From Dictionary.com:

e-vil [ee-vuhl] - morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked.
good [good] - morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious

From me:

evil - black; heavy; dreadful; danger
good - luminous; airy; peaceful; joy

Saturday night, on my way home from visiting a friend, I was surprised by the lack of traffic on the road. Given that unusual solitude, I was hyper aware of the car that pulled out behind me. I noted it was there; noted, too, that it was slow-moving.

On a straightaway, I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw a second set of headlights appear behind my distant road-mate. I felt a twinge at my core.

Something isn't right.

That second car got so close to the first car that I could no longer see its lights.

Tailgater. Ugh.

The tailgating wasn't what sent my senses into high alert, however. Intuition had done that, and the danger-meter side of my intuition rarely shows up.

I felt my shoulders draw up toward my ears. I willed them to relax, or at least to lower, and I gripped the steering wheel tighter.

My GPS indicated I had just 1.4 miles to go before I would turn onto my road. I rounded a couple corners, and was on another, shorter straightaway when I caught the reflection of fast-approaching headlights. They were spaced wide apart, were on the small side, and there were no parking lights, which indicated an older model car.

One-half mile from my turn-off, I knew with certainty that if the car followed me, I couldn't pull into my driveway. I would keep driving, would drive to the police station, if need be. I would not lead that car to my home.

I engaged my blinker, slowed down, and turned. The tailgater continued on its own path, and yet my tension and extended attention were not relieved until I was safely parked in the driveway.

I don't talk a lot about the abilities I possess, because they're pretty, well, "out there." I've been cautiously honing abilities that allow me to sense and do things that many people can't since I became a Reiki practitioner. I've been cautiously honing them because I've feared my capabilities in that hard-to-believe direction most of my life.

I bring those abilities up now because it feels like it's time. So...

Beyond my strong and decidedly negative intuition about that car and its driver, there was something else I'm hard-pressed to explain, except to say that the word "evil" resounded in my head, then I felt the weight of it. In response, I "pushed out" with good; with peace and love and light.

What I mean by "pushed out" is, I both envisioned and felt that good was a beautiful and formidably strong bubble around me and then encouraged it to grow, much like a balloon receiving oxygen. Evil pushed back from the driver's seat of that car. I pushed back again and held firm. So did evil. Neither one of us backed down, and yet neither one of us challenged.

Another way of considering this meet-up of good and evil would be to consider Darth Vader's red-lit light saber, and Obi-Wan Kenobi's blue-lit light saber; the dark side of the Force meeting up with the light side of the Force. Imagine lining their "blades" up against one another. What would happen along the length where they met? Can you see the array of sparks? Can you hear the electric noise? Can you feel the matched strength?

That's what happened on a dark road in southern New Hampshire not long before midnight on Saturday night. And since I strongly believe there's no such thing as coincidence, it has me wondering what the purpose of the exchange was.

What's the lesson? There's something to be taken from the incident, aside from gratitude for the awareness that led me to protect myself in the way I did, and to be prepared to protect myself even further, if necessary.

Have you met evil?