It came with the Storm : A Wild Hunt During Hurricane Ian?

Hurricane Ian was the fifth most powerful storm in terms of speed to ever hit the US

The first time I had ever written an It came with the storm story was due to a hurricane that hit Honduras. The story was so fascinating and strange, I took time to transcribe it and translate it into English. I never thought I would end up creating a series on this. But here we are. And to make it stranger, it’s about something that happened here in Florida.

People say that “things” come with storms. That a storm is a doorway into another world. And spirits can hitch a ride on them to our world. That’s why the story from Honduras I translated didn’t surprise me. If anything it reaffirmed the old tales.

But most people don’t think anything like that could happen here in North America. The US and Canada are considered too modern for such superstitious fancies. Are they now? I’d argue there’s just as much strange activity in the Americas in our age as there is in our countries. And a series of such things happened during the Hurricane. So this is the story of, possibly, Florida’s Wild Hunt.

A Door Between Worlds

Some believe that storms or other weather phenomenon can bring things to this world. Picture.

For many years there have been stories of portals in the sky. Opening at odd times and showing strange lights. And that can happen even under normal weather. Storms can tear into the dimensional fabric even more. How this is possible is unknown.

Science dictates you would need the power of a small star just to power a small worm hole. Although a spiritual being is an entity of a higher universe. And in theory they could conjure up power at a greater level at their finger tips. Is that what’s happening here? Do they just call up a storm with their power?

Or do they hijack an already existing storm? We may never know.

What is known, is that many people have reported strange things happening in storms. Even seeing strange things. Specifically during hurricane or tornados. In Ancient Times, Gods and spirits traveled the skies on storms. Which leads us to the Wild Hunt.

The God, Arwyn Pen Annuvin (Arwyn of the Inworld or inner world) leading a Wild Hunt with his ghostly dogs. From the Celtic Oracle by John Matthews

Essentially, the Wild Hunt is a Supernatural Hunting Party. Sometimes in the sky, or sometimes even on Earth. Wild Hunts very. Some are led by Faeries, and other are led by the Dead. Some are led by Gods and Folk Heroes.

Everyone from Odin, Arwyn, and Arthur have led Wild Hunts. Sometimes they’re led on land with wild dogs.

From Frontier Partisans

Always led on Horseback

Some are on land

And others are in the Sky

From the Dresden Files

Wild Hunts were normally considered bad by most non magical people. Because it was believed the Hunters were pursuing evil spirits. And people were scared that witches were astral projecting as spirits to join the Wild Hunt. (1) Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact it sounds like good fun!

And they appear in almost every culture. From Polytheistic religions to Monotheistic religion.

A Wild Hunt in Heaven, with Satan being cast out

The Hoofs on the Roof

But this time my family and I didn’t have to go through this. The storm went to Central Florida. A strange place to go to. The people there were so sure they would be missed, that even the authorities slacked off. Big mistake.

The Governor and local leaders didn’t bother issuing warnings to the populous until it was too late. And no one could do anything about it. And the storm roared forth. Like a giant wave of pain and darkness upon the land.

In addition to what you are seeing here, entire roads were either flooded or blocked by debris. But I won’t spend more time on this post on that. Instead I will talk about the strangeness. There was something weird about this storm.

Something the other storms never had.

The feelings in the air was just eerie. It wasn’t even Samhain yet and it felt like the dead were in the air. Some people think that when certain events are going to happen, spirits gather. Is that what was happening here? I wondered as I was throwing the trash out in the days preceding the landfall of Ian.

Many heard it across Florida

For many days we had all been feeling as if someone stepped on our graves. I prayed like crazy and left offerings wherever I could hoping we would be okay. In addition to all the weirdness we were all feeling in Miami, the storm seemed to be alive. I mean storms change courses all of the time. They are alive to a certain point.

But this was different. It seemed like it had a destination it was mapping out. And when it finally touched ground wreaking all that devastation, people talked about their experiences. A lot of people said it sounded like a freight train was hitting their houses. That’s to be expected.

Most hurricanes actually sound like that. Or they have this really deep whistle in the air. That’s how it was for me when I was a kid during Hurricane Andrew. It also sounded like the lightning was actually falling on the road. And it felt like a flood was about to crash through the barricaded front door of my house.

But then, weird stories started to come out of Central Florida. A few people were claiming that they heard what sounded like horse hooves running atop their houses. Now when I heard this, for some reason I felt this electric shock. Like that feeling you get when you know something. I felt like this was a sign of the Paranormal.

But just because I have a feeling doesn’t mean that I am going to come out and say “it’s the Wild Hunt,”. Obviously, that won’t ever be proven by science. What I can do is draw on my paranormal training to try and debunk what I believe. If I can disprove it then than means there’s at least a possibility that it’s nothing paranormal. And I would have to adhere to that unless I have proper proof.

I studied everything I could find online on storms.

Jana Houser standing next to the Rapid X-Pol radar instrument, a new type of rapidly-scanning mobile radar system, during a storm chase on 8 May 2012. Credit: Jana Houser via AGU from this article

I have been waiting since Ian and after Ian. I researched with the mind of someone who doesn’t believe in shit. Who believes there is a reasonable explanation for what happened. First I assumed it was that the storm sounded that way. So I looked up Hurricane sounds.

And while many articles and videos show that they can sound like freight trains or have those same whistle sounds I have heard, nothing about horse hooves. Nothing anywhere. And I used multiple search engines including DuckDuckGo. Nada. Zip.

