Summary In this episode, we experience some witchy radio drama and NIGHT VALE NIGHT VALE. NIGHT VALE NIGHT VALE NIGHT VALE.
Sources
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This episode looks at various harvest festivals, including Michaelmas, Mid-Autumn Festival, and Thanksgiving. It includes poems, songs, stories, and a pair of essays. Enjoy!
I’m taking a cue today from a recent blog post by the excellent Jen at Rue & Hyssop entitled “Little Witcheries,” which focuses on the small, everyday enchantments in her life. She and several other bloggers have been sharing their daily practices, household charms, and domestic talismans so I thought I would offer a bit of the same. I know I don’t tend to make posts entirely personal here, but I do frequently talk about the “secrets in plain sight” that accompany practical witchcraft and folk magic, so it seems like now is a good time to do a quick tour of my home and see how I apply what I have learned in the course of my studies to my real life. I hope you won’t mind the diversion from the more general and academic examinations of folk magic. You’ll still likely get a good feel for folk magic, and I’ll reference any previous posts or sources that might explain further, so hopefully this won’t feel too indulgent.
I’ll mostly be cataloging what sorts of “little witcheries” I have around, rather than giving a lot of expository detail. Basically, I’m treating myself and my home as a folklorist’s test case, because nothing’s more fun than turning the microscope on yourself, right? And so, on with the tour! Come on in!
Exterior
Garden friends
Plant guardians – I have a number of magical plants in my front garden, but my rosemary and rue plants act as my primary sentries. The rosemary started as a pair of six-inch cuttings, and now it’s easily a three-foot-tall shrub. Theswallowtail caterpillar in the pictures is one that seems to particularly like our rue plant, but it doesn’t do any real harm to it, so we let it alone.
Witch bottle – Buried somewhere along your way to the front door (exactly where is my little secret).
Washes – The door is washed with protective mixture (which Laine has indicated she would rather not touch) and I use a protective foot-wash derived from Irish lore on the porch.
Interior
Entrance – Door has salt & red brick dust lines, plus several paper charms wedged in the lintel.
Cleaning – We have a mostly carpeted space, so instead of floor washes, I sometimes make floor sprinkles with powdered herbs & salts to affect the various rooms. I also use vinegar (including Four Thieves Vinegar) for cleaning & breaking up bad energy. Most of what I do to dress doors, windows, etc. can be found in our posts on magical house cleaning.
Mirrors – We keep a mirror behind the door to deflect anything spiritually harmful (currently decorated for Halloween with some bats).
St Paschal & a spirit bottleBundles drying in the kitchen window
Tincture of Rue, Four Thieves Vinegar, & Four Thieves Pickles
Kitchen – I’ve always got something brewing. Right now I’ve got some tinctures going (some magical, but most multipurpose, used in magic or cocktails equally), a few herbs drying in bags by the windows, and of course, my Four Thieves Vinegar in the pantry (plus a couple of jars of Four Thieves Pickles, which I put up each year). The kitchen is also home to a few of my spirit helpers, including St. Pascal and my resident house spirit (his bottle may look a bit strange, but he’s been with us almost since we moved in, so I don’t mind his scruffy appearance).
Bedroom AltarTop of Main AltarInterior of Main Altar
Altars – I’ve got altars throughout the house. I have a personal altar in the bedroom where I do daily devotionals, and then the main altar in my upstairs office for my weekly communion with my spirit friends and family.
Brooms – I keep brooms near our main entrance doors, bristles up to ward off unwanted visitors.
Cards – Are just everywhere in the house. I collect different decks that interest me, though I have a few favorites for divination.
Hamsa Hands, via Wikimedia Commons
Talismans – I keep a hamsa hand on one of my windows, iron railroad spikes throughout the house (some are visible in the picture of the library shelves), and I will sometimes place small talismans like evil eye beads or saint medallions near the office and the children’s room to ward off any harsh or unwelcome spirits. I’ve also got an Ojo de Dios my mother acquired in New Mexico which acts as a protective charm in the nursery.
