PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

In days of yore, people often made their own inks, thus imbuing them with a deeply personal energy. They simply went to the side of the road and gathered blackberries or pokeberries from the vines that grew there. Often a bird flying overhead will supply a gift of volunteer vines best cultivated by a fence where they can climb, making berry-picking easier. When it comes to matters of the heart, contracts, legacy letters, and any document of real importance that you feel the need to make your mark upon, an artfully made ink can help you imbue your writings with power. This spell is best performed during the waning moon.

Gather the following for your ink recipe: a vial or small sealable bottle, dark red ink, 1/8th cup crushed berry juice, nine drops of burgundy wine, apple essential oil, and paper. You will also need one red candle.

Dreams about walking often symbolize patience. When we walk somewhere, instead of running or driving in a car, we have much more time to take in our surroundings. Walking is a sign that you aren’t in a rush or feeling pressured to get somewhere at a specific time. Step by step, you move forward, absorbing everything around you. If you apply this idea to your waking life, you might take it as a sign that you’re taking your time in life, little by little getting to where you need to be, whether that is in terms of achievement, self-fulfillment, or spirituality. You’re making consistent progress without feeling like you have to try and play catch up. Bring your attention to your surroundings in your dream, your destination, or any other details like obstacles that might better help you form your interpretation.

Whenever you begin a new project, or if you hit a roadblock in an ongoing endeavor, you should call upon the Goddess, the god Pan, any of the three Fates, or the nine Muses, each of whom can guide you toward your personal wellspring of inventiveness. Recite aloud:

Oh, 

Call it luck.

One spring I planted the garden with old seeds. Many of them never germinated. No kohlrabi, no beets, no acorn squash.

Oh well, I thought. That's luck.

One morning that fall I happened to remark to Craig, Some acorn squash would taste good right about now.

Sure enough. That afternoon, interlaced among the tangle of the tomato plants, I found the vine, sprung up all unbeknownst.

With one perfect, perfectly ripe, acorn squash.

My first response was laughter.

In our last installment-discussion of Joseph Campbell’s seventeen-part hero’s journey, a.k.a. the monomyth, we explored the hero’s “call to destiny.” In the “call,” the hero becomes aware of something he or she must do—a destiny that must be fulfilled.

Today, we’ll move to step two: “refusal of the call.”