The Ring

Many people know the lore of using a ring to determine a baby's sex. You hold the wedding ring by a thread over the stomach of the pregnant woman and depending on the way it sways, you can "tell" the sex of the unborn child. If the ring goes in circles, you're expecting a baby boy. If the ring goes side to side you are expecting a girl according to this old wives tale.

This is similar to using a pendulum to get yes no answers to questions. Sounds a little witchy, huh?  Some people believe its a means of communicating with the spirit world and therefore questionable in its safety. But although my mother had a BAN on Ouija boards, she did sometimes dabble with the ring.

There are different ways to interpret the swinging ring for yes and no questions. Some believe that North to South is yes and East to West is no. Others think that counter clockwise is yes and clockwise is no. We always read the ring as back and forth being yes and if the ring moved in a circle it meant no.

As a card The Ring will be interpreted as possible confusion, indecision, seeking answers, as an indicator in the reading of a need for clarification of the issue or question. It might suggest that there is something that is hidden. The ring may also represent a connection to someone who has passed on or a message from them.

Working on the Cards

I woke up this morning with this urge to get to work on The Journey/Silent Woods cards. It hardly seems a "pressing" matter but I decided to add a couple cards to the deck today.  I have the Ouija board image ready and will adhere it to the card later.  I'd like to add two more cards today but I'm not sure which ones. The photo above shows the cards I have created so far.

 

I'm going to pencil in the card names on each card and therefore even without the images I can start reading with it!  I'm sure its much more exciting with the images but for some reason I am anxious to read with it. NOW.

 

I'll pop back in later with more details!

Roots, Robbers, and Living

I wanted to post today on The Silent Woods, not just because it's my day of the week to post but because I've been thinking a lot about history and family and things that only make sense to people who lived them with you.


My sister is quite ill and it brings about the stark realization that time is fleeting and if one isn't careful there comes a point in time in life where no one truly "gets" exactly what you're saying. Not having lived it there is no way that one can nod in understanding.


I totally remember the time there was a "robber" or at least someone traipsing around the farm late at night and my mom sat up all night with her pistol on her lap and we laughed about her shooting a mouse if it ran across the floor. She was a woman to be reckoned with. No one would "get" the absolute picture of this situation without having lived on the desolate farm, alone most nights as my dad worked second shift.


We were talking at the hospital yesterday how people didn't used to have "text" relationships. Heck, back then we didn't have a phone let alone text messaging. In some ways it was a whole lot easier. If you needed to talk to someone, you went and found them and had a face to face conversation.


The girls and I went by the hospital the day after Christmas and it still makes me smile thinking of Shirley bursting into song when we were making fun of her crazy talk....


" You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for
Turn out the light
Don't try to save me
You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right"


Kelsey promptly came home and ordered a Billy Joel record with the song on it to play on her new record player that she got for Christmas. Again, having "lived" it with someone (the hospital episode) made it all the more meaningful. For years to come, no one will really "get it" when we decide to belt out that single verse and laugh at our craziness!


I'm rambling and feeling a little melancholy. In the end though we all just want to say we did the best we could to live this life. At the end of a dusty road full of pot holds, perhaps the farm made life all that more special. 

Seeking the Right Questions

I was thinking today about the past, about the house, the lane with bramble bushes hiding things that made noise in the grass, the lights, the opening doors. All of it. I was wondering what did it all mean and will I ever have the answers? Then it dawned on me that maybe I really shouldn't be seeking answers, perhaps I should be seeking the right questions to ask. After all, aren't questions what define our knowledge base.

Bear with me while I ramble on a bit about this because it's just an newly born idea. One I haven't had a lot of time to ponder.

So let's say instead of asking what was lurking behind the bramble bushes? and where did it come from? perhaps the question should be What was the thing behind the bramble bushes here for?

What it was and where it came from will probably never be known. What was it here for?   It lurked there several times just out of sight. Moving with a person as they walked the lonely lane, giving the impression that it might pounce at any time. Yet it NEVER did. Was it because we were swift and fearful or was it because it's purpose never was to pounce?  Or was it perhaps that the other oddities on the farm kept us safe?  Was it about us at all or some hidden agenda between forces that we could never define or control?

I've written before that perhaps it wasn't "supernatural" at all but perhaps a blurring of two realities. Or a place where the veils between two worlds thinned and bled into each other at times. I do admit though that the thing behind the bramble bushes struck fear in my heart where many of the other things never did. And so that brings up another question: Why? It didn't happen "inside" the house whereas many other things did. You would think those would be more worrisome, inside a home where I slept.

All of these are good questions to ponder. And what if we had dared to jump boldly through the bushes to confront the thing on the other side? What would have happened then? Perhaps after all these years, the thing on the other side of the bushes was a missed opportunity.