Get. Out. Now.

SO! Vary rarely do I talk about spiritual experiences... and maybe I shouldn't talk about this one... except... except that this has to do with my photography... oh well.

I'm part of an awesome website that helps photographers find locations. You can post your own location ideas, and share with others to find the locations. It's a GREAT tool. Someone on the website posted a location to a place called the Graffiti House. Supposedly, it's this great location that has graffiti all over the walls. It use to be a warehouse that is no longer in use and in the fall, it's surrounded by cotton fields. It was suppose to be a really awesome location with an urban edge.

I had heard it was getting torn down, so I wanted to go check it out before it was gone.

My friend Maggie was over. We were talking and all of a sudden it popped into my head "go check out this location!" We looked up the location and the directions and off we went.

It was about a 45 min drive to a town called Queen Creek. We were racing the clock and chasing the sun for the perfect light. It's called golden hour. It's the hour BEFORE the sun rises, and an hour AS the sun is setting. It's BEAUTIFUL. Warm haze, soft light. It's a photographers preferred light choice.

We drove down the street it was suppose to be on, and saw one barn/warehouse, but it didn't match the description I thought it should have, so we drove a little bit further before we pulled over to look at the map again. The map confused us, but my friend Maggie and I concluded that the warehouse we saw earlier had to have been the warehouse. So we went back.


As we drove in off the main road and on to the dirt road, I got really excited. I was excited to see what was around to take some awesome shots and to just explore. We went through a chain fence and all of a sudden, I got a little nervous. I'm not sure if it's because we were "trespassing" (photographers are notorious for forgetting to see those rules posted some where...) or if it was because there was a weird vibe that I got from it.

I got out of the car, opened the back door and got my camera out. I started setting up my equipment and looking around. There were two parts to the location. 1) the warehouse with tons of graffiti around and 2) a shack with cool colors that looked like it had been blown up. Just walls and holes where windows and doors use to be.

Maggie and I started walking around. As we got closer to the building, I became more and more uneasy. Something didn't feel right. I turned to Maggie and I said "Does something feel off?" we both agreed that something was off and we didn't really want to explore the building anymore. We both got a very heavy, sickening, dark feeling from that building. We turned away and decided that we would shoot at the other shack/building about 20 feet away from it.

With my back turned to the warehouse, I started shooting. I told Maggie to watch my back. Within about 10 frames, I had decided we were done. Something didn't feel right. I kept getting this dark feeling like it was some place I shouldn't be. Some place I needed to get away from right then.

All of a sudden I heard words loud and clear "GET OUT NOW!" It didn't take me too long to react to that prompting. When you hear something that loud and clear, you don't second guess it at all.

I have never had something like that happen at all. I've never heard the words from the Holy Ghost speak so clearly to me. Something I KNEW. Something that just resonated with my spirit. Something that I recognized so clearly. I knew EXACTLY what it was. I knew exactly where it was coming from and while the words were scary, I felt peace while being freaked out by those words. The words brought a small amount of comfort as we made the decision to leave.

We got into the car (camera equipment still all on me btw) and I locked the car. For a split second I had a mini-fear that something was going to happen to my car. It wasn't going to start. Luckily the car started, doors locked and we were able to drive to a field about a mile away and get some unique shots.

I don't know what would have happened had Maggie and I stayed there. Something bad probably. The feelings that we had with that building were of evil nature. They were dark and the building had horrible energy. While we are slightly interested in what could have happened, we are SO grateful that nothing did. We are grateful for the promptings we received, we are grateful we listened, and we are grateful that we were 1) protected from danger and 2) that Maggie and I were able to recognize the Holy Ghost. That we were able to recognize the feelings, promptings and the words that were spoken to us.

I'm so grateful that I can identify the Still small voice. I'm grateful that I'm able to listen and act upon promptings quickly.

Hopefully I can sleep tonight.

I'm sorry there are no pictures for me to post right this minute, but I've been slacking on posting in general... SO... I'll post pictures in the next day or two. promise. you can even hold me to it!!

<3 the girl who listens to promptings