Huginn and Muninn

My mother grew her very first pumpkins this season and promised her first ripe one to me as an anniversary gift. It was her best pumpkin of the season and as such, I wanted to carve something special into it.

I chose Huginn and Muninn, Odin's ravens and informants. I chose them as my pumpkin motif not only because Odin is one of the gods I associate with Samhain, but because of what the ravens names mean.

Huginn translates to thought, while Muninn translates to memory. Both thought and memory are important to me, especially in regards to relationships. Thought is integral to making things work and memories are what make relationships (and life) so wonderful.

This is the first surface carving I've done on a pumpkin and I'm quite proud of it! I got the design from Alpha Stamps. I drew it onto the pumpkin while looking at the small design on the computer screen and carved it out with a small carving tool.

Hope you enjoy my pumpkin and have a Blessed Samhain, or Happy Halloween for my non-pagan friends.

On Samhain, I step into the second year...

This Samhain is very special to me; it's been one year since I came out of the broom closet and took the first steps on my current path. From the memories I recall of my childhood, I've been a pagan throughout my life, but I didn't have a name for it until I was out of high school. When I learned about paganism, it was the first time religion of any sort resonated strong and true within me.

Once I found the general name for my belief system, I was path-less. I revered nature, loved the goddess and god, enjoyed divination and had very little difficulty with meditation or energy work... but I felt a pull to put a more specific name to what I felt, since all of the pagans I talked to seemed to be wiccans of Dianic or Gardnerian leanings, though a few of them practiced hoodoo. None of those seemed a fit for me. It wasn't until I met a fantastic pagan woman (and very dear friend) who is a hedgewitch and has been for over 25 years that I became aware of green witchcraft. The path of the green witch is completely personal and flexible, deeply rooted in nature (especially forests and trees), the rituals are loose and spontaneous and can be performed however I please. It was love as soon as I was half way through Ann Moura's book. Once I finished that one and read through Ellen Dugan's I knew this was my path.

I picked Samhain, the witches new year and a time of beginnings and endings, for my dedication and first spell work. I chose to perform a ritual to leave behind the broom closet and a ritual to dedicate myself to my new path. I did a divination for the year by pulling a card for each month of the year and I recorded them in my Book of Shadows. When I was done I just felt... peaceful, in tune, content.

In this past year I have made so much progress on my path. My confidence when spell working has increased dramatically and I no longer hide what I am. Witches abound in my kitchen, small shrines are scattered throughout my home and my husband (who is not a pagan) even put together a table in our bedroom where my beautiful main altar is. My maiden goddess has left me as I've grown out of maidenhood myself, but I've been scooped up into Brighid's loving arms.

I'm looking forward to the celebration of a full turn of the wheel on my path. I'm planning on revisiting the ritual of release to leave the negative behind me but I'm also planning on adding a wish ritual to balance things out. I will also be doing my year long divination and recording it again.

Most of all though, I'm looking forward to Samhain's energy, ready to be renewed and free as I step into the new year.

Pumpkin-less Folks

On the twenty-sixth night of October, we baked pumpkin seeds and ate them all up!

Tonight, the twenty-seventh of October, I sketched up some new friends! These are the first drawings I've done in almost a year.

I'm rather fond of this jolly, headless fellow!


Lady Pumpkin, however, went downhill after her shoulders and ended up being a rather scratchy sketch, rather than a finished piece. I didn't even try to shade her! I'll revisit her someday, maybe, when I figure out how she should be positioned.

For those curious, these drawings are done in black rollerball ink on white drawing paper. I have a sturdy hardcover sketchbook that all of my doodles and creatures call home.

I realised how very much I miss drawing (and painting). I sort of put them on the back burner when I took my desk job over a year ago and left them there. Now that I've left that job I hope to reconnect with that aspect of myself, since it's been with me for 23 years.

