St. Patrick's Spooky Emerald Isle...

Today, we celebrate St. Patrick's Day in much of the world. Some rivers flow green like the lager at festive pubs. Covers and leprechauns reign supreme in the streets. We try our best at speaking Gaelic only to butcher the words with alcohol-tainted breath. And for a brief while, many people consider themselves unofficial "citizens" of Ireland (or Éire, if you want to be precise).

Legends loon large in Ireland. Many of us know about tales of the mischievous, not-so-friendly leprechaun and the bean sidhe ("banshee") wailing as a harbinger of death. Iconic images of nature spirits and ghosts permeate our recollections of Irish culture. The soft, warm, sweet scent of burning peat on a cold day drifts our thoughts to haunting legends, forgotten Druid culture, and empty castles.

Ghost stories are abundant in Irish mythology and folktales. Entire websites are devoted to the paranormal lore. On Irelandseye.com, you can find an abundance of information on the country as well as its spooky places. The site offers a webcam for the Leprechaun Watch where you can try your luck at capturing a glimpse of nature spirits; for those solely interested in departed souls, the GhostWatch section tells the tragic haunting of Helena Bunden at a linen mill, complete with sightings of her ghosts and a few incredibly EVPs.

Visitors to Ireland can enjoy many tours and haunted places. One story—the execution and subsequent haunting of Bishop John Atherton—I have included in my upcoming book. But there are too many others out there, waiting to be read about and experienced. Dublin is one such extremely haunted city. And from Dublin, there's the interesting story of a haunted site: the former location of a theater.

Fishamble Street Theatre, near the remnants of Proudfoote's Castle, opened back in 1741. It is still remembered today as the site of the premiere preformance of Handel's Messiah. Many great performers graced its walls and left their impressions on the building. The haunted history of the playhouse began in the early 1800s when strange knockings were frequently heard, centered around the Green Room. Every night at 10:00 precisely, the sounds would be heard emanating from the wall for fifteen minutes. The story survived through oral tradition from a worker in the mid-19th century and was later written about in John Dunne's A Ghost Watcher's Guide to Ireland. Most of Fishamble Street has been leveled, yet the story survives. A wide range of other Dublin haunts, including Fishamble, can be found on the Paranormal Database.

So don't let the Guinness cloud your mind too much on this holiday. There are spirits out there, looming among the gravestones and ruins between the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish Sea. If you can't be there, just snuggle up in bed tonight with a good book of Irish ghost stories.

Finding the 'Family' Plot...

Wouldn't we all like to rest our bones beside the bones of those we've known and loved?

Assistens Kirkegård in Copenhagen has a very unique feature not found in other graveyards: a gay section.

Married couple Ivan Larsen and Ove Carlsen initiated the project by forming an organization named Regnbuen (or Rainbow) and renting space in the cemetery earlier this year. It lies beneath a large tree and contains enough room for 45 urns. Each plot costs 2500 kroner, or approximately US$565. The area is marked by a triangle made of stone pebbles with a large boulder, draped with a rainbow flag, perched along one of the angles.

Larsen, a minister, believes this is a very good thing. "Just as we have our own places where we can meet and have fun,... so we would also like to have a grave. And it's really nice that we have our own grave."

"We don't want to isolate ourselves but we also feel a need to be together," said Larsen. "We see this as a family grave, one that will be taken care of by our family.''

The cemetery dates back to 1737 and is the final resting place of many well-known people from Danish history, including author Hans Christian Andersen.

Morbid Joyriding, Anyone?

For the first time in over 36 years, you might see more hearses in Malta.

In the past three decades, the government hasn't granted a single license for a hearse, leaving only the existing 11 licenses for the entire country. The Maltese Transport Ministry is calling for a more liberal dispersion of such licenses to avoid a cartel. Competition is healthy, and the cost of transportation for funerals will lower to a more tolerable level.

So while you may not be able to afford living in Malta with the rising cost of living, dying there might become a bit more economical...

Not Your Typical Tarot...

Tarot cards and playing cards have the same origins from early Europe. The earliest surviving painted Tarot deck comes from 15th Century Milan, Italy. Records indicate a deck was first used for divination of the future in the mid 1700s and remains a popular fortune-telling method.

We all have a picture in our minds when we envision these divination cards, but they have become extremely diverse. Aside from the most popular Rider-Waite deck, cards exist depicting and centered around angels, Native Americans, gemstones, astrology, baseball, Wicca, animals, gummy bears, vampires, and many others.

And then, there are the gay tarot decks.

The Original Gay Tarot started it all. Created by Paul Chirumbolo, the deck was designed to "help gay men live and love and learn and grow by touching into the unique sources of creativity found within themselves." Its images combine both traditional and digital media, and has a companion book: THE Original GAY TAROT: Everything You Need To Know About Sex, Money, Power, Love and the Secrets of the Universe.

More widely known is Gay Tarot by Lee Bursten and Antonella Palatano. The deck replaces traditional male-female archetypes with symbols of male homosexual unions. It is also the product of Llewelyn Publications, a well-known and well-respected New Age company carrying a diverse range of occult and Wiccan books.

There is also the Brotherhood Tarot. This deck is limited to an edition of 2500 copies. The images are a combination of mythology and gay history, representing a more "Radical Faerie" influence.

And that is just a small sampling. various other gay tarot decks can be found all over the web. If you prefer a deck that is more gay and lesbian inclusive, there is also The Cosmic Tribe Tarot.

Regardless of your opinions on divination methods, it's a fascinating aspect of the paranormal realm. And some of the illustrations are quite lovely as well...