Card: The Ouija Board

 

 

So here's a piece of advice my mother always gave me and I've lived by it. "Never use a Ouija board". Now she gave me this little tip long before the Exorcist became a major movie, or any of the other 101 movies aired that had a Ouija board as the crux of the storyline. It was before the internet put thousands of hits on the word and before a Ouija board even became something almost everybody knew of.  It was sage advice, wise advice born of what I consider common sense. Some call it superstition but when you live the daily oddities that we did you never really questioned, you simply understood, the underlying message: "Its better not to tempt things."

 

I remember once when my youngest daughter was about 12 and we were in a toy store and she picked up a box containing a Ouija board and said she was going to use some of her money to buy it. I about freaked out and she had no idea why. Later outside the store I explained what her Grandma Annie, whom she never knew had said about such things. They open doors that are often best left closed.

 

There are those that scoff at such "nonsense" and I certainly understand. When I access my logical, well educated and "modern" mind set I understand. But there is something primitive about the experiences I've had, a darker underlying sense of understanding that others cannot access. It is on that instinct I rely.

 

We've used other forms of communication, cautiously. I even remember a séance of sorts. Currently I own some dowsing rods. What's the difference some ask. I'm not quite sure but there is a difference. That I know. Perhaps its because the dowsing rods offer a basic yes no form of communication whereas the Ouija board itself opens up the communication to a level where evil could twist the words and messages.

 

As a card the Ouija board warns of danger or possible danger. It also represents things perhaps best left alone. It speaks of a primal fear. This is definitely a card that would send energy through a reading and depending on the other cards on either side of it could forewarn of evil intent.

 

 

 



The Music Box

 

So today I want to tell the story of the music box card.  The picture above isn't a picture of the actual music box but it is almost identical.  The story of the music box happened long after I moved away from the haunted farm and the silent woods.

 

It was March in the year of  1993 just a couple months after my sister, Connie passed away quite unexpectedly. My niece Christy was getting married and I had stepped in to try and help with things, as her mother would have, One of the things I planned was the rehearsal dinner in the basement of the church.

 

I had gotten home, tired but satisfied that the dinner had been nice. I was walking around my bedroom preparing for bed while my husband was in the living room. I was thinking that I was pleased with how things went when suddenly I chastened myself because I was feeling good about things while my sister had not been around to enjoy the moments of her daughters wedding rehearsal.

 

 As I am thinking this I reach my hand up and switch off the bedroom light. Immediately I hear a sort of twisting or winding sound and as I stand puzzled, I reach for the light switch. As I turn the light on the music begins to play from the jewelry box/music box on my dresser.

 

I walked over to examine it and as I touched it, it stopped playing. I picked it up, puzzled and turned the knob on the back. Yes the same "winding" noise I had heard only minutes earlier. I knew that it was a message, a message from my sister, saying that it was "ok" to be happy about the evening. I told my husband what had happened and then calmly went to bed, which is not like me at all. I'm usually jumpy around things of this sort. Yet I knew I had nothing to fear.

 

The next day I tried to experiment with different things to see if I could "make" the same thing happen again. The music box stating to play. I set the door of the box slightly ajar as I walked across the room. I pulled the drawer out. I walked softly. I stomped across the floor. Nothing recreated the music and most definitely nothing could recreate the fact that the box had to wind itself up before it could play the music.

 

The music box cards represents messages, reassurance and comfort.

Haunted Woods

So as I was musing about the silent woods I started thinking about haunted woods, in general, and what history might tell us about such places. What do such places have in common, if anything.

Take for instance the Forest of Rothiemurchus  in Scotland, burial place of Chief of Clan Shaw. If you are brave he leaves you alone but show fear and who may never be seen again. The rains, mists, and grayness of the Scottish weather are favorable to spirit activity.