During ritual on Samhain, I plan to have a serious evaluation session and decide what in my life is a time sucker, what legitimately makes me happy when I work, what I miss doing and what things I need to do. Then leave everything that kills my mojo, creates negative time or sucks up time that could be devoted to things that make me happy behind in the old year. I will simplify and organise in order to destress and create bliss.

Kitchen Apothecary

I have a wall in my kitchen with small staggered shelves that I usually keep my tea tins, tea pots, candles and a small elemental shrine on. This year, I turned my shelves into an Apothecary shop.

The cauldron below the shelves is perched on top of my microwave. When we have our Halloween party, the microwave and cart will be draped in black fabric and the cauldron will be filled with punch. Enough of that though, let's get to talking about the shelves! Clicking on any of the photos will take you to it's Flickr page where you can view it larger and see more detail.

On display on this shelf I have arranged a raven, a tea tin with it's label turned towards the wall and 3 bottles I filled with 'spooky' things, like an elixir of zombification, clairvoyance potion and graveyard dirt. I used the tea tin as a riser for a small tin shrine I received in a swap. The vintage mushroom diagram is always on that shelf and fit right in with the decorations.



This shelf is flanked by two wine bottles that I absolutely love, a solid black glass cat and Ghost pines. In between the bottles is another vintage mushroom diagram, another tea tin facing the wall, a small shrine devoted to bats that I received in a swap, a vintage brass flute, and more potions and ingredients; bad dreams, dragon's tears and unicorn's blood.



The central shelf (and last shelf I will be sharing in detail) showcases my favorite teapot, a clay japanese teapot given to me by my lovely, a voodoo doll style kitchen witch from Spain, a caged bird ornament that I bought last Christmas, 2 small vintage german cups, an aged metal adornment that I bought at a garage sale over the summer and a potion of factual aquisition.



I completed the shelves by arranging some more potions on the top shelves with the things that were already there and covering everything in thin fake cobwebs.



I finished off the kitchen with a chemist's sign, some holey fabric and purple Halloween lights.

Here is a closer look at some of the bottles, which I made last year:

If you're still reading and interested in making your own Apothecary bottles, this is how I made them:

1) I went to my local craft store and bought a bunch of their $1 bottles in various shapes and sizes. I also bought a bag of corks that would fit the bottle. If there is anything you want to put in the bottles that you don't have at home, feel free to pick that up too! I had all of my supplies at home already, so this project cost me $12 for 10 bottles. Not too bad.

2) Once home, take the price stickers off of your bottles and assemble your supplies. You will need:

- Bottles
- Corks
- White Vinegar
- Food Colouring
- Any solid objects to put in your potions, such as google eyes, colored class pebbles, dirt, etc.
- twine
- hot glue gun and glue
- mod podge or other decoupage medium
- printer and paper
- tea
- Paint/Sponge brush

3) Decide what you want your bottles to hold and fill accordingly. For potions, fill your bottles with vinegar and add food colouring until you achieve the look you want. Once your bottles are filled to your satisfaction, line the thinner part of your corks with hot glue and jam them into the necks of the bottles. Glue should ooze over the top, which is what you want. Make sure your bottle is sealed securely by hot gluing around the cork/bottle opening. If you want the dripping waxy look, go nuts here... let the glue ooze down the side of the bottle, cover the entire cork in glue; whatever you want to do. If you want your bottle to look more rustic, run glue around the top of the bottle neck and cork and wrap twine tightly around it.

4) Now that your bottles are filled and sealed, they're going to need labels. You can hunt for free graphics online or make your own using Photoshop, the Gimp, etc and a font that you enjoy. Once your labels are designed and sized to fit your bottles print them out and let the ink dry completely before moving onto the next step.

5) Is your ink completely dry? Make sure by leaving them alone a bit longer and brewing a very strong dark batch of black tea. You won't need much, 1/3 cup should do it. Once your tea is brewed and ready to go, bring your label papers out and place them on newpaper. Take your paint brush and your tea and drip/sponge the tea onto the papers. DO NOT paint the tea on or you risk destroying your label. Once your paper is covered in enough tea to look aged, let it dry for a bit. You can recoat with tea if you aren't happy with the richness of the stain, just make sure the paper dries between coats.

