Title: The Witchkin Murders (Magicfall Book One)

Moveable feasts during August and September include Oktoberfest, a two-week celebration beginning in late September and ending on the first Sunday in October (Munich, Germany,) and Schafer Sonntag, the 2nd sun in September (Switzerland.)

In Northern Tradition Pagan and some Lokean sects, Loki’s Day is on the heliacal rising of Sirius. It precesses 1 day every 4 years. It moves from August 8th to August 9th in 2019. The Lokean sects that dedicate July for Loki began doing so when the heliacal rising of Sirius took place in July.

August

1
Freyfaxi (American Asatru),
Haustblot (American Asatru),
Loaf-Fest (American Asatru),
Liðasblót (American Asatru),
Elben Segen (German Reconstructionist)

9
Day of Radbod King of the Frisians (American Asatru, American Odinist),
Loki Day (Northern Tradition, Lokean)

15
Month of possible date of Hoietfescht ends (Urglaawe)

21
Hlafmaest (Theod)

23
Schaferlauf begins (Swabian Germany) 

25
Schaferlauf ends (Swabian Germany)

28
Freyfaxi (American Odinist)

September

1
season of possible date of Almabtrieb begins (Germany)

9
Day of Herman the Cheruscan (American Asatru, American Odinist),
Day of Queen Sigrid of Sweden (American Asatru)

22
Winter Finding (American Asatru),
Vetrablot (American Asatru),
Harvest Home (Urglaawe),
Erntfescht (Urglaawe),
Erntedankfest (Germany)

Oktoberfest begins (Munich, Germany) 

28
Zisasege (Urglaawe)

30
season of possible date of Almabtrieb ends (Germany)

Gems and crystals can give us messages and warnings:

 -A fossil or a gem containing a fossil, such as amber, will lengthen your life span.

A few years back, I spent the Spring holidays with my cousin and his family in Germany.

I was standing in the kitchen eating a piece of Easter candy when little Anja walked in. As usual, she didn't miss much.

She immediately took in the bag of candy—exactly the same kind of candy that she'd found in her basket a few days earlier—and you could see lights going on behind her eyes.

Her chin began to wobble.

“But I thought...I thought the Bunny brought the candy!”

Being myself neither a parent nor a believer, I was clearly out of my depth here. I said something mollifying and went to get my cousin.

A Keening for Myself

Slowly I find myself leaving. I take last walks to say goodbye to certain places which is a ritual I carried out all my life. I am woven together with threads of this place, my body holds her water and blood and my bones are made from her bedrock. Then slowly, without any movement, I shift between places. One foot is here while the other has crossed the ocean onto another continent. I am back to encompassing both worlds. Leaving is painful. It’s not muted by knowing I can return at any time. It’s an awareness which brings into focus the pain of those who left and knew they’d never return. Violently uprooted and ripped from the land. To be born of generations upon generations who lived and died on this soil to then be cleared away, eradicated as if they were vermin, swept aside to make way for the more profitable sheep.  

“'Blessed Be': that's what the Satanists say to each other,” said my friend Blaine.

It was the early 70s. Blaine and I were both in high school. Clearly, he'd seen some TV special about contemporary witchcraft which he hadn't completely understood and, just as clearly, something about the saying had caught his fancy.

“Seems like a strange thing for Satanists to be saying,” I said.

I was making a point while trying not to seem to be making a point. I already knew a thing or two on the subject, quite enough to know that it most certainly was not Satanists who were saying “Blessed Be” to one another.

It was also enough to be abundantly clear to me which side of the Hedge I stood on myself.

Blessed Be. (That's three syllables now, not two.) It's a blessing; it's a spell. It means many things: Hello, Good-bye, Amen. It means: I'm one, and you're one too. It means: I acknowledge you as an equal. It means: We belong to the same tribe.

It's also an allusion to deep myth and liturgy. Blessed be the feet which have brought thee in these ways, says the Horned to the Lady in the Underworld, as he tenderly kisses said feet. This story, of course, is the mythic charter for initiation, as well as for the act of liturgical adoration, the Fivefold Kiss. (“What is the Five that is Eight?” is a kind of Wiccan koan.) Blessed Be: a world of meaning in two simple words.

(When I once met the Goddess in the middle of a flowering summer meadow—but that's a tale for another night—my knowledge of this rite gave me a fitting liturgical response to a theretofore—in my experience, anyway—unprecedented situation.)

After decades in the Craft, I'll admit that “Blessed Be” had, for the most part, donned something of an invisibility cloak for me: it's so ubiquitous that I'd almost stopped consciously seeing and hearing it. “BB!” friends often write, at the end of letters or e-mails, or sometimes even say: an intimate gesture, yet by that very intimacy rendered even more mysterious and in-the-know.

Anyone who knows magic knows that this is precisely the situation in which words have their most powerful effect: when they operate largely, if not wholly, on the unconscious level.

Not all religions have their own greetings, but the Craft—insofar, at any rate, as one may consider the Craft a religion—is one of them, and it's a brilliant stroke. The phrase seems innocuous, even benevolent, as, indeed, it is.

But don't be fooled.

I’ve not posted a blog for a while, as I’ve been on a deep retreat with the land, and finishing my latest book- more on that soon. But I wanted to share what I think is one of the most important things to connect with on the Celtic path at this time of the year- the plant Vervain, verbena officianalis.  Vervain is one of the few plants we know the ancient druids venerated, as the Roman writer Pliny recorded how in the height of summer, just before dawn, the druids gathered Vervain, as Sirius the dog star rose in the sky. Vervain was so sacred that they would give the earth an offering of honey for its loss, and would gather the herb with their left hand, after drawing a circle of iron around the plant to disconnect it from the land. When they had gathered it, they would hold it up to the star to be infused with its energy, without the direct light of the moon or sun touching it.

Vervain is an herbaceous perennial, that grows about 2-3 feet tall, with toothed, rough textured leaves, a woody stalk, and in the summer it has small, pale purplish flowers. It’s relatively easy to grow from seed, and is happy in most positions, so long as it doesn’t dry out completely. Vervain can be hard to find for some, but is easily bought on line and once you grow some it self-seeds easily.  Yet this simple, modest little plant is possibly the most magical and powerful ally in the witches garden.