Zilch. Next I tried psychology. And I tried to reason that because there is such a large farming community in Central Florida, people there reasonably associated storm sounds with sounds they might hear every day. Sounds they were used to. At first I went with that explanation.

But then I realized, that’s BS. We have many farms here in Miami. There’s a place called the Redlands. It’s an agricultural district with mostly wealthy families living there. Gigantic mansions and properties you couldn’t imagine.

Sometimes I just go there to watch the big houses and to buy fruit from the farms. And even in Miami, there are smaller farms and urban farms. Heck it’s not even outside of the normal to see random wild animals and farm animals in the city streets. I have a chicken that somehow made it into my apartment complex. We all feed her.

And I looked at the reports. None of the people who heard the horse hooves had farms. They were all regular people who lived in houses. I’ve probably been to more farms than they have. So it couldn’t be that.

And if living or being near farms would make us believe hear “horse hooves” in a hurricanes I would think we would associate those sounds the same way too. We have had hurricanes for years. And no one here or in any other part of Florida mentioned the hurricanes sounding like horse’s hooves. So that’s a bust too. After all this time researching and attempting to debunk it, it came up empty.

The only other explanation is Oh the Hurricane just happened to sound that way this time. Which is lazy thinking. I have heard half cocked bullshit explanations like that by skeptics and cynics alike. They always end up creating the most idiotic explanations and then pass them off as reasonable ones. I remember a Sheriff tried to tell a family that witnessed a UFO, that they had seen a large owl and became “hysterical,”.

And what’s worse is that the same BS is used by skeptics for that case. It’s a woman and her kids so they have to be hysterical. I am so tired of people who think that way. It’s a lack of intellect and just lazy reasoning. If you can even call it that.

Point is, there was nothing to debunk it outside of lazy reasoning and speculation. None of which holds up to scientific scrutiny. So it’s just as likely that it’s something paranormal as it is non paranormal. So debunking was a dead end. Time to do what I do best.

From the article Lay That Ghost: Necromancy in Ancient Greece and Rome by Daniel Ogden

As the description from the article says, the Gods of death, sleep, and dreams were considered Gods of Prophesy. Normally I call them and other beings to give me dreams to tell me about stuff. But right now I can’t. I lost a friend and am mourning his death. According to Greek tradition that means I have a 13 day mourning and purification period.

But my Druid Master has told me the Tuatha dé Danann have no such restrictions. But instead of a God, I decided to call the spirit of a Druid Seer. I thought this would be a nice concession to all sides of my magical life. After all, as a British witch once told me,

“Why call Gods to know or do things when your dead Aunt Tilly or one of the Fae can easily do the same? If not better?”

So I spoke to an old friend……Fedelm.

A depiction of Fedelm in the Celtic Oracle by John Matthews. She had blond hair that was braided, with black eye brows. And this was supposed to be what she wore.

Fedelm is a dead Druid poet and prophetess. She had exceptional powers when alive. And many people believed that her black eye brows were the sign of the triple iris. Showing that she was meant to be a Seer. Among her many powers is Imbas Forosnai.

A sort of trance state. Where one calls down the Gods to ask for answers to questions. I haven’t read about it in years. But I believe you need a triangular stone and raw ham and cheese that you chew in your mouth. Then you place the chewed up ham and cheese on the stone.

You put this behind the front door. And either sleep or enter a light lucid dreaming state. There you talk to the Gods and inquire what you will. Fedelm was a master of this ability, and probably didn’t even have to do this ritual all of the time to gain answers. She could predict anything at any time.

Even in death, a Prophet’s connection is strong. One would argue it’s even stronger. So I gave her an offering at my shrine for the dead. Invited her to come visit me. And went to bed.

My dreams were weird as fuck. It was like being in Woodstock. Sometimes in my sleep I was awake enough to know that I was talking out loud. Then I woke up and tried to piece together what I was dreaming. I remembered some bits.

“Ghost Storm” by Jeroen Van Valkenburg

I ignored the ones which were obviously my subconscious. But I paid attention to those things that were out of the ordinary. I dreamt of a tidal wave made up of people. But there was no water. Or rather there was.

They were hiding in the water.

In non-corporeal form. And yet they were still able to influence the physical world. I saw them rise up and create the storm from beneath the waters. They were restless. Some were just angry and wanted to destroy things.

And their faces were deformed. Some died of suicide and others of COVID. They were railing against the world. It’s not fair, I felt them saying. It wasn’t our time yet!.

And they just fused into this collective mass of dark water. And I could see lightning inside the water too. And hear many angry voices roaring from within it. And that’s when I woke up. My heart beating and me drenched in sweat.

I felt like I was there. Somewhere in the ocean. Like I had to be quiet so that I wouldn’t catch their attention. It was one of the most intense and fucked up visions I had ever had. Like these were people who died in 2020 and onward till now.

Or from the many suicides that happened in the pandemic. I waited, calmed down. And for the next few days I put it out of my head. And when I felt I was calm and centered enough, I tried normal divinations. And they all confirmed in one way or another what Lady Fedelm had told me.

Of course this is magical “evidence” for myself. I can’t expect any of you reading this to believe. And I’m sure other magic users in Florida have different opinions on the subject as well. But I know, and many of us here in Miami who felt it know, Ian wasn’t a normal Hurricane. Something did come with the storm.

And it’s wrath was terrible.

(1) The Wild Hunt by Frontier Partisans