Nonnie, Gnomes, and Jesus Christ in the Northern Lights

Nonnie and me

Nonnie was the first person that ever talked to me about gnomies.  She was my father's mother, and according to Nonnie, gnomies most often lived in the country, away from civilizations, though most people rarely saw them anymore, not even people who lived in the country.

Nonnie grew up in Sweden and walked through the woods to get to school every day, which I would imagine is where she first started seeing the gnomies.  Perhaps that is why Nonnie and Gramps had gnome statues around their house and yard in Chicago, and also up at the cottage in Wisconsin, to help educate people about the existence of gnomes.  And maybe the gnome statues also to helped Nonnie feel more at home.

Gramps and me

Nonnie and Gramps lived in a big house on Chase near Sheridan in Chicago, and they rented out parts of their house to mostly people who had just come to America from Sweden.  I imagined that a lot of those renters already knew about gnomies too, being from Sweden and all, where there must have been lots of gnomies to see.  However, Nonnie and Gramps were the only ones I remember ever talking about gnomes while I was growing up.  That is, until one summer at the cottage when I was a teenager...

Our cottage in Spread Eagle, Wisconsin

One quiet summer night at the cottage, while sitting in a boat drifting in the middle of the lake in the company of my dear friend whom I will call Penelope, watching the sky aglow with colorful northern lights, Penelope started telling me about her recent Outward Bound "solo experience."  She started out by asking if I would promise to never tell her parents what she was about to tell me, because she was certain they would think she was crazy and may even send her away to an insane asylum because of it.  I promised that I would never tell her parents.

Penelope then proceeded to describe how, on the third day of her solo experience, while she was sitting at the top of a hill, looking down on a stream of water, at the water's edge she saw what she described as small people washing small clothing and small dishes in the stream of water.  Being very familiar with the existence of gnomes (though never having seen one myself), of course I believed her.  Penelope said that she spoke with the little people, and they said (just as Nonnie had said years earlier) that most people could not see them, and it was because of some kind of veil they had over their eyes and ears and other senses.  I had no doubt that what Penelope told me was the truth, and I felt quite privileged to hear about her experiences.  She and I surmised that on the third day of her solo experience in the woods, her veils had been lifted, and that was why she was able to see the gnomies.

Right about then, Penelope and I returned to looking up toward the sky to see a colorful configuration of the northern lights in the silhouette of Jesus Christ.

True story.

Photographer John Hilmarsson, from abcnews.go.com

PS ~ It's important to note that areas of transition, from field to forest, or shore to water, are natural doorways to the other-worlds, where encounters with other dimensions may be more likely.

PSS ~ Penelope's parents have both passed-on, and I would imagine they know all about the gnomies by now.