PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

So I saw a meme recently with a close-up of the infamous Wicked Witch of the West from the original “Wizard of Oz” classic film. It read, “You call it September, I call it October Eve.” Of course I shared it immediately—what Halloween fiend wouldn’t? I have found that I spend the better part of September in anticipation and excitement of what’s to come right on the next page of the calendar corner. I mentally prepare, I scout out fun local events happening and mark the ones that I’d like to attend as “interested.” In many cases, I pencil in all the things I want to do, books I want to read, movies I want to watch (and in many cases rewatch as an annual ritual) all over my Llewellyn Witches’ Datebook. I’m truly a kid at heart when it comes to this time of year—as I’m sure many of you are—and I hope to be until my dying day. In fact, when I was earning my journalism degree and one of our early semester assignments was to write our own obituary, I imagined that I would be found watching scary movies on the 31^st.

October Eve Ritual

Next September 2023, why not start your own, “October Eve” ritual? Haul out all of your favorite decorations (I always like to add a few new ones each year, too) and take your time putting them up and hanging them just so. Play some spooky music as your soundtrack as you do so. Sip some nice fall wine and enjoy the experience as a sensual/sensuous one. You may want to do this the night before October 1^st, two nights before October 1^st, or heck, as early as you want in September, whatever floats your ghost ship! You might want to mix it up and put different decorations in different rooms or create different arrangements each year. I tend to be a traditionalist like my dear grandmother was and put the same pieces in the same spots annually. I even have themed rooms for the types of decorations: Kitchen witches, black cat back bedroom, vampire bat bathroom, you get the idea. If you’re lucky enough to have a home with a nice front yard and love to go all out with your transformation theme, by all means, go for it. Nothing makes the majority of your Halloween fan neighbors more delighted than driving or walking by a wickedly clever front yard and house display all season long.

In July I picked almonds, early in the morning, up a ladder with a basket in my front yard. The almond tree is a nonpareil which is supposed to be an ornamental or pollinator, not a nut bearing tree. We, my mom and I, had planted the nonpareil tree along with another variety of almond tree that was supposed to be the nut bearing tree, but the other tree had died, and one day mom had come home with a "white pomegranate" for me to plant where the other almond tree had been so we only had the nonpareil. It made beautiful flowers every spring, but mom wanted nuts. One year mom told the tree she wanted nuts and it bore nuts. It has borne nuts every year since.

I rarely do any spells anymore, but there is one I do almost every day in the summer. When I get in the pool I splash the water and say "No f*ing wasps! No thing that stings belongs in my pool!" So far so good, knock on wood.

This post was prompted by the outpouring of support for Ukraine I've seen on social media. It could apply to any future emergencies too, though. I have seen some very well intentioned people calling on Slavic deities with whom they do not usually have a relationship and I just wanted to write a little guide to how to craft supportive prayers or spells outside one's usual area of practice to respond to current emergencies in the world.

I'm not going to get into political analysis here because it would be off topic for my blog which is about my personal gnosis and experiences with the Asatru religion. If any of my readers would like to see my commentary on military and intelligence matters, I have some posts on my social media about it, as I have been asked to comment because I studied the Soviet Union. This post is just about writing prayers and spells. Writing is my thing now.

Animal Spell Working

The magical power in each and every animal – living, extinct or mythical can be used to assist you in your daily life and can be utilised in spells to aid you in certain situations.

My next-door neighbor's husband is losing it.

A retired Baptist minister, his mental decline expresses itself in the form of public preaching to no one in particular. Sunday afternoon, while sitting on the front porch pitting cherries (pagan hands are never still), I listened with half an ear as he circled the block haranguing an unlistening and uncaring world about Sin, Salvation, and the Bible.

Generally I find public preaching noisome, but in this case what witches call ruth—compassion—wins out. He's not hurting anyone, and we all need to feel like we're doing something important in the world.

Besides, 20 years from now, that could be me out there, haranguing an uncaring and unlistening world about the Craft, the Horned One, and what it means to be a real pagan.

In some ways, the two of us—deeply religious people in a culture increasingly non-religious—have a lot in common.

The Deitsch people of Eastern Pennsylvania recognize a state of being that they call being “read fast.”

To be read fast is to become so obsessed with a particular book that one is driven to read and quote from it constantly, to the neglect of other aspects of one's life.

Among the Deitsch, the danger of becoming read fast is frequently associated with the classic grimoire the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, but experience readily suggests the term's potential for a wider applicability. Part of the danger of books—and, in particular, of book-driven ideologies—is their potential to possess—utterly and destructively—a soul.

Fortunately, there's an out.

Protection charm

Cord spell to let go