Grace Lark, a lawyer and environmentalist, has an uncanny ability to intuitively find lost items and return them to their owners as well as missing people. In fact, these abilities aren't all that strange when viewed through the lens of Native American culture, she said.
“In dominant Western culture, objects and nature are inanimate,” says Lark. “My Indian friends, however, see the world differently. In a world where nature exchanges data, the dead can intervene and objects have power, what we call coincidences are missing. It's amazing."
One day Lark walked into an antique store. She is interested in Native American artifacts, as she used to be an archaeologist before switching to ecology and law. She loves to delve into old things in search of treasures. The store was in the basement of a mall, in a dark corner on the cement floor there was a box containing a photograph of an Indian with a beaded medallion. Lark's heart beat fast when she saw her.
Crow Indian (apsaloke). Photo by Edward S. Curtis, 1908
She thought of an Indian she knew. A question arose in my head if she should give this photo to him. Lark sensed that it was not for him. Then another person came to mind, to whom she showed the photograph. It turned out that it was his twin brother who died in Germany during World War II. The photo belonged to his sister, but her ex-husband stole many of her things and said he destroyed them. This photo was among them and she thought she had lost it forever. When the woman was shown the photo, she felt like her brother had returned.
Many of the things Lark finds and returns have to do with redressing justice and lasting wounds.
One day she drove to Santa Fe and went to a thrift store, where she found a very old Indian shield made of rawhide. She had a feeling that he was connected to a family she knew. Lark sent the members of this family a photograph of the shield and asked, "Who lost this shield?" It turned out that one of the brothers in this family inherited the shield, but the relic was stolen in Santa Fe six years ago.
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Rawhide Shield, circa 1850, at the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum.
Lark found about 70 items belonging to the Indians of four tribes. It is difficult to describe the intuition that carries it to objects and people who have lost them, says Lark: “It's like hearing or seeing something; sometimes objects attract me like a magnet. And often there is a story behind them, which the soul of this person seems to be telling me."
This happens not only with Indian artifacts. One day she was looking for a Leopold table for her husband, who knows the famous ecologist Aldo Leopold, whose father founded the Leopold company. On the Internet, she found such a table for $ 300 plus $ 100 shipping. The next day, she went to a thrift store and found one there for $ 20. Lark had never seen a Leopold table in thrift stores before.
Leopold table.
She has a talent for finding what she needs. “It's a rare ability, but I think I'm not the only one,” Lark said. She heard that one man found a lost birch bark scroll after seeing its location in a dream. Lark's garage is full of the household items she bought. She helps people find lost things.
One thought saved 10 lives
Lark thought of friends in Mexico who were helping street children and wrote to her that 10 children between the ages of 4 and 14 were missing. In a dream, she saw how the children entered the house where there was an artist without pants. She described the strange artist and the house to her friends, and they found it. It turned out that the children did indeed enter this abandoned building, it collapsed and the children were under the rubble for four days.
Abandoned building in Mazatlan, Mexico.
Lark once met a police officer who told her that his department regularly uses clairvoyants.
By telling her story, Lark hopes to encourage young people who have similar abilities. “It's an exciting personal experience,” she says. "It's hard to share with others because our culture does not have the proper language to describe and explain these phenomena." Nor can it be explained “scientifically”, she says: “I don’t think I could do it in the laboratory. It becomes a secret part of my life because it is too difficult to describe."
* Grace Lark is a pseudonym. She wished to remain anonymous.