6) If you want aged edges on your labels, rather than straight scissor cuts, go back to your labels while they are still damp and tear around the label, don't try to tear in a straight line, just let it go. Now, let the labels dry completely.

7) Once the labels are dry, it's time to stick them to your bottles! Get your decoupage medium and brush a thin coat onto the back of your label and onto the bottle. Stick the label onto your bottle and let dry. Once dry, brush decoupage medium over the label, making sure to get some on the bottle around the edges of the label to seal it on. Let it dry and enjoy your creation!

Some Apothecary Bottle "Recipes":

Stingers of Jellyfishes:

- Grab a sheet of waxed paper and your hot glue gun. Run glue lines of varying thickness randomly on the waxed paper. Don't worry about the tendrils that always end up happening when you move the gun, in this case, those are great!
- Peel the hot glue strands lines off the paper once they've cooled and pop them into a jar or bottle. Now fill your bottle with enough vinegar to cover them and dye it a light shade of yellow.

Bad Dreams:

- Take a few cotton balls (or fake cobwebs, since it IS the season for them!) and pull them apart, making them light and wispy.
- With charcoal or dark chalk rub bits of the cotton to dirty it up. Pop it into a bottle or jar, cork it and label it.

Snake Oil:

- Cram a few small rubber snakes into a bottle/jar. Fill the jar with vinegar and dye it whatever colour you think snake oil should be! I tinted mine with enough coloring to make it a dark oily brown. The snakes show through when the light hits it just right for an eerie effect!

These are just a few of mine, feel free to use them or come up with your own!

I have a Pumpkin Addiction...

There. I said it. I'm addicted to pumpkins. I didn't realise just how bad it was until I began uploading my batch of photos of the past week's October Blog Party activities. Almost every single day I did something involving pumpkins.

What can I say, I love those bright orange squash!

On the 18th through 25th of October I...

Decorated the front door with my Lovely...


Made a Halloween Bunting


Made a Fairy GodPumpkin from junk around the house.


Made some vintage inspired Statuettes out of simple wooden bits and paint


Enjoyed a Pumpkin Pie milkshake


Set up my kitchen Apothecary, which will get it's own post a bit later!


Went through a corn maze with my lovely, my kid sister and a friend of ours...


Carved jack-o-lanterns! Pumpkins from right to left - Mine, My lovely's, my sister's.

The Sweetest Place on Earth

That's Hershey, Pennsylvania's tag line and it's relatively accurate, considering the amount of free chocolate we were treated to during our stay. We spent 3 nights and 3 days in Hershey, with the plan to go to their Haunted attraction, Hershey Park in the Dark, Friday night.

Unfortunately, the park was closed throughout the duration of our stay due to heavy rain and frigid weather. We made the best of our getaway though, enjoyed the time away from the apartment, work and bills and just enjoyed our time together.

The first place we visited was Hershey's Chocolate World.

With giant chocolate mascots, how could we resist?

While we were there, we went on the Hershey Factory tour (which is cheesy, fun and not in the factory!) where we giggled and felt briefly that there should have been oompa-loompas dancing about instead of cows:

We also participated in a chocolate tasting "adventure" where we were given chocolate with different amounts of cacao in them, and asked to identify different flavor notes. We also learned a bit about the history and origins of chocolate:

After that, we ate dinner at a delicious pizza place in town before retiring to our room to watch 'The Evil Dead'. Even though I was on vacation, I continued on with the 31 Days of Halloween blog party. Good thing I brought so many movies too, since nothing is open in Hershey after 8pm most nights.

The following day we took a tour of the Hershey Story museum, which chronicles the history of the Hershey company since it's founder's birth. We learned some really interesting stuff, like that Milton Hershey founded a school for orphans, because he and his wife couldn't have children of their own. He left his entire fortune to the school when he passed and the school is still open today, providing housing, schooling and a savings fund and college options for underprivileged children all over the country.

