Blessed Samhain

On this night of thinning veils, pumpkins light the way and spirits come to call. The wind blows brisk and chill and the leaves have mostly fallen. The Earth goes to her rest as the plants die back and animals prepare to slumber.

The Crone begins her reign over this, the introspective and dark time of the year. This is a time of mysteries, of journeys and of self discoveries for those willing to face the darkness. This is a time of dying and letting go, but also of new beginnings and growth. For as in all cycles and circles, here on Samhain night, you will find balance.

May those who are here and those who have gone before us be muchly blessed as the wheel is begun anew. On this night of beginnings and endings, may you find that which your heart is seeking and let die that which you no longer need. Samhain blessings, my loves.

The Day Before Halloween

We're only a day away from the last night of the best month of the year. I have no idea where this month went, I sort of feel like I blinked and missed the whole thing! I haven't been keeping up as well with my countdown as I would have liked, but I've been doing little things nearly every day. We've watched movies, read stories, tried a few different seasonal beers, and have been taking evening walks beneath the flaming trees (on the nights I get home before the moon is out, that is.)

Yesterday we hosted our annual Halloween party, the first ever in our new home. It was a pretty small crowd, because some folks had previous arrangements and others were sick, but it was a great time! I spent the afternoon chopping, baking and pureeing pumpkins to make soup and baked the seeds with cayenne pepper and salt. Both things turned out great!

The table was set with all manner of treats and drinks and barely a thing was left at the end of the night! We played a rousing game of Apples to Apples that lasted for several hours, it was nearly 3am and Joe and I were falling asleep in our chairs by the time we finished up and our guests were on their way.

Tonight, we'll be carving our annual jack-o-lanterns and I'll finish getting my altar ready to celebrate Samhain after the candy guzzling ghosts and goblins have stopped knocking on my door tomorrow evening. We spent entirely too much money on candy so I hope there's are hordes of them, otherwise my plan for weight loss may be in serious trouble!

The Witch's Circle: Commitment

This post is in response to the first post of the continuing 'The Witch's Circle' discussions over at Aine's blog, The Deepest Well. To view her thoughts on commitment, click here. To read about The Witch's Circle and add your ideas for discussion, click the dancing witches image below.

Beginning to walk this crooked path was, I believe, a bit easier for me than it is for a lot of people. I was raised in a home with no formal religion; my parents both claim to have religious belief, my father being catholic and my mother just having faith, but they never discussed or passed those beliefs on to us. We didn't go to church, were never baptized, never were expected to follow any religion in particular. It was all very... sterile, I suppose. Growing up, I did a lot of reading about religions, I devoured holy texts as well as books from the new age sections. The librarians at the school and local libraries must have thought I would grow up to become a philosophy teacher, because why else would a kid be checking out these sorts of books over the usual popular fiction?

The truth of the matter was, not only was I curious, but I was searching. I had friends with deep religious convictions and friends with deep convictions that there is nothing out there; none of their philosophies clicked with me. Having grown up feeling like there was something out there, something in the tree line, something in the heavens, that watched over me and guided me on occasion I just couldn't say 'nothing exists but science.' By the same token however, none of the major world religions resonated with me; my Irish Catholic grandmother telling me french kissing would put you in hell along with rapists and murderers scared me shitless, sure, but it also sounded like unfit justice all around. The thought of karma, that unbiased cosmic bitch who delivers justice, rang a bell of sorts within me but it still wasn't enough.

The place where I found that which began to wake up my soul, was in the dusty pages of long neglected books of mythology. The Greek gods began it, and I fell asleep most nights praying to the Olympians, always beginning and ending with Hestia. Shortly thereafter a friend gifted me a deck of tarot cards and in my studies of them I came across the first books I had ever seen on Wicca. I began to devour book after book on the subject, everything from Cunningham to Ravenwolf, whatever I could find in the libraries and shops. Remember kids, this was during the dark ages before the internet and during the internet's first dial up baby steps - internet research wasn't a possibility like it is now. While they clicked to a point, they still weren't quite what I was looking for. I continued my search and years later discovered works on witchcraft, paganism and the many different traditions there in. I met the gods of the Celtic Pantheon as well as the lord and lady of the Greenwood and there, my loves, is where I found the beginnings of this dusty winding path and made my commitment to grow, learn and practice.

