Beloved podcaster Mike Clelland returns to Unknowncounty as this week’s guest on Dreamland! His popular Unknowncountry podcast, the Unseen, ran May of 2019 to July of 2021, so it’s great to have him back again talking about his weird and wonderful life, owls and how they relate to the close encounter experience, and his stunning new book, The Unseen.
To get the Unseen, click here.
Visit Mike on his website, MikeClelland.com.
Mike will be with us in Subscriber Video Chat on July 27 at 10:00 AM Pacific.
Dreamland Video podcast
To watch the FREE video version on YouTube, click here.Subscribers, to watch the subscriber version of the video, first log in then click on Dreamland Subscriber-Only Video Podcast link.
WOW. My two favorites together! Thank you!
It’s interesting this discussion should pop up right now. I’ve been having a bit of a stressful time and have felt a tendency to feel baseless, firey anger and annoyance of late for no reason.
i was at home the other evening, around dusk. In popped an angry thought and then instantly, I repeat, instantly, just outside the window, an Owl hooted loudly, as if prompting me to reign it in.
Maybe I’m making too much of it but hearing Owls in my area is rare, yet they pop up at the most odd moments.
I prefer to wonder if we’re all connected in mind & body to our conscious environment, which watches us and wants the best from us.
Peace.
VON HAUSENBERG, you said, “It’s interesting this discussion should pop up right now. I’ve been having a bit of a stressful time and have felt a tendency to feel baseless, firey anger and annoyance of late for no reason.”
If you are sensitive to things going on around you, I THINK YOU ARE, then you might be picking up anger from someone else thinking it is YOUR anger. I think it is always important to remember that.
Mentioned in the YouTube edition comments that if one of those Master Class platforms would host Whit as an instructor in a creative non-fiction course geared to journalistic memoirists and aspiring novelists with naturalistic leanings, I’d do a year’s subscription to that platform for access to it. First “met” Whit reading Communion when I was a kid in the Navy back at the end of the Cold War. I’d been a couple of years to college and had worked as a cub reporter at a couple of small town newspapers before enlisting, so I had a substantive enough perceptual net to recognize the book as a work of Art. But it didn’t hit me that I was reading an actual personal narrative until about last quarter of the book. The book became haunted in my hands as I realized I was experiencing it, not in the comfort of a novel reality, but as hard truth continuous with the steel reality surrounding me. The haunting spirit was female — auburn hair and pretty — if she’d been haunting a novel I’d have kept her around as an imaginary friend against the loneliness of sea deployment. But she was “real” and there wasn’t room for two “real” spirits in the tight space of an enlisted man’s coffin rack. Not that I kicked her out. I finished the book and reread it before I put it on the card table at the foot of the ladder down into our berthing space. My division was made up of a bunch of working class, late-and-extended adolescent twidgets (Navy for “geek”), and spooky spy and conspiracy genre was mandatory reading — that was already a thing a couple of years before Fox capitalized on it with the X-Files. So she made her way around the division. In my imagination, she haunted the [——] Division berthing compartment until that old destroyer finished her final mission and gave up her steel to the scrapyards. But I’ve been thinking about the [——] Division den “Mom”a lot lately. My coherent writing today consists almost exclusively of legal briefs. But I’ve always scribbled, and it occurred to me listening to this podcast that Mr. Strieber may have chops as a writing coach. Maybe my first coherent non-legal piece since graduate school could be a response to that spirit that I wept for the night I learned my first ship had finally been sold for scrap.
Todd, your account is very interesting. I am an author and I can see that you write well. I would encourage you to pursue your aspirations. Where the passion lives, the story lives–whether it’s fiction or nonfiction. If you want to acquire the skillset for writing both short and long pieces, there are some excellent online courses out there. And writing coaches. I agree that Whitley has the chops! But he can speak to whether he wants to add that kind of extra workload to his life.
Thanks for the encouragement. And believe me, I understand about being short of time.
Todd, thank you for your comment. It made me feel emotions from first reading communion. I knew right away that it was a tale of reality and for me it was a relief to read about it. Your account was well written and caused me to remember. Peace.
Wow again. Exactly what I experienced too. It’s a MOOD. Mike’s intention worked. That’s why I loved it. I want to go back to that space he created.
In a lot of ways, I empathize with Mike. But recently any mission or duty I thought I was doing has proven to be false. My trust in myself and my trust in what may have happened with the visitors has gone.
Currently re-evaluating what the entire experience is worth.
This was a moving discussion. Thanks to both of you for allowing the strangeness to flow. I feel like some part of this talk click with something in me but I don’t know what that means.
Briefly mentioned was ‘Theatrics’ and I think that is a key. When trying to communicate with a human who does not share our language, we start acting to convey what we are thinking. The Cosmos uses Theatrics in synchronicity. Theatrics holds and conveys feeling better than words. A good story expresses theatrical elements which convey emotions. The theater in the sky is a message. Words can be twisted, but actions are what they are, regardless of interpretations and interpretations evolve over time.
There’s so much to be said about this interview, but my first thought is:
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an owl in real life. Maybe not even in a zoo. That seems odd.
(I’d just as soon not have them near my neighborhood, as they would threaten my elderly cat. They definitely prey on cats in areas outside the city.)
We do have a lot of crows around here, though, and Crow is important to me. Usually they travel in murders, but fairly often just one shows up in a tree very near me, and calls in a way that it seems to be speaking directly to me. I never know what the message is but I always pay attention.