Library Shelf
Library – Not a lot of folk magic, per se, but lots of information on it. I tend to collect chapbooks as well as full print editions. I also keep my herbal & gardening library in here (not visible from this angle), along with most of my dried herbs. I usually have something hanging to dry in here as well. A few small charms are floating around, as well as many of the spell ingredients I turn to frequently (oils, herbs, etc.). I keep most of my folklore and fairy tale library near this one, as well.
So that’s the tour for the day. I hope it wasn’t too distracting of a diversion from the typical examination of folk magic, but I was so enticed by the series of posts I saw emerging from Jen’s topic that I couldn’t resist. I will likely be using my next post to do a similar “tour,” but of a non-personal space in the interest of showing how many folk magicians acquire ingredients without necessarily having a “witchy shop” nearby.
Until next time, thanks for visiting, er, reading!
Summary
This episode features a special one-hour interview with the cast of Conjure Crossroads, discussing the state of conjure in the US. We’ll hear about art, magic, New Orleans, and what conjure looks like today among current practitioners.
Greetings and salutations! It has been a phenomenally busy end-of-summer around here. We’ve got a show in the works, and I’ve got articles brewing for the website, the Witches & Pagans site, and several print publications as well, so keep an eye out for those. Today I thought it would be good to have a brief cartulary post, though, so that while you’re waiting on tenterhooks for more New World Witchery (and you are waiting on those tenterhooks, aren’t you?), you won’t get too bored.
First of all, it’s the birthday of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, the noted author of some of the best weird and horror fiction of the twentieth century. If you’ve ever heard of Cthulhu or the Necronomicon, those are Lovecraft’s brainchildren, as are so many modern horror elements. What makes him of interest here is that he blends the occult with the scientific, creating a strange but wonderful mythology that is very easy to get sucked into. Much of his work has entered the public domain, and you can frequently find good collections of it cheaply, such as this Kindle collection of his work for less than a dollar. If you want to spend a little more, pick up the truly excellent Library of America collection, which also contains a chronology of Lovecraft’s life and a thorough annotation to the stories. If you’re a podcast listener, you should also definitely check out the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast, who record dramatized versions of the author’s eerie tales.
I recently reviewed a couple of books on conjure, both of which fall into the non-fiction camp, but since we’re talking about weird tales, I think a few recommendations of conjure fiction would be worthwhile. First, I have to recommend the collection Mojo: Conjure Stories, edited by the wonderful Nalo Hopkinson. I’ve reviewed this book before, so I won’t say more than it is definitely worth a read. Fire Lyte sent me a wonderful collection of late 19th and early 20th century conjure tales called Voodoo: Strange & Fascinating Tales & Lore, edited by John Richard Stephens. The editor unfortunately bowdlerized a number of the stories, but you can find a number of great tales in here anyway, by authors like H.G. Wells and Charles Chesnutt. If you’re looking for a great collection of hoodoo stories just by Chesnutt, I received the marvelous Norton Critical Edition of his Conjure Stories back at Christmas, and it definitely rewards a reader with an interest in folkways , magic, and good literary storytelling.
I can’t recall if I mentioned it or not, but I recently watched a few classic “voodoo” films via Netflix and/or Amazon Instant that may be of interest to folks here. The classic White Zombie stars Bela Lugosi and features all sorts of ridiculous fun. The 1988 film The Serpent and the Rainbow was more enjoyable than I thought it would be at first. It’s based on a book of the same name by anthropologist Wade Davis, who theorized that the “zombie powders” of Vodoun might be a form of bufotoxin or tetradotoxin found in poisonous animals which induced corpse-like comas in victims. The movie obviously mangles the research a bit in the name of good storytelling (well, storytelling of some kind, anyway), but it still makes for a harrowing look at the political and spiritual life of Haiti under the dictatorship of Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier.
Finally, I wanted to mention a few musical items of interest. Firstly, I picked up a really fun compilation CD put out by the Lucky Mojo Company called cat yronwode’s Hoodoo Jukebox. It’s part of a 2-CD set which includes a CD-ROM full of hoodoo-related graphics (mostly in the Lucky Mojo style). The music CD is basically a collection of old country or backwoods blues tunes by the likes of the Memphis Jug Band, Johnnie Temple, and Blind Willie McTell. It’s essentially all tunes coming from public domain sources, so I’m not sure if any of the proceeds go to the artists’ families, but I imagine with Yronwode’s usually ardent position on intellectual property and copyrights she’s found some way to do good things with the funds. Most of these songs you could find by digging around in archives or on the internet long enough, but Cat has done a marvelous job assembling them in one place and providing a really rich commentary on them in the liner notes. If you like blues or even just music about magical things (and I’m looking at you and your upcoming Halloween episode, Velma Nightshade), this is a good collection to have.
