Card 5 and 20. The Hounds of Hell and The Tunnel

The Tunnel....AKA....Satan's Tunnel. The top card is an actual photo of the tunnel. It wrinkled a bit but I think it will be fine to read with. The tunnel has lots of folklore associated with it.

This card represents evil, danger, caution and the unknown.  There are things about this situation that may remain a mystery. You need to proceed with caution. You may not be getting the full story.

The second card is the Hounds of Hell card....this card represents the dog like creatures my mom often saw at the haunted farm.  This card represents fear and the unknown. It is also about misrepresentation. People or things may not be as they seem.  The fear may be real or imagined.  It can signify a negative change. Things may keep "escaping" you.

Cards 1 and 2 Dragonfly and Grasshopper Say

FINALLY I am actually creating the cards for The Journey deck. I am using images from the internet and magazines etc to create the cards because I am no real artist!  I feel fine about using the images because I am not trying to produce and sell a deck, just creating one for my personal use!

Featured above is Card 1 The Dragonfly, my first identified animal totem. The keeper of dreams and wisdom. Bringer of transformation and enlightenment. I wanted you to be able to see the front and back of the cards. I used a deck of blank cards I bought at amazon.com

Here you see cards one and two.  The second card is Grasshopper Say.  Grasshopper is the keeper of memories and fun. Bringer of laughter and light heartness. But always remember your laughter may make others cover their ears so this card speaks a bit of moderation also.

The Journey Deck Cards

1. Dragonfly
2. Grasshopper Say
3. Little Old Woman
4. Man in the Attic
5. Hell Hounds
6. Silent Woods
7. Bluff Road
8. Indian Grave Road
9. Old Garden
10. Green Hand
11. Ghost Lights
12. Grandma Annie
13. Fuzzy Duck
14. Gnome
15. MT
16. Faery Garden
17. The Lane
18. The Ouija Board
19. Ghost Hunt
20. Tunnel
21. Train
22. Ball of Fire
23. Knock at the Door
24. Reading Cards
25. The Ring
26. Red
27. Haggle Foot
28. Dead Uncles
29. Music Notes
30. Dome Light
31. Sugar Cane
32. Denutter
33. Fight Card
34. The Stone
35. Words
36. Mexicans and Grapes
37. Hands
38. Circle
39. Cardinal
40. Org
41.. Cross
42. Tattoo
43. Friends
44. Music Box
45. Soundtracks
46. Death
47. Roadtrip
48. Night Visitor

This is the current, most up to date list of cards. I'm not opposed to adding others if something comes to mind or memory but this list is adequate for reading with and each card has a story and a specific "mood" that goes with it.

Childhood Thoughts

We lived in a different world back then. It was hard. Dirt roads, corn fields, and bikes. The life I lived was all I knew and I never questioned that it might be anything but ordinary. Looking back I realize that it was anything but.

We weren't exactly dirt poor but we didn't have much money either. But that didn't take us away from ordinary. There were plenty of families with the same situation. No, if anything, looking back...that just made us common. I'm not going to lie...at the time I hated that. Felt like an outsider....more from the thoughts inside my head than from anything else.

No, the thing that moved us past ordinary was not something material....a lack of money, old farmhouse, or run down cars. The thing that I never really realized until much much later was the odd series of events that unfolded, off and on, throughout my childhood were just not ordinary events that everyone experiences.

I can remember being as young as 8 or 9 and hearing the front door open, footsteps, the dog barking and jumping on someone or something...that just...well it just wasn't there. Or at least none of us could catch a glimpse of it, if we dared venture into the livingroom and click on a light. My father tried many many times to figure out exactly what entered. Though he NEVER talked about it...at least not in front of me. I'm not sure if he ever really discussed it with anyone. Only mother felt strong or sure enough to question the oddness of our almost weekly visitor.

In and of itself, perhaps that doesn't move us into the realm of odd.....but there was more, much more.

Update on the Cards

Back when I started picking cards or images or concepts to use in this deck, I had some very strong ones I knew for sure had to be included. Then I thought and thought and picked out some others....none of those were as strong or as meaningful as the first choices. So now months down the road I am revising the list...

First I took out all the filler cards that I had placed in the deck to sort of round it out. Images such as the fool, the moon, etc...ones that are in traditional decks....well...guess what...this is NOT a traditonal deck. They don't fit for me!

