PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.
This conjuration utilizes the secret language of flowers to bring your ideal love into your life. With visualization and daily spell work, you can create the love of a lifetime, custom fit to your specifications. Gather up:
• 2 candles shaped like human figurines, or two pink candles
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Whether carved for Samhain or made into a pie for Thanksgiving, this is the season of that American icon, the pumpkin. Here in Maine, the town of Damariscotta has an annual pumpkin festival where all things pumpkin is celebrated. However, it’s not enough to just grow and display a giant pumpkin. You have to carve it out, put an outboard motor on it, and join the giant pumpkin boat race on the river. Yes, really.
The pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) is a variety of the plant that also produces yellow crookneck squash, zucchini, acorn squash, and others. The plant is a creeping vine with winding tendrils and coarse, prickly stems. The rounded leaves are lobed and have serrated edges. Large, bright-yellow or orange, trumpet-shaped flowers precede the fruit (by definition it’s a fruit), which can be a range of colors, sizes, and shapes.
Originating in Mexico and Central America thousands of years ago, the pumpkin was a source of food and medicine for indigenous people throughout the region. The Aztec and Inca cultivated them. By the time Europeans arrived in the New World, the Cherokee of the Southeast, Ojibwas along the Great Lakes, and the Pueblo people of the Southwest and many others were growing them. European settlers adopted the pumpkin along with other indigenous crops and transported it to Europe in the sixteenth century. By the time the Pilgrims set foot in Plymouth, they were already familiar with pumpkins. English settlers in New England removed the seeds, filled them with honey, milk, and spices, and then baked them. Colonists also made soup and beer from pumpkins.
Originating as a carved turnip in Ireland, the jack-o-lantern became more impressive with a pumpkin. Hollowed out and lit from within by a candle, jack-o-lanterns were placed in windows during the dark of the year to keep wandering spirits at bay. In Central Europe, eating pumpkin was believed to increase male virility. Dreaming about pumpkins has a number of interpretations. In Europe it was interpreted as a bad omen or that witchcraft was being used against you. In the Middle East, it was an indication of good health.
Overall, the pumpkin has come to symbolize abundance and as such, it can aid in drawing it into your home. Place three small pumpkins on a kitchen windowsill or table during the autumn season. As you do this say three times, “May wealth, health, and love abound; in this house and all around.”
Like reading tea leaves, a handful of pumpkin seeds can be used for divination. First, hold them between your hands as you visualize your question or whatever you seek guidance for. Toss them into the air, and then look for patterns or symbols that they may form on the floor. Make a circle with seeds on your altar for an esbat ritual or when working with moon magic to draw the power of Luna. When blowing out the candle inside a pumpkin, place an index finger in front of your mouth as you blow, and make a wish.
Of course, you can always enjoy a pumpkin spice latte before, after, or maybe even as part of your magic work.
I don't know about all of you, but I have had many black cats in my life. The last one who was a furry family member lasted to the ripe old age of 22! Bootsie was a sweetheart—so gentle, so loving—a true gift to be a part of of our lives for so long. Many times when we adopt a pet, it is believed that they choose us, as much as we choose them. I believe that to be true.
That certainly has been the case for my dear longtime friend, Mary Domhan. If anyone is a cat whisperer, she's the one. She has the power to tame ferals, and cats always seem to find her. In my Halloween podcast episode (number 36) for "Women Who Howl at the Moon," I talk to her at length about her artwork and new Edgy Cat Designs website. If you are a lover of all things feline, you will delight in the cards, art prints, and stickers she has a available. If you're shopping for a cat lover friend, I have no doubt you will find it at her website!
...As the trees go bare
and the winds chill,
we hear ancestors
whisper in dreams
and in stones,
we hear a summons
rising on the steam
and trailing through our bones.
We set forth
seeking mystery,
craving understanding,
determined that we will listen,
we will change,
we will keep our promises.
We descend and we remember.
We find the cauldron full-bellied and black.
We gather by the fire.
We peer inside the depths.
We have been steeping
in the broth of our own liberation,
brewing dreams
and stirring in as much hope
as we can find.
Finally, we pause,
patient with all that is undone, unknown,
and unfinishable.
We recognize that we may never arrive
and yet,
we are here anyway.
Slowly,
we begin to consume
the stuff of our own renewal,
the sustenance we crave.
Quietly,
we savor the taste
of what we've made of our lives.
With gratitude,
we realize:
it is good.
Happy Samhain!
My newest book of poems: In the Temple of the Ordinary, vol. 2 is available now via Amazon and Barnes and Noble and also open for pre-order on Kindle.
...My first article for my new Asatru Plus column appears in the latest issue of Witches & Pagans Magazine. I think readers of my blog and book will enjoy my column, and vice versa. My blog Gnosis Diary focuses on gnosis and on my personal experiences, while the column will focus on practical information for readers to use.
My first column is about honoring the powers associated with the days of the week. After a brief introduction about my new column, I talk about the heathen gods and powers of the days of the week, and the 7 day heathen ritual cycle. The powers are Sunnna on Sunday, Mani on Monday, Tyr on Tuesday, Odin on Wednesday, Thor on Thursday, Freya on Friday, and then there is Bath Day. The old name for Saturday was Laugrdagr which means Bath Day or Wash Day. Why 6 major powers and bathing? Find out in my column!
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Lies, damn lies, and statistics - you've heard the saying. But sometimes, we really do have to look at the hard numbers to see what's really there, because our impressions can be incorrect, often wildly so.
Case in point: Minoan art.
...
I've loved every deck I've ever gotten from Tarot Collectibles, and I'm really looking forward to their newest venture: The Halloween Waite.
Now funding on IndieGoGo (only 9 days left at this writing!), the Halloween Waite (with many cards already finished) promises to be a spooktacularly colorful romp around autumnal graveyards, pumpkin patches and haunted estates--with all the usual suspects hinting at a frightful good time.
...
ty!