I also cannot help but shamelessly plug a friend of mine’s latest release. If you’ve not heard of Amanda Shires, you probably will, and soon. Her new CD, Down Fell the Doves, is the deeply haunting sort of alt-country record I can’t resist. It’s relevant here because several of the tracks have deeply folkloric elements. “Bulletproof” talks about animal curios given to Shires by a man named “Tiger Bill” with the assurance “That’ll make you bulletproof.” The song “Deep Dark Below” speaks of a devil who plays a fiddle with a bow made of bone that “sounds like your deepest desires.” If you like good, spooky music touched by rock, blues, country, and folk influences (somewhat similar to the marvelous band Devil Makes Three, which Sarah Lawless introduced me to), give Down Fell the Doves a listen.
Folks, I’m really and truly happy to announce I’ve finished the expansion of the old cartomancy guide and it is officially released for your purchase and perusal!
“Ye are twenty-five cards.
Become twenty-five devils
Enter into the body, into the blood, into the soul .”
So begins a nineteenth century Italian charm making use of a small deck of playing cards. This brief-but-richly drawn book explores the practice of divination by playing cards—known as cartomancy. It reveals the “secrets in plain sight” which hide within the pips, kings, queens, and jokers of a standard deck. Explore one method of divination in-depth as you meet the “fifty-four devils”—the symbolic spirits of each card—and learn about invoking ancestral blessings for card readings, the folklore of playing cards, and how to relate fairy tales to a spread along the way.
How is it different from its previous incarnation? For starters, it’s longer, coming in around 108 printed pages. It also has loads of new sections and subjects to cover, including:
Preparing your cards for divination
The use and inclusion of the Jokers in readings
An easy-to-use table which puts keywords related to each card on a single page
A widely expanded set of sample readings
An entirely new type of spread, the Grand Tableau or Full Deck Spread, which uses all 54 devi…er, cards
Two of my favorite new elements—and I am obviously a bit biased—are the section about how to relate fairy and folk tales to card readings to enhance divination and the 20-page appendix which contains a wide variety of folklore on card reading (including short commentaries and even a little historical fiction by yours truly). I also really love the cover, which was designed by my lovely wife!
If you’re a fan of cartomancy or divination, I think you’ll like this book. And if you’re a fan of this show/site, I think the same will be true for you. This also gives you an opportunity to support the show as well, and at $6 or less a pop, you can’t go wrong, right?
I’ve made it available in print and e-book format, and you can get a copy at any of the sites below:
On a related note, the sidebar of the blog/website now contains a button showing the cover of Fifty-Four Devils which will take you to our digital Book Shop, where you can currently find all the purchase information on this book. Over time I’ll be adding other books there as well. Hopefully some will be more of my own books, but I’ll also link to works I cite frequently and to books by authors who have appeared on the show or contributed to the blog. Any purchase you make helps us out just a little bit, so it’s a great way to support us while getting great books!
I’m very happy to be able to share this book with you all! Please let me know what you think of it, and happy reading!
A beautiful and gentle film about living with magical companions is Hiyao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro. You can see a (shaky) clip of the “umbrella dance” I mentioned here.
Laine didn’t mention it, but her magical childhood was heavily influenced by F. H. Burnett’s The Secret Garden.
There are some great magical & craft-based children’s activity ideas in the Waldorf educational style found at the blog Alina’s Adventures in Homemaking.
I would definitely recommend scouting as a good introduction to nature & wonder for kids. Check out Spiral Scouts, the Pagan-friendly scouting group, or the more mainstream alternatives of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America.
And of course, Laine takes much parenting inspiration from the aunts in Practical Magic.
New World Witchery - The Search for American Traditional Witchcraft 