We also saw an interesting clock in the museum and warmed up with some hot chocolate and chocolate rum cake:

Afterwards, we decided to explore the surrounding towns a bit, since it was raining and too cold to walk the main streets and discovered a bowling alley, where we stopped and played a few games. In true form, I rolled a gutter ball in every single frame:

We ended the night with a viewing of 'Elvira: Mistress of the Dark'. My husband had never seen an Elvira movie before and was completely unprepared for the cheeseball nature of the movie. I loved it as usual. :)

On our final day in Hershey, we started the morning by finding the nearest theatre and watching 'Where the Wild Things Are', which I've been looking forward to since I heard about it being made. The preview has been tugging at my heart strings since it was released and I've been on the verge of tears every time I've seen it; it moves something nostalgic inside of me. The movie was everything I had hoped it would be; whimsical, innocent, touching, beautiful... I cried uncontrollably at one point and left the theatre a mess of swollen eyes and bright red nose.

Once I collected myself, my lovely and I hopped on a trolley ride:

We also did a hot chocolate taste testing, which let us sample cocoa from different areas of the world:

Chocolate tasting is serious business

Ecuador had my favourite cocoa

We wrapped up our day with a romantic dinner at a pub in a neighboring town, after which, we snuggled at the hotel room and watched 'Shaun of the Dead'.

Chocolate, romance, zombies, what more could a girl ask for on vacation?

How about a trip to a now leveled ghost town on the way home? For the seventeenth day of October, we took a detour home to stop in Centralia, PA, an abandoned mining town, with fires burning in the Earth beneath it that will continue to burn for many more years. There is nothing left of the town, but the cracked and smoldering remains of PA-Rt 61:

An eerie, fascinating and ultimately sad place.

Snow, get your own season.

While we were away on vacation a mere 2.5 hours from home, I received a text message that made me cringe:

'It's snowing here.'

'Here' being home, where I would be returning to in a few short days. 'Here' being New Jersey, where I can never remember having to even think about the fluffy white death until mid-November, at least. Personally, I don't care for snow, unless I'm curled up in bed ignoring it. If I had an arch nemesis, snow would be it. As if it isn't bad enough that snow (and it's cousin, the even more deadly ice) has caused me to total two cars and gives me severe panic attacks when I am behind the wheel and see a flake, it's now trying to usurp my favourite season! I'm not standing for this, Winter. I'm making a voodoo doll and stabbing pins with sunflower heads into you until you go away and leave Autumn alone.

Luckily, we missed the snow and things seem to be Autumnal once again. Autumn is by and far my favourite season and not just because of Samhain or Dia de los Muertos, both of which I celebrate in some way. As the Earth starts to slow down and shut down in preparation for winter, I can feel myself begin to slow down and relax. My head is much more clear during this time, I'm more patient, calm and able to gain a better perspective. I spend more time on introspection and do some emotional 'cleaning'.

Usually, I do cleaning around my physical space during this season as well. As someone who suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder, I'm not always able to pull myself out of the mopes and motivate myself to do Spring cleaning. Also, Spring just doesn't speak to and move me the way Autumn does.

When Autumn begins it's quiet creep into my area, a childlike giddyness overcomes me. Whatever melancholy may have had me in it's grasp is tossed into the breeze and forgotten. Excitement explodes from me and drives my poor husband mad as I carry on about pumpkins, corn mazes, haunted things, decorating and witchery. Mostly pumpkins though; they may, quite literally, be my favourite thing ever. I can hardly contain myself when we finally make it to the pumpkin patch and go on a quest to find the perfect pumpkin. I never go with a shape or size in mind, but let intuition guide me to right the pumpkin for me. This year, there were two pumpkins for me (and two for my lovely).

My pumpkins are the ones on either end of the pumpkin line-up.