Unlike so many, I didn't have anything that I needed to give up to make way for a new, undiluted spiritual path. I was well read, but without prior biases. Making the commitment was not a tough choice for me and still is not. Though I didn't have any prior attachments to faith to work through or renounce, there were other sacrifices that came along with donning the green mantle. Friends were lost or estranged and there are many times that I have to bite my tongue to keep certain peaces. There are still moments of nagging self doubt, brought on by the difficulty or inabilities I have when trying to do certain things (like meditate; which seems so very basic.) or when I feel disconnected from the deeper parts of my path due to long boughts of depression or apathy (re: the past four months) but I know that I've made the commitment to walk this path. By continuing to learn and practice, to not give up on the things that I have difficulty in, by tending my patch of earth, by getting up each morning to face the day despite the shit in my head, I know that I am honoring my path.

The Carolina Renaissance Festival

This past Sunday found us back at the Carolina Renaissance Festival for the second time. It was an odd occasion however, because for the first time in the 12 years I've been going to Ren Faires, I went dressed as... a tourist! You know, those people who were modern day clothes? ;-) All of my costumes were made for a Ren Faire in August and last year I was pretty damn cold in my Green Woman costume, so I took the route of warmth.

Only, much to my dismay, it was a warm day! Le sigh. The one thing that I was fairly amused by was the fact that the vendors tried 10x harder to get me to buy their stuff while I was wearing my regular clothes than they ever have while I'm in costume. Silly.

That all being said though, we had a fantastic time! We ran into some of the performers we met wandering around last year and saw some of the shows we missed out on last time. It was also brew fest weekend, where they were serving the winning home brew fromt his year's competition all week long; a delicious stout named The Wife's Wish that I may have had several helpings of!

This fellow, whose name I do not know, was so enchanting! Every time we passed him he would say hello and play us a quick tune on the harp.

We saw the acrobatic troupe, Barely Balanced, who are as witty as they are talented.

We happened across the Jamila Lotus Dance Carnivale during our wanderings and I was mesmerized by the music, as well as the skeleton masks the women had donned. The best way I can describe the music is folky, gypsy, tribal wonderfulness! They played only a violin and a drum and if it they had sold CDs, I would have snatched one up in a heartbeat.

And, as if belly dancing to this captivating and mysterious music wasn't enough, there was also a breathtaking aerial part of their performance:

We happened across the four seasons:

And enjoyed the Celtic folk stylings of the Maidens IV:

We caught a few acts put on by the bawdy and oh so naughty Tortuga twins:

And, just as we were preparing to leave we caught sight of the ever so enchanting Twig the Fairy, who was perched on some toadstools with her friend and fairy in training, Zinnia.

I was remiss and missed getting a photo of the two of them together, but Zinnia was kind enough to compliment me on my wee pumpkin necklace and show it to Twig. Who, in true fairy fashion, played me a wee tune on her pipes. There is no greater sign that you've done tiny and magical right than the approval of a real life fairy!

Alas, the whole weekend was not all ale, music and fairy dust. Saturday afternoon, the day before we went to the Renaissance Faire, I came home to discover a tragedy had occurred while I had been working. There, on the floor of my mess making lair, lay my beloved DSLR camera as if someone had picked it up and placed it there. From the books and papers accompanying it in it's sad position however, I knew it had taken a cat induced fall from the desk and a wee goblin had not been in to play tricks.

I cradled it in my arms and flipped the switch but nothing happened. I tried a new battery, memory card and lens just to be sure, but still nothing happened. Sadly, I bundled it up and took it to the camera shop to be told they do a 6- 7 week turn around send out service, but the minimum for Canon to look at my camera is $200 - $250, before the parts and labor required to fix whatever the problem may be. I'm not exactly rolling in extra money, so it will be a while before my beloved camera is back to functioning. My brother was kind enough to lend me his camera to take to the faire though, so I could get better shots than my very old point and shoot would allow me to take. If you want to see more shots of the Faire, you can view the Flickr set here.

The Witch Queen's Ball

Since times of old it has been known,
that round Hallowe'en night,
a ball is thrown.

The witch queen rises and calls to her side,
all those subjects wanting to have a grand time!

She sits upon her pumpkin throne,
watching the seeds of merriment sown.

The toadstool witch who had a mishap,
sits near her cauldron,
waiting for flies she can snap!

The goblins gather 'neath the old tree,
tricksy trio that they be,
near the old tombstone they wait,
to scare the pants off you and giggle with glee.

