Telling Athens Stories on Strange Familiars

Mixed media painting by Barbara Fisher Typography by Timothy Renner

Timothy Renner, author, artist, musician and podcaster, kindly invited me to appear on his excellent podcast and tell some of my experiences with the mysterious lights I see in the woods here in Athens Ohio a while back. They are very like some of what he has experienced in his corner of Pennsylvania, and it was fun to share experiences with him.

Though, in truth, the poor man barely got a word in edgewise, I talked so much!

But be that as it may, I had fun talking with him—even if telling some of the stories is still a little nerve-wracking to me. Listeners get hear me talk about the lights, and what seemed to be fairies, and mysterious glowing beings that I and multiple others saw (and sometimes still see) around Athens. As a bonus, Tim asked if I knew anything about the history of Athens, and I gave him a quick and loquacious overview of some of the strangeness that Athens has to offer.

And as always, Tim’s music sets off the stories beautifully.

I was happy that Tim even decided to use a piece of my own art that I painted to convey the idea of those strange little lights for the episode.

In related news, the next episode of the 6 Degrees of John Keel Podcast will feature Timothy Renner talking with us about The Other—a name he and a growing number of other authors, researchers and podcast use to describe the non-human intelligence that interacts with us in myriad, ever shifting forms. Look for that coming up in the next couple of weeks! (I promise that I let him talk a lot more this time!)