessed all of this awful stuff.

What was also interesting was that the basement had a lot of graffiti as well.

This graffiti was nonsensical.

Like it was a,

You couldn't make out what any of the words or the phrases were.

Andrea,

My aunt,

Had reached out to parapsychologists,

People who study demonology and worship and all that and negative spirits and entities.

She went this far because it was this much activity and they told her that these were demonic phrasings that she needed to,

She needed to really do some cleansing if she was going to stay there and cover them up and get rid of it.

But you know,

They're a family that's working and they have three kids and,

You know,

So they put the,

They put the door in the basement.

Everything was contained in the basement,

But it had become known that the,

That the young man who had been living in the house had been doing demonic ritual and practice.

Not long after,

They still hadn't moved the door out.

It had only been like two months,

Honestly,

Since the cleansing.

They started hearing pounding coming up from the basement at night.

They started to hear the door moving.

They started to hear someone banging around in the basement.

Andrea was like,

I can't do this anymore.

I'm moving out.

So they got a new house.

My little cousin Kate is getting older.

I go visit her.

She's like four now.

Like a little,

Little girl.

And we're hanging out and I'm talking with Andrea and I'm like,

So does Kate have any memories of the house?

And she's like,

Oh,

She won't go in.

Well,

Like,

Cause you know,

They were renting out the house to other people.

They hadn't fully sold it.

It's a hard house to sell cause it's so far out.

And when they would go and check on the property,

Kate would say things like,

I see a scary monster in the window.

And she's like three,

Not even four.

I think she's between three to four.

My cousin,

Elizabeth said that one time she was just playing with Kate and was Hey,

I want you to tell me what this is.

And she holds up a little baby walkie talkie.

Like,

You know,

You're playing with kids.

You're like,

Explain to me what this is.

What is this?

What,

What toy is this?

What is this used for?

And Kate goes,

I used to hear scary voices coming out of that at night.

And you know,

With a baby walkie talkie,

It's turned off so that you don't hear your mom and dad,

But mom and dad can hear you.

I grew up,

I feel like I was raised by a lot of different people.

Family that really,

Really took me under their wing in my hometown were the satyrs and the first thing I was like,

She was like an idea,

Dear sister.

Her name was Nixie and she was Nixie pixie.

And I was airy fairy growing up and they were,

They were pagan.

They had a lot of,

You know,

Care and acknowledgement of fairies and they,

They left gifts out for them regularly.

Like leaving milk out,

Baking bread for them.

And creating places in the garden for them.

And I think in particular with spirits like that,

They just haven't been seen for so long.

And they used to be such active part in our lore and our stories and in our day to day life and in keeping house,

I think,

Especially,

You know,

Like you want to invite those spirits in because they're,

They keep your house cozy and warm and playful.

Wanting to share these experiences,

But also not wanting people to think that I have,

Like that I'm under the impression that I'm unique or like special and like having had these experiences.

It's like,

It's something that you need to be shown and it's something that you need to be guided through by people who really can embody like people who embody those things and practice them as a vocation and as their lifestyle.

That that need to guide me,

Like,

You know,

We can lend a hand,

But we need to have our handheld and led to.

And that's why,

You know,

We need,

We need people who do body work and who are shamans and who can,

Who can like open up all of these other facets and layers that we can't access on our own.

Cause it's just,

We're just skimming the surface.

Thank you for listening to episode 76 of Bite Sized Blessings.

I need to thank my guest Mari,

Who was so very gracious in telling all of their stories,

Haunted or not,

Of their family.

I also need to thank the creators of the music used.

Taiga Sound Productions,

Chilled Music,

Alex Productions,

Frank Schroeder,

Music L.

Files,

Alexander Nakarada,

And Kevin McLeod.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite Sized Blessings website at bite-sized-blessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to other episodes,

To books,

To music,

And to art that I think will lighten and brighten your day.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Mari.

Be open to the mystery.

Be open to those things unseen around us.

Be open to the magic in the world.

And I'll see you next week for episode 77 of Bite Sized Blessings.