Second I went through and took out the images that were from history but perhaps not as strong or meaningful to me. I have left only one person card in the deck. The Grandma Annie card represents my mother. And while there are other important family members, such as Grandma Uptown...none of them resonanted with me as being part of this deck other than the woman who embodies the idea of this deck.

Third I added a few cards. The grasshopper card is a recent adventure but still seemed to fit in this deck. I also added the Ball of Fire, Knock on the Door, the Ouija Board, and the Stone (all from family history and with interesting stories attached to them.)

I still have a few blanks (I'm not rushing this time, these cards will "come to me")...I'd like to start the deck with 48 cards but am open to adding to the deck as time goes by...but the goal is to get the 48 in place and then add a card here or there if something seems to fit.

If you are interested in the list of cards...click on the The Cards link on the top bar here at The Silent Woods and you will be taken to the page with the list...scroll down a bit!

CARD: Ghost Lights

Have you ever watched something on TV and got that vague uneasy feeling that it is something you have seen before or it just jiggles your memories? Well with all the new shows on like ghost hunters and paranormal....I'm bound to encounter that what with the haunted farm and stuff. Well this happened over a year ago when I was watching TV, not a paranormal show...I hardly ever watch those but I did happen to catch a bit of an advertisement for one in which they mentioned "ghost lights". When I caught a glimpse of the segment, it sure reminded me of something. Something buried deep in my memories and I sort of just shook it off.

Then about six months ago, I was chatting with my niece who is in her thirties and as often happens ....talk turned to family, funny memories, and the farm. My older daughter was there too and just happened to mentioned that she wanted to take a "ghost tour" in St. Charles, MO. That's a town about 35 minutes from us and it has these tours in the old down town section which are taken (at night of course). We had been throwing around this idea (just for fun mind you) for quite some time.

Then my niece mentioned the "ghost lights". It seems that she has some pretty clear and distinctive memories of the farm. She lived in a trailor on the farm for several years when she was quite small. The trailor was about fifty to a hundred yards from the farm house itself. As she told the story she remembers of the ghost lights I began to realize that she was talking about exactly what I had viewed and found disturbingly familiar on the TV segment. Those glowing lights several feet in the air and moving (usually directly toward me).

She related to us, how as a small child of about 4-6 she can remember at dusk being afraid to walk the fifty yards or so to Grandma's house (the home I grew up in) because she had to watch down the lane for the ghost lights and make sure she had plenty of time to make it to the house before they could travel down the lane toward the house. She vividly described the lights usually in pairs or groups of three to five lights. Possibly ten-twenty feet in the air, but she can't be sure as they were in the distance. But when she would enter the yard at dusk or a bit later in the summer she could see them up the lane and they frequently started moving toward her and the farm house as she made her way quickly across the yard. She had actually read mention of "ghost lights" in a book about Missouri ghosts and made the connection.

I can't say I have a clear memory of the lights which seems a little odd but what she described are exactly like the lights on the TV segment that cause me such pause when I caught a glimpse of them. Perhaps her story could be explained away as her memory "fitting" what she had read but how exactly do you explain my nagging dejavu when I saw the segment and then the fact that her stories so closely match my vague memories. The ghost lights unlike the little man in the attic caused us a bit of fear but no one was ever hurt by them. Small children can be easily scared by what they do not understand especially at dusk in that twilight time when the light of day becomes the darkness of night.

Originally Posted at Ginger's Journey MARCH 2008

CARD: The Tunnel

This is the actual site that The Tunnel card is based on. This is a tunnel that a road used to run through as there is a railroad track that used to run across the top. The road now dead ends at the tunnel because it is not passable and trains no longer travel across the rail here. There is much local lore about the tunnel and possible paranormal activity inside it.

This picture is taken about 8:30 in the morning just inside the tunnel, looking toward the other end. As I stood in the tunnel, there was a very distinct noise, about as loud as a voice during normal talk. It sounded like a train in the distance or perhaps a roar. Outside the tunnel the noise could not be heard. There were also periodically metallic tinging like noises of unknown origin.

As I stood with my back to the tunnel for a picture my niece observed a line of weird swirling mist at the opposite end of the tunnel. The line of mist was positioned exactly where my camera battery drained. As we drove away from the tunnel I checked my camera and it was fully charged again.