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It's autumn where I live in the southeastern US, which means harvest time. Here, the concept of harvest is simple: From late summer through the autumn, all the harvests happen together - fields of grain, vineyards full of grapes, fruit in the orchards, vegetables in the garden. That's because I live in the northern temperate zone, with the four-season setup so many of us learned about in elementary school: spring, summer, autumn, winter.

But in the Mediterranean, it's different.

What makes something truly distinctive?

The newly-designed Witches' Blood tartan, the world's first official Witch plaid, is largely black, with red and gray “piping.” From a distance, aptly enough, this reads as undifferentiated black.

In this, the witches' tartan is unlike other clan tartans, which are, of course, designed to be identifiable from a distance.

(In the warrior-driven Indo-European world, where plaids are an immemorial tradition, it's always best to know who is coming at you before they get within striking range.)

I think of the legendary thief who had his fingerprints removed with acid. Ironically, of course, the fact that he now lacked fingerprints gave him the most distinctive fingerprints in the world.

It's a nice, witchy twist to the tale. The mysterious Witches' tartan distinguishes itself by its very lack of distinction: this for the Craft known also as the Nameless Art.

What is't you do?

A deed without a name.

Mugwort

(Artemisia vulgaris)

We have all encountered psychic vampires, whether we know it or not. The problem is, your aura will know it because psychic vampires tear away little pieces of your chi, or life force, leaving holes in your aura. You can identify the places that need patching because they will become noticeably cold as you pass a crystal over them. Pick your favorite stone from amethyst, citrine, or any quartz and run it all around you at a distance of about 3 inches. Make note of the cold spots and lay the crystal on those places for about five minutes, until the spot feels warmer. You will have repaired the holes in your etheric body and should being to feel a pleasant sense of renewed wholeness once again.

The bad news: Those of you waiting for an official Tribe of Witches/Latter-Day Hwicce tartan will have to thole (= Witch for "be patient") a little longer.

The good news: The world's first official Witch tartan is now available.

Created by designer Jonathan Brown in January 2016, the Witches' Blood tartan was registered with the official Tartan Registry in Edinburgh at the Vernal Equinox of the same year.

“Inspired by the Stratford Festival's 2016 production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, [the Witches' Blood tartan] was created to coincide with the worldwide celebration of the playwright's enduring legacy, 400 years after his death in 1616. Macbeth abounds in images of blood and the darkness of night, hence the tartan's striking use of red and black. The charcoal tone, equivocating between the polar opposites of black and white, evokes both the literal and moral fog of an uncanny world in which, as the Weird Sisters (or witches) proclaim, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.'”

Up close, the Witches' Blood tartan is darkly striking: red (the eponymous red thread of the Witch Blood, shed for you), gray (= mist, or our hill-fog witches' souls) on a largely black ground (no explanation needed). While beautiful when examined up close, it must be admitted that the Witches' Blood tartan does not read well from a distance, fading into an undifferentiated black.

Insofar as ease of identification was part of a plaid's purpose, some may find this aspect of  the Witches' Blood tartan unpleasing, though indeed the “clan tartan” trope is largely a creation of Victorian-era fantasts.

(In the old days, those of us from Loch X wore similar tartans largely because those were the patterns we'd learned to weave from our mothers.)

Some, however, may wish to view this aspect of the Witches' Blood tartan as a parable of the Craft itself: constantly changing, depending on where you stand. Certainly the new tartan makes a tasty addition to the seething cauldron of Post-Modernity's New Witch Identity.

This year Halloween will have a full moon. It should also have full bellies-- full of candy. Just like all years. Instead of having trick or treaters come to the door and ring the bell, my neighbors and I have decided we're going to set up tables and chairs outside and give away candy outside near the curb. I keep seeing people on the net saying Halloween is canceled, but plenty of other events are happening outdoors and Halloween is an important community ritual. Plus wearing masks is part of the tradition! There's no reason it can't be done safely. Keep it outside, keep groups apart from other groups, and it's no different from any other outdoor event.

I'm not going to be personally putting candy into the kids' sacks this year, I'm going to let him help themselves from the bowl. I'm just going to be out there to be sure one kid doesn't take it all, just like my neighbors will be doing. This is going to be a no contact event for me and Halloween still goes on.

Beautiful Russell hasn't lived next door for more than 30 years, and (sigh) we never did sleep together, much as I wanted to. Even so, I bless his name at this time every year.

Talk about your boy next door. (Boy, I say. He was probably my elder by five years, if not more. Five years more mature, anyway.) Lean, lanky, pretty face. (Woof.) Longish, straw-colored hair. (Woof woof.) Little round gold-rimmed John Denver glasses. (Woof woof woof.) Sweet-natured, smart, quirky sense of humor. Ah, the arrogance of beauty, the beauty of arrogance.

Still and all, my past is populated with beautiful guys that I never had the chance to taste, whose names I never bless.

(There's something about that longing-for-what-you-can't-have, though, that seems paradigmatically autumnal, no?)

No, I bless Russell's name for the sake of the raspberries.

Autumn-bearing golden raspberries, chieftains of the raspberry clan. During his time next door, Russell planted them along his side of the fence and, as is their way, the canes—disrespecters of boundaries, all, just like the rest of us—have migrated into our yard. Every year at this time they bear their autumn gold.

Red, black, and gold are the raspberry kindreds, but oh, the gold are the sweetest of all. Maybe, like autumn roses, they're all the sweeter for the knowing that they'll be the last.

I stand in the autumn sunshine, pricking my fingers and plucking the year's final fruiting. When my palm brims full, I gorge on harvest sumptuousness: one last, brief ecstasy, before the end.