The lovers come forward aglow,
to ask of the queen her blessing to bestow,
for a wedding on this All Hallow's eve,
that they happily receive!

Elphaba stokes the fire,
as the pair declare their desire,
before their witchy sisters,
and goblin misters.

A ball to remember,
before cold November,
one of love and of light,
and of pumpkin delight!


Thank you for visiting my wee contribution of A Fanciful Twists Halloween party. To visit our host, the wonderfully wicked Vanessa and visit the other partiers, click here.


(Like I could resist one final silly photo!)

Party Preparations

The girls and I are busily getting everything ready for Vanessa's Halloween to-do tomorrow. We're lighting the candles, spiking the cider, primping the pumpkins and calling in the ghosts to come and celebrate the coming of All Hallow's with us. We tried to find a new wicked girl to add to the group, but alas, at every turn we found that the shops have replaced the witches with Santas and the pointy hat wearers are gone for the season.

We're drowning our disappointment in tea leaves and Halloween music, like this:

Ichabod, Ichabod

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has always been one of my favorite ghost stories, particularly around All Hallows Eve, for as we know that's when the horseman rides!

What are your favorite ghost and/or Hallowe'en stories?

Collecting Leaves

I can't resist the fiery colors of Autumn; the golds, reds and oranges that glow in the morning sunlight and swirl to the ground in the slightest breeze.

Seemingly every year I collect a few of the trees' dropped treasures and put them into one of my large books to safely keep the passion of this season alive for months and years to come.

I also seem to stick to a certain leaf shape each year. Once I find the first perfect specimen to save, I look for that shape in all different sizes and colors until I have half a dozen or more collected and ready to press.

This year, I'm thinking maybe I should do something with all of the lovelies I've collected, so I can enjoy Autumn all year long. But what to do? I've considered gathering the groups together in a frame, showcasing a duo or trio of the prettiest ones in various sizes, but am unsure if Id need to do more to preserve them than just stick them in there. Any ideas?

Pumpkins, Sea and a Full Moon

Is there anything more magical at this time of year than pumpkins? I think not! Most of my best memories have happened in a pumpkin patch, including being proposed to, and Joe and I have made it sort of an unspoken tradition to go pumpkin picking on our anniversary. This year, we kept with tradition because we were lucky enough to find a place open on a Monday!

We wandered the patch area and the pre-picked areas, looking for this year's perfect pumpkins. Joe wanted a white one and I chose to stick with the traditional orange.

Once our future jack-o-lanterns were picked, paid for and loaded into the car we headed to one of my favorite places in NJ to visit my much beloved and sorely missed ocean. I'm still not used to being nearly 4 hours from the shore and unable to visit the sea more than once a year, if that. I'm a day tripping sort who wants to run to the ocean to sooth me in my many moods. So, what better place to go to celebrate our anniversary?

We spent a good portion of the afternoon roaming the boardwalk, taking in the sounds and smells of the sea shore before snagging lunch at one of the boardwalk eateries. I would have preferred to stop by the Wonder Bar for the sake of my ridiculous nature, but they don't have Monday hours. We walked in the surf, reveling in the chilly waters, collecting sea shells and for the first time in my life I was excited to see a seagull. I shit you not. We don't have seagulls this far inland in South Carolina and it's sort of weird to not see them all over the place like we did in New Jersey. Also, I haven't seen a deer in over a year despite living in a wooded area of the suburbs, but that's another story.

The random excitement of seagulls having passed, I could no longer ignore the fact that my sinuses felt like they were full of lead. We made the decision that I was hurting for some medication and a nap and grabbed a hotel room where I proceeded to swill some cough syrup (ick) and doze off until dinner time. We went back to downtown Asbury to eat before walking a few blocks back to the boardwalk and the ocean.

There is seriously nothing better than this place at night, except this place at night during a full moon.

As we walked the boardwalk hand in hand, we passed people snuggled on the benches enjoying the view as well as people heading to the beach talking about charging crystals by the full moon. Let me tell you, it was a breath of much needed normalcy for this Jersey native, you never hear that sort of thing down here! We became a pair of bench warmers ourselves for quite a while before I wandered down the beach. I walked to the place where earth and water meet, to greet the sea and the mother moon and speak softly with them for a few moments. Asking their blessing, I knelt and collected some water before rejoining my love on the boardwalk to head back to the hotel and fall into a peaceful, nyquil aided sleep.