Then there is Dudley Town, USA. Located in Connecticut, the remains of this town, sometimes called the Village of the Damned, are crumbling in the forest. People claim that when the enter the part of the forest near the town, it falls strangely silent. The location is supposedly cursed and visitors claim to have seen orbs and spirits.

Ballyboley Forest in Northern Ireland is reported to be a sinister place to visit. Reported to be an ancient Druid site, with overgrown stone formations and circular trenches, there have been reports of figures dressed in weird rags, blood smeared trees, black smoke and moaning. Locals reportedly do not enter Ballyboley Forest. Visitors claim it is unusually quiet and without wildlife.

Screaming Woods, England  Pluckley Village is reported to be the most haunted village in England and it is also home to the Screaming Woods. This strong concentration of paranormal activity and hauntings may be due to the location of the village in terms of magnetism in the ground. Paranormal activity is believed to flourish in areas of strong geological magnetism. Among other things,the sounds of footsteps and most importantly screaming have been reported coming from the woods.

Hoia Baciu Romania (the World's Most Haunted Forest) is said to be actually a gateway to another dimension. It is sometimes called the Bermuda Triangle of the Country because people who live near it are afraid to enter it as they believe they will not return home again.  Lots of pictures of disc like objects, dead vegetation zones and strange rashes and dizziness are linked to this forest.

These are just a few "haunted forests." Like the silent woods most notably people comment on the absence of normal forest sounds and often the lack of wildlife.

The Ball of Fire

 

I wrote earlier about the ghost lights that appeared at the end of our driveway and caused hearts to beat faster as we played in the dark yard of the farm. Earlier, much earlier there was another light. It was different in quality, it had a reddish almost fire like appearance. This light appeared across the hills and on the opposite side of the silent woods, at my uncle's home, long ago when my mother was a child.

 

This light would come out of the woods and circle the house in the dark night sky. This light appeared more sinister in nature than the ghost lights and no one knew what it wanted. After the light appeared on several different nights, my grandfather stood in the yard watching it. Then he spoke.

 

"If ye be from God then you're welcome, but if ye be from the devil be gone."  The light shot across the sky into the woods (the silent woods? I wish I knew but the telling of the story through the years never included a direction). It never returned again.

 

What was the light? Where did it come from and where did it disappear to?  These questions were never answered. The malevolent feelings the circling light resonated was enough for my grandfather. He seldom spoke of the light again but the younger family members did and they carried the tale down through the ages.

 

 



The Ghost Hunts

We just completed another ghost hunt last night and it seemed "uneventful." Oh there were a few "creepy things" like the rods pointing us towards by brother's grave and the tingling sensation and goose bumps while on the old bluff road. We talked about doing a day time hunt and looking for other places to explore the paranormal. We talked about the ghost lights, and past hunts and we laughed. It was chilly and we drank hot chocolate in the cemetery.

 

Then I woke up this morning and I thought for a moment about the "reason" for the hunts. And it came to me that as others search for childhood memories in cotton candy, parades, and holiday dinners, we search for them in the hunts. Everyone always wants to capture the feelings, the memories, the meaningful experiences from the past. To hold tight to them as a foundation or proof of who they are. A sort of memory family tree. Ours are just a little "unusual".

 

Most people laugh when I mention the farm, the woods, the strange encounters. Why shouldn't they? If you have never experienced such odd comings and goings than why would you even begin to have a knowledge base or a belief that such things might actually happen. When I hear people say they drank a bottle of wine that cost over 500 dollars, I laugh too. It's not in my mind's eye that such things happen!

 

Perhaps the ghost hunts are a search for meaning, a connection to the past, a validation of what we experienced, our heritage. Perhaps they are a hobby for a chilly night sandwiched between Halloween and the Day of the Dead. Perhaps they are a "path" we are supposed to walk for some reason. Perhaps they are a connection between the generations. Perhaps they are just a whim and we are lost in investigating things we cannot see. Does it matter?

