A shudder, a draft, cold sweat, a hunch of death, a tickling of the spine – the feeling that someone is walking over ones grave.
A familiar sensation to many of us. As is the phrase. “Someone walked over my grave!”
My grave? A definite point on the map of time? The final grid? My personal space?
If we do not know where we go after life we might find it reassuring to know where exactly we will be. We in that case is what remains of us for a few years after our death: flesh and bone, a stone, a memory.
It is a myth of course, how could we feel someone walking over a space where our grave will be some day?!
This belief goes back as far as the Middle Ages where life and death were connected much more closely than they are in modern times. Life being shorter and science vague then, it was a logical concept.
The complete separateness of life and death scares most. The belief in the possibility that the two worlds could be interacting or at least touching somewhere in some way is comforting to many, as is the thought of belonging to a certain place.
If it is preordained where we will be put to our final rest, then something binds us to this bit of earth. Some power beyond life, earth and time. This makes a grave a very personal space, one to be respected.
Watch your steps and tread carefully on graveyards. Do it out of respect for the graves that are there and for those that are yet to come.
Watch your steps – you might just send a shiver down someone elses’ spine.
Graveyards of Scotland 
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