Tag: Halloween

Memorial Candle by Ember Grant

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While the ancient Celts certainly considered this an important time of year, we can’t be certain if they honored ancestors on this night. Regardless, it has become a custom for many modern Wiccans, Witches, and Pagans to perform rituals at Samhain for ancestors. For this ritual, you will create a candle to honor a departed loved one using a sigil created specifically for that person.

The act of creating a sigil is part of the magic. Burning it, in this case on a candle, releases its energy. There are many ways to create a sigil, and the preparation is a key part of the ritual.

In this case, you’re creating a symbol that expresses something about the person you wish to honor. Of course, you could just write that person’s name on a candle, but where’s the symbolism in that? Go deeper and incorporate things that remind you of that person’s character.

One easy way is to combine the person’s initials with simple symbols of things they loved. For example, I have an aut whose initials are S.G.W.F.T. (first name, middle name, maiden name, two married names). You can use more or fewer letters. Practice on paper first. Find a way to link the ltters together. Next, think of things he or she enjoyed. My aunt loved owls, I could draw an outline of an owl into the sigil or just a pair of large owl eyes. She was a singer and loved music, so I could add a music note too. You get the idea. Spend some time creating the sigil and, when you have it perfected, you can begin the spell and carve it into the candle.

You can use a taper or votive candle, but it may be easier to carve on a larger one, such as a pillar size. The choice is yours. White is a good color for this candle, but you can also use brown or black.

You can make several of these – one for each person you wish to honor – and decorate your altar with other mementos such as photos, special items, and flowers. You can honor relatives, friends – anyone you wish, even if it’s not someone you knew personally but admired from afar. As long as you have a way to convey that person’s name and something of their personality to the candle, it works. The goal is to celebrate the life of someone you miss.

Anoint the candle and engrave it with a crystal point or other tool of your choice. The point is to focus your energy while creating the sigil and then allow the candle to burn out.

As you light each one, say these words and insert the name of the person you’re honoring.

Light the way for [person’s name], wherever [he/she/they] may be; their memory lives on, they are part of me.

Follow this by saying whatever other words you desire. Let the candles burn out or relight them each night until they do. [1]

Resources

