Tuesday, January 24, 2006

One scary mother

I was cleaning out my upstairs closet and happened across the Ouija Board. It is called a game for fun and laughs but I was taught at my mother's knee that it is a scary thing. And, I can't ever bring myself to open the box.

When I was a young girl, I watched as my mother and Aunt Mary moved a cardtable across the floor without touching it. They merely laid their hands about an inch above it and the sucker moved until they removed their hands.

I've seen my mother use a Ouija board and never touch the planchette. She told me never to play with the board. In her words: "It is dangerous!" Anything to do with the suggestion of the occult and supernatural was "dangerous" to her.

She had home remedies based in the wifecraft of years. Warts, cut a potato into four pieces, rub each side across the wart and bury it in the earth by the light of the moon. It works, people. And a side benefit is that you get potatoes too. Just dig them up and fix them in your favorite fashion, mmmmmm good.


If you know my family then you know that my mother is possessed of a highly attuned psychic personality - she knows ahead of time when something is happening with one of her offspring. All of us girls have seen it in use when we were having children. Just read NanaCookie's description that she posted on 1/7/06. My personal experience came after the birth of my son in the hospital in South Florida. I was suffering from postpartum depression and was crying for no apparent reason. Unknown to me, my mother had a dream the night before that I was standing at the foot of her bed asking for her to come down. She was there the next day - having made my father drive 24 hours from Indiana to get her there as quickly as she could. [And since my other sister has started a blog, Rebecca's Ramblings, I expect to see her story on it too, one day.]

The bottom line is that I am extremely superstitious and yes, if I spill salt I throw some over my left shoulder to drive the gremlins away that made me spill it in the first place. I cross my fingers, I knock on wood, I do not walk under ladders, and, I will not have an open umbrella in my house.

Now, back upstairs to throw the damn thing out!

3 comments:

J's Mom said...

I believe in ghosts and angels. I think like in that movie with Meg Ryan and Nick Cage - they are always standing there watching us.

You know when the dog just stands there in the living room - looking at something and wagging his tail and barking.....?

They see dead people.

Anonymous said...

It's pretty clear there are more things than heaven and earth. However, I find I have no capacity to believe in gremlins and other such entities. I do know there are angels among us, from both heaven and hell, and it would be foolish of me to summarily dismiss what others have seen with their own eyes.

Ouija boards have no power without a human agent Glory, but they can be used as a conduit for evil, and I do hope you throw it away. Nothing good can come from having it around. Nothing good can come from delving into realms for which you probably aren't prepared to deal with.

Logic can only take us so far. A point comes when we have to turn to our faith to keep us centered in our lives.

Gremlins? No. Goblins? No. Bad luck? No. Evil in our world? Definitely. Just keep remembering: He who is in you is stronger than he who is in the world.

BTW, I love your writing. I'm going to check your blog more often so I don't miss anything.

See You Soon,

The Answer Man

JeansKid said...

I remember when I first met you & you telling me about burying the potato when my daughter L had warts. I looked at you kinda strange. But then again, my grandmother had some goodies of her own. Like garlic hung on a string around the neck to ward off arthritis I think. Some things are a mystery.