The Dead of Night Ghost Tour in Plymouth, Massachusetts promises a fascinating experience among the long dead, and of all the various ghost tours I've experienced, in the U.S. and Canada, I have to confess, this one does deliver a certain mystique not present in the others.
In America, there's old and then there's wicked old, to borrow a colloquialism. While it doesn't begin to compare to European, Middle Eastern or Asian history as far as actual years, it does hold a certain enhanced quality because of inherent patriotism. I'm proud of my country's origins, even though history affirms it was sometimes ugly, messy, brutal and ignorant. Witch trials aside, it's staggering to explore how much people didn't know about survival and how vulnerable these brave souls were to the harsh New England elements.
The origins of Plymouth is part of basic American History curriculum in school, but the truth about what these hearty souls faced is barely brushed. What I liked about this ghost tour was that it tended to focus on the more obscure souls who populated the early colony and what everyday life was like in the early 1600s. If nothing else, it's a great adventure for preteens to adults to discover some little known facts about daily life for the colonists.
That said, these types of tours can prove challenging for a medium. I'm not the kind of medium that readily conveys messages from the other side, though that has happened, I'm more of a sensitive, and an intuitive. I sense shifts in vibration and energy fields and, while it does occasionally come through as words and movement, it doesn't always. Sometimes, it's just an overall sensation, and sometimes it's absolutely dreadful.
The last stop of the tour was a haunted house currently being renovated. As the tour guide attested, these types of changes can disturb resting spirits. The structure itself was fascinating, beautiful and had maintained much of its original essence from the past. But, there was one room that swept through me like an illness. When we entered, it was ice cold. Several of us felt it. There was something ugly, even hideous about it, and I immediately had to steady myself against a table. I quickly realized that I shouldn't touch anything in the room, however, and stepped backward toward the doorway. Steeling myself against whatever was overtaking me, I knew I wasn't strong enough to stay on my feet. I felt nauseated, flushed, dizzy and terrified. In seconds, I left the room and the house.
The room itself was innocuous. A bedroom, with fancy bedspreads and that odd smell of sheets folded for too many years; an acrid, bitter tinge in the air. Once outside, the tour guide explained that it was the "birthing" room of the house; a room dedicated to childbirth. Whether that was the reason for feeling so overwhelmed or not, it's difficult to say. I'm sure over time that room had been filled with intense joy and intense anguish. Perhaps I picked up on a collective energy, or perhaps it was a single moment in time rearing back to strike at anyone able to feel it.
This final experience did not color me against the tour, however. Overall, it was a truly enjoyable evening full of tales of success, heartache, humor and history.
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