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My Monster Powers journey continues. I started weaving a small tapestry in honor of the Gila Monster.

I've been participating in the forum on the website my brother introduced me to. I'm not only learning a lot but also coming to consider new ways of thinking about perfumes. Of course I'm already familiar with the idea of honoring certain powers and gods at certain times.

How do you fell an evil ogre?

Seems like the Democrats may finally have figured it out.

If you haven't reread Jack and the Beanstalk lately, you probably should.

Somehow, in the current political climate, all those old monster-slaying tales shine with unexpected relevance.

How do you fell an evil ogre? You do what the stories all say you do.

While a lot of Wiccans and other Pagans are celebrating Samhain, and some Heathen and Asatru groups celebrate Winterfyllith or Winter-Finding, I'm celebrating an old-fashioned American Halloween, participating with the neighbors on my street in the community ritual of decorating and giving away candy to costumed children. This is the first year I've done Halloween while my household includes a non-heathen pagan, but she is into American Halloween too, replicating the kind of Halloween we both remember from our childhoods.

The Asatru group Freya's Folk in San Francisco has been holding a Winterfyllith celebration for many years. They used to belong to the Ring of Troth, and when that organization split into The Troth and the American Vinland Association, they went with the AVA. I used to attend campout festivals held by that group back when I lived in California, but their Winterfyllith celebration wasn't an overnight so I didn't go to that one.

I personally celebrate seasonal changes that relate to the actual bioregion and climate in which I live, which is the Mojave Desert, so around the beginning of fall my kindred celebrates Rainbow Season, the end of the monsoon season. The first winter frost here usually coincides with Yule so that's when we celebrate the onset of winter here. My kindred, American Celebration Kindred, celebrates both heathen holidays and American holidays like Halloween.

As I did last year, I'm giving away candy from my driveway instead of having kids come to the door. I did that last year as a pandemic precaution, but I'm going to keep doing it because I like it better this way, and so does my cat. (Happy doesn't like strangers, so lots of strangers coming to the door is not on his list of favorite pastimes.) I like this better because when my neighbors and I all have tables outside we end up visiting with each other between groups of children, going to each others' tables like vendors at a slow fair. I also like this better because I get to see the costumes more, since I can see them as the kids walk up the street rather than only seeing them for a few seconds while we're trying to interact and complete the ritual phrases ("Trick or treat!") and actions (giving candy.) As I've been doing for the two decades I've lived in this house, I decorate around a different theme each year. One year it was moons and stars, one year it was Vikings, etc. This year's theme is fire. I'm hauling out the portable firepit and having a bonfire on my driveway, and toasting marshmallows.

One of the main functions of a culture's holiday celebrations is to bring a community together in shared ritual. American Halloween does that for the community of my street and neighborhood. By tradition, adults with homes participate in the decorating and giving half of the ritual, while children traditionally dress as the ghosts and monsters and fairies that arrive with the thinning of the veil between worlds on this night, enacting a propitiation of the dead and of otherworldly beings.

Now modern children often dress as heroes or other aspirational figures in addition to the fae, spectres, undead. For what is a hero but a monster who has chosen actions according to a personal moral code that aligns with society's in some way? Recently while shopping for candy to give away I noticed a child size Spiderman suit hanging forlornly on an otherwise bare rack, like the husk of a spider's victim still hanging in its web. It waited for a child who wished to dress as a boy whose hands turned into spider butts. Is this not monstrous? Is this metamorphosis any less a horror than Gregor Samsa's?

 Warning: Contains Vulgarities

Abuser-in-Chief

Blowhard-in-Chief

Chump-in-Chief

Dotard-in-Chief

Embarrassment-in-Chief

Flip-flopper-in-Chief

Grabber-in-Chief

Hater-in-Chief

Did you know that there's a giant octopus in Lake Erie?

One that has wrecked ships and been responsible for hundreds of mysterious disappearances over the years?

To the uninitiated, this eldritch being is generally, unimaginatively, known as the Erie Octopus, but those of a, shall we say, darker disposition call this Old One instead by his true name: Yog-Nazathog.

High school was a great time to discover to world of Lovecraft. At the time we lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, AKA New Arkham (after the witch-hunts of the late 17^th century, the most stalwart worshipers of the Old Ones fled west, and founded a port on the southern shores of Lake Erie), so as a budding writer, naturally I wrote about what I knew.

The story itself is long gone. (I don't think I actually called it The Lurker in the Lake, but I may have.) It took the form of a series of letters from various people that eventually revealed the usual Lovecraftian Dark Powers poised and ready to spring just beneath the outer layer of seeming reality, italicized last sentence and all.

With the cruel superiority of adolescence, a friend and I used to terrorize his little brother with tales of the Erie Octopus. There you'd be, standing on the cliff looking out over the lake, when suddenly you'd feel it: the tentacle around your waist, gripping inexorably, lifting you up off your feet, lifting, pulling, and you scream, scream....

Poor little Larry believed implicitly in the Erie Octopus. One day, down at the Lake, we really had him going.

“Ohmigod, look, there it is....!" "The Octopus!" "It's coming in!" "Shit: run, run, run!”

We ran.

Finally Larry's mom made us stop. He was beginning to be afraid of the Lake. When you live near a body of water, you have to respect it, but you can't fear it.

Oh, but then came a night. Payback, you could call it.

Gods, the trolls are bad this year.

Been down to the mall lately?

Trolls.

Felt unaccountably grouchy or angry?

Trolls.

Trolls hate light, and fear it. They come out when it gets dark. For obvious reasons, Yule always brings them out.

On Troll Night—the thirteenth before Mother Night—you can hang out the troll-cross, set out offerings at the doorstep, and hammer-sign the door: Here, and no farther.

But, really, at this season keeping them at bay is the best one can hope for. Only Thunder and Sun can make the trolls go away for good.

And this year they're particularly bad.

Anishinabe activist Winona Laduke writes about “Wendigo Politics”: the crushing, ravenous politics of those who care only for themselves.

What are the scariest monsters ever to debut in tabletop roleplaying games? Is The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween or Christmas movie? And did you know that Silent Hill was inspired by a real town? Airy Monday takes a spooky turn this week as we look at horror and other creepy fiction in preparation for Samhain and Halloween. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!