Everyone develops their own system for getting synchronistic messages from the Cosmos. When a crow shows up, what Exactly are you thinking. The key is in awareness of one’s thoughts and the timing of events. This is exemplified in Carl Jung and the beetle, the story from which the term synchronicity arose. Of course, discrimination is also a key to avoid imagining synchronicities. In all cases, to become consciously aware of what is in one’s mind allows one to refine one’s intent in life.
Mike has always had a measured, calm demeanor, and I have read and listened to him for years. I’ve also had numerous owl encounters, especially at my prior residence. They were all good, and even protective. After my stroke in 2019, after a month in rehab, and another month with my son and family, I was able to return home. It did my heart good on that first evening to hear the hoot of an owl, welcoming me back!
Owls are so important, and the symbolism of the owl in various cultures is significant. They are symbolic of the sacred feminine, as well as wisdom, and spiritual enlightenment, and guide, messenger and protector between realms. And let’s not forget their insane ability of perception in the dark, and the affiliation with the goddess Athena. I find it more than interesting that Whitley and others (Mainly men?) have encounters with feminine entities.
Elene: I have had encounters with crows too, including a ‘conversation’ with a crow years ago that I thought odd. Then a week later, my very young , autistic grandson approached me during a visit and proceeded to chitter at me…exactly as the crow had done! I looked at him and said quietly to him “Was that you?” My grandson wasn’t very verbal at that time, so he just tucked his head and glanced up at me with a very brief smile. He is now pre-teen, not quite like other kids, but he talks very well, and is quite intelligent.
It was great to have Mike on Dreamland again! I hope he visits again soon!
We have gone on “owl prowls” and found owl skat etc… They are hard to see. You can Hear the screech owls with their loon like calls and the Bigger hoot owls with their hoot y who calls…
This is going to sound like a strange question but have you ever heard of any alien encounters in the rain? Maybe there are but I can’t recall any. The reason I’m asking, is that owls have a really hard time in bad weather. For one, their feathers are not particularly waterproof and they have extreme difficulty hunting, as rain prevents them from hearing their prey. So, if we are are running (flying?) with the owl analogy, are we saying that rain is a visitor’s Achilles heal?
Sherbet, that is a very good question! Your question also reminded me of a movie years ago, ‘Signs’. In that movie, the alien beings were vulnerable to water. It WAS their Achilles Heel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signs_(film)
And yes, owls themselves do fine in in the rain:
https://www.birdsauthority.com/can-owls-fly-in-rain/
Ah…now…I had completely forgotten about that part of the movie ‘Signs’ ! Hmm, I wonder whether that idea might be worth looking into a bit more?
“Swing away, Merrill….Merrill, swing away”. https://youtu.be/1c2jp8WyXms
Regarding the waterproof nature of an owl’s feathers, apparently it is the Barn owl that has particular difficulties in the rain… https://www.barnowltrust.org.uk/barn-owl-facts/barn-owls-in-winter/
I had a big experience in 2009 during a storm.
Storms are unsettling at the best of times…let alone being combined with something like that!
I’d like to recommend Mr Strieber’s book of poetry. Having bought the audiobook, I was delighted to be able to listen to a living dream as I drove along.
Most people don’t consider reading poetry but consider ‘A Hidden Garden’ audio-book as a companion. Your companion will walk with you as you stroll or perhaps accompany you on a flight. Perhaps even help you feed the Squirrels in the park.
I value my companions and while they may remind me from time to time that I could try harder, causing me to fidget, I’d not be without them.
The audiobook only costs £6.39/$8 and is simply superb. You didn’t realise? Well put your walking shoes on and meet your companion; it’s a lovely morning for a stroll.
Peace.
Thank you so much! Anyone who gets it and enjoys it, please consider reviewing it on Amazon. Here’s a link to the book: https://amzn.to/4fjO0Ei
My personal favourite is ‘Desire’.
I quietly chuckled to myself as I listened to your masterful perception reveal this joyous cosmic toying/balancing. We men, we things of firmness, putty in the hands of women.
A tip o’ the hat to you Mr Strieber. It’s a grand delight to be constantly delighted by another soul; especially over so many years.
Mrs Strieber and your good self saved me so many times over two decades that I lost count. The sands of Mars seem so far yet their lessons sit as neighbours in evening shadows.
Please highlight ‘A Hidden Garden’ as an audiobook. It is so obviously its centrepiece and so easily manifested as a companion.
Poetry is so simple and expressive yet elite. In your audio book you have effortlessly delivered a piece of magic. A piece of magic that, I might add, we enjoy every week, in exactly the same format. Folks just need a bit of a heads-up.
Peace.
My father died of cancer when I was seven and the night he passed I was woken up by an owl hooting outside of my window. It was right around the time that he died. I always thought it was strange but learning about the owl’s connection to death and the afterlife puts the whole experience in a new light. I had no idea about the connection to grays until I heard an interview with Mike Clelland years ago. Never had any experiences with them as far as I know but we did have a UFO hover directly over that same house a few years later.
Sherbet, I did respond to your questions, but it looks like they got caught in the spam filter…🙄
We released it from the filter. We’re working with the developer to find a way to isolate your posts from it. Nobody can figure out why it keeps capturing them.
Got it….thankfully, your post is no longer classed as perfect post-apocalypse food
There is a novel from a few decades ago, from the author Margaret Craven: “I Heard the Owl Call My Name” — it is based on the belief of some First Nation tribes that those who will soon die hear the call of an owl.