Personal reflections and seasonal thoughts. These entries trace mood, memory and creative undercurrents as they surface, shift and settle.
I had fever dreams. The kind that obliterate the border between reality and imagination. I kept waking in sharp bursts of panic, convinced there was a presence in the house. Each time I tried to explain it to my confused husband, the certainty slipped away again. The night became repetitive and exhausting. Quietly terrifying, in … Continue reading Something Passed Through…
There’s a reason winter ghost stories endure. Winter strips everything back and, due to long, unending nights, it can leave us alone with the parts of ourselves we usually outrun. It’s a season that pushes us inward towards reflection, reckoning and the quiet truths we don’t face up to in brighter months. Ghosts, whether from … Continue reading Why We Need Winter Ghosts…
January’s Wolf Moon bared its teeth, but February’s Snow Moon will firmly close its mouth, prick its ears and listen. Whether it snows tonight or not, this is the month typical for heavy snowfall – which is where the Snow Moon gets its name. This is the heart of winter, when cold feels heavy. When … Continue reading The Snow Moon…
Every winter has a presence, something beyond the cold. Something old, massive and unmistakably felt. In Scottish and Irish folklore, that presence is the Cailleach. Translated this means ‘the veiled one’, ‘the old woman’ or ‘the hag’. But who is she? She’s winter’s architect and keeper. The Cailleach is not a ghost in the traditional sense. She’s something … Continue reading The Cailleach…
Lost Delilah 6 months ago. ‘Dog camera’ is switched off. (Or so I thought). Went to bed. Woke at the usual time. Logged onto laptop. Started work. Late morning, a notification. Time stamp: 2:51am. ‘Someone arrived home.’ My quiet haunting. 🖤
January is a time of thresholds, hauntings and omens. It was once simply lumped together with February under the single banner of ‘winter’, an unnamed stretch of cold between the end and the beginning. With the year ending in December and starting in March, the unnamed ‘winter’ season must have felt like a bleak, liminal no-man’s land. No … Continue reading Winter Hauntings…
Winter is the season when the old ghosts stir. The cold settles into our bones, the nights stretch long and the past whispers. Of all my stories, Cribbins is possibly the one most tangled with whispers of buried trauma, unspoken truths and the unsettling ways the past can seep back into the present. At its core, Cribbins asks one … Continue reading Cribbins: Unravelling the Darkness…
Love it or hate it, this time of year strips everything back to its stark white bones and asks quietly: What ghosts are you carrying into the new year? Not literal ones (though those too, if you have them), but the emotional echoes we each drag behind us. All the unfinished stories and old fears and … Continue reading The Spirits of the New Year…
January’s full moon rises with its teeth bared tonight. It’s called the Wolf Moon. Once upon a time when wolves prowled the woodlands of the UK, their howls threaded through frozen air during the deep winter months. Not as omens of evil, but as signals of endurance, hunger, survival and community. The Wolf Moon comes … Continue reading The Wolf Moon…
Christmas Eve is a night of two worlds. One is all laughter and twinkling lights, families gathering in warm kitchens, their gift-wrapped parcels waiting beneath decorated trees. The other is older and quieter, and as dark as the longest night. Once upon a time, this was the night for ghost stories. Gentle ones, that is. … Continue reading Midwinter Ghosts…
R. H. DIXON 