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Oftentimes, your kitchen is the heart of the home. Something about cooking and sharing food brings people together. An herbal wreath hanging on the kitchen door can be a source of love and luck. You’ll need the following for your creation:

• Freshly cut herbs of your choice
• A wire wreath frame, available from most craft stores
• Either string or florist's wire, ribbon, and perhaps a hot glue gun

This is truly one of the simplest craft projects you can ever make. Simply utilize the wreath frame as a base, and use string or the florist's wire to anchor the fresh herbs into place. Finish it off with a colorful ribbon or other magical decorative touches you may want to add.

Dear Boss Warlock:

Always check pockets first.

So: a pen got into the dryer and now there's ink all over the dryer barrel. I fielded suggestions from the coven about what to do about the ink, but here's my question for you: how many chickens should I sacrifice?

Unlucky in Utica

Dear UU:

It is a wise witch who understands that there are no purely physical issues.

Annoying as the problem may be, on the grand scale of things, the situation sounds to me to be pretty well contained. In my estimation, one chicken should do the trick.

I'm on Magick TV this week talking about a metaphysical phenomenon in my local area. The full episode will be available Saturday (that's Nov. 19, 2022, if you happen to be reading this in the future) but a short interview with me is live now. 

Ed Hubbard interviewed me for his show on Halloween, which is why I'm wearing a costume in this clip. The night before, he and I had been the two Guests of Honor at the Sin City Witches Samhain Soiree, where we selected the King and Queen of the Soiree. (See prior blog post about that.) I invited Ed to my street's American Halloween. In this video, you can see some of my light-up Halloween decorations in the background. At one point you can also hear some trick or treaters in the background, since my street has been doing our Halloween outside since the pandemic started. (See prior blog posts about that.)

The “Luck of the Tree” they call it. You know the one that I mean: first ornament on, last off, the sine qua non. The luck of the tree.

I don't know what the Luck of your tree looks like, but for years—decades—mine was a clear glass bubble, big as two cupped hands held together, fingertip to fingertip.

That was the Big Luck. The Little Luck was the same but smaller, smaller than a balled fist. One for the front, one for the back of the tree: together, the luck that you see, and the luck that you don't.

Together, the two were the most beautiful ornaments on the Tree. Clear, they caught all the lights. Reflecting, each held the Tree within itself. I suppose that's what made them the Lucks.

Luck is fragile. Two Yules ago, the Big Luck broke. During the decking, a Sun fell from an upper branch and ricocheted off the Luck. The falling ornament survived; the Luck did not. Cleaning up shards, I told myself it wasn't necessarily an omen.

Recently a forum member asked about what sort of lucky symbols he might put on a box intended as a gift to someone who would keep tabletop role-playing game dice in it. He asked about using lucky runes or the symbol of a god or other such being.

Here is my answer:

Luck is a more spiritually connected concept in heathenry than in modern culture. If one is lucky at gambling it's a sign of having good wyrd / orlog. Games of chance in which one can win money have some bearing on one's real life. It is appropriate to invoke luck to try to win money because it benefits the gambler and his family / household / village / warband / etc. RPGs aren't gambling though.

RPGs are a form of improvisational theater. Sacred theater was totally a thing in the ancient world, but the roles and plots were generally connected to mythology and were non-random. If you invoke a specific entity for what is essentially a form of theater, be prepared for that entity to at least watch and possibly interact. If things don't go well for that entity or the story doesn't follow the mythology the entity may be displeased. I wouldn't use any being's real empowered symbol for an RPG myself. There are Icelandic Magic symbols that are for general good luck, but again, I wouldn't connect that to an RPG. A human being's personal luck is tied to their wyrd and orlog, to their ancestors and descendants, and their family and community. RPG gaming is far too similar to ritual drama and has too much risk of character death or other negative outcomes to tie one's personal luck to a game. Rather than expending personal luck on something that does not bring prosperity, health, etc. to onesself, one's family line, or one's community, I'd suggest that if you want to put runes on a game dice box, instead of luck runes, spell out words to encourage social ties with the friends with whom one would be playing, which would be a positive for the player and community no matter what happens in the game.

Note: the forum to which I refer is the Asatru Facebook Forum, which I manage along with my team, the Trollslayers. Readers of this blog are encouraged to join. To apply, one has to fill out a short membership application and answer all 3 questions. We screen membership applications to exclude spambots, trolls, neonazis and white supremacists, and other undesirables. To apply for membership, go to this web address: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AsatruForum

The stately magnificence of the hymn to Fortune (Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: “Fortune, Empress of the World”) with which Carl Orff's 1935-6 pagan oratorio, Cármina Burana, both begins and ends, either belies, or comments ironically, on the over-the-top quality of the lyrics.

In this not-very-literal rendering, I've attempted to forefront this tone of self-parody. The speaker is a poet who's down on his luck, and in response hits back with both fists.

For all the good it does.

O Dame Fortune

O Dame Fortune, Queen

of it all: like the Moon

you wax and wane,

always in flux.

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.