There's something about the change in colours, the musky smell of Earthy decay, the crunch of leaves underfoot, carving jack-o-lanterns and the crisp bite of an Autumn evening that really moves the deepest parts of me. I welcome the return of the darker half of the wheel, and look forward to it's cool evenings and swollen moons. I look forward to celebrating my favorite holidays with friends and family as well as alone.

Hopefully, Winter has had it's wee temper tantrum and moved on for now so I can enjoy this season the way I like to. Without having to worry that Corn Mazes will be closed due to snow and that my pumpkins will have frozen and gone to pot before I can even carve them.

Always Watching...

On the thirteenth day of October, I cleaned my apartment from top to bottom and when I had finished and was supposed to be packing, sat down and made myself a Halloween friend!

Meet Blinky:

He's made from those supplies I purchased a few days back, after seeing a similar eyeball plant on Mrs. B's facebook. He was super easy to make with a few dabs of hot glue and a welcome break from cleaning!

On a different note, I was feeling a bit of a disconnect from all things spiritual with all of the commotion of switching jobs, trying to get a home business up and running, celebrating our anniversary and all the other tidbits that make up everyday life.

So I held a small ritual, where I reconnected with the elements and my matron goddess, Brighid. I cast my circle, called the elements and sat with them for a bit before calling on the Goddess. I sat in peace with Brighid and spoke plainly about things as I would to my mother, before just meditating under her watchful, loving gaze. I've left a candle lit in the cauldron for her, to burn out on it's own. I've never been one for rituals out of obligation and this intimate spur of the moment ritual really did me a world of good. I feel renewed and strong and ready for tomorrow.

Although, tomorrow can't be too bad, we're heading for Hershey, PA for a few days of chocolate, snuggling and a haunted amusement park. Have a blessed few days!

Witches and Ale

On the twelfth day of October, we added a new witch to my collection:

She is Jim Shore's interpretation of the Wicked Witch of the West, my favourite witch of all time. She's beautiful and fits right in with my other West witches, who came out to celebrate the season front and center on our TV stand:

The one in the center is from a McDonald's Happy Meal and was designed by Madame Alexander and the one on the right is a music box by the San Fransisco Music Box Company. My collection is small, but I've only just started. Also, I'm picky about my witches. ;)

I also decorated the rest of the tv stand for the holiday, so my girls weren't feeling like they were in a boring landscape:

After decorating, my lovely and I met some friends at the local brewery for pints of their hand crafted Oktoberfest ale. While we waited for our friends, we took a stroll on the leaf strewn boardwalk.

Time Machines and Leaf Pressing

On the Eleventh day of October, we were supposed to go on a hot air balloon ride, but due to blustery Autumn weather the rides were canceled.

So, we hiked it over to the local mall to look at Halloween decorations and found this...

We wanted to go back in time so badly and ride a T-rex, but the flux capacitor was blown. Go figure.

After our inability to travel through time in a suped up delorean, we came home and my lovely suggested we go on a walk and collect leaves to press. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them just yet, but they are pretty!

Afterwards I snuggled on the couch and read a few of Poe's short stories. Horror, murder, suspense? Perfect for the Halloween season.

Pumpkins and Sass

Our anniversary was wonderful. Thank you everyone for the comments, congratulations and blessings!

We slept late, had lunch at the hot dog place we love, went pumpkin picking, ate delicious Godiva chocolates and went to dinner at a swanky Italian restaurant. Fancy dining usually isn't our thing, but it's nice to get prettied up and go out every so often. :)

For anyone curious about my 9th day of October activity, I worked on my husband's anniversary gift. The first anniversary is the paper anniversary, and after scanning the internet and seeing that women were doing boudoir photos for their husband's I decided to do a book of pinup photos of myself for him.

So I set up my camera, got into outfit and shot some sassy photos.

What does this have to do with being festive? My photos were kitchen witch themed of course! Here's one of the less sassy photos (I cropped out the cleavage... lol!)

I'll be picking the winner of my giveaway tonight and sending him off before I leave for our mini getaway to Hershey, PA Wednesday. Have a magical Sunday!