 

 

Perhaps it is like the tunnel (some call it Satan's tunnel) a dark void that one must travel through to get to the light on the other side. Don't stay too long wandering around inside or you might just lose your way.

 

The Journey cards are a deck of cards that highlight many of these strange and "other worldly" experiences. They are a history of sorts. The Silent Woods is a blog to muse about it all. The ghost hunts simply deepen the meaning.

 

 



Reality and Reason

 

 

I've written before about the surreal existence on the haunted farm and during my childhood. Where reality blurs with memories and yet exists as a beacon leading me to my foundation built during cold bitter winter nights and lazy dusty summer days.. I know the things that happened there in the dawn of my life where as real and true as the life I live today. What has always perplexed me was the lack of conversation and questioning that occurred in our house. Yet when I think back....the 60s and 70s weren't really open territory for supernatural discussions and quite frankly we all might have been thought quite mad.

 

I must note that I typically shied away from scary movies and even novels that depicted sagas that took a paranormal twist. As an avid reader, I wonder why. In reflection, I think I was avoiding facing the craziness of the events that unfolded constantly around me. What if in those movies I caught a glimmer of something that existed (for me) in everyday life. Would it make it more real? Somehow more threatening? Would it confirm or deny the reality around me?

 

 

This rings true. There is a reality inside me. Oh its different now than it was 45 or more years ago. I've traveled, I've studied, I've had conversations, I've written and reflected. I've experienced life much more than I had back then. For years I even led an "unreal" life. We all do...trying to impress others, make our way in the world, conform to societal expectations, etc. Yet there is a "world" inside of me and that world includes the experiences of my youth.

 

So when I enter a dwelling, like the Lemp Mansion in St. Louis Missouri where I recently took part in a haunted tour and spent the night....when I enter and it "feels" well strange and familiar at the same time, I know that it is my senses registering something deep inside me. Experiences that have the same quality. Not deja vu...just recognition of a similar sensation.

 

 

Card 48: Nightly Visitor

 

 

Doors are interesting things...don't you agree? They let people in and out of buildings, churches, stores and our homes. With the twist of the knob someone new and interesting might enter into our lives but living on the haunted farm made me come to realize that many feelings and many things  can come with the turning of the knob.

 

It was in the darkest hours of the night that the turning of the knob could signal our almost nightly visitor.  This phenomena happened as far back as I can remember. Perhaps it was always there like the little man in the attic but my knowledge of it lay hidden in the dark recesses of my mind. Tucked away like a key to something I would never truly understand.

 

I can't really remember exactly when it floated into my consciousness and even now it amazes me how seldom we talked about it.  On many nights, well past two in the morning we would either be awakened by the sound of the front door opening or by our small dog barking vigorously at something in the living room.

 

The layout of the small house was such that my bedroom door opened into the living room but was slightly obscured by a enclosed staircase that led up to the attic. Slightly down from my room was the door into my parents bedroom. Sometimes my father would get up and try to sneak silently into the living room to catch a glimpse of whoever or whatever entered.

 

The door was old and creaked. We seldom locked it and quite honestly I'm not sure there even was a lock for many years but regardless the visitor had no problems entering.  With the creaking of the door the dog usually charged into the living room. As I lay silently in my bed I could hear the dog's paws clicking on the wooden floor. Not just clicking but jumping up on something and then falling to the floor again, and again, and again.

 

Once again I am struck by the oddness that I don't remember any fear. Perhaps the fear became buried under all the layers of twisted oddity that occurred in the house, the woods, the lane and in our lives. I know there were some nights when we were curious, perhaps even slightly anxious but not the gripping fear you might expect when you "think" someone is in the next room and you wonder what they want and why they are there.

 

When it awakened me I can assure you I didn't have the courage to hop out of bed and blunder out into the living room to investigate but neither did I lay quivering in my bed filled with dread. Generally I waited and after a bit the dog fell silent and most of the time before I drifted back to sleep I would hear the door again as our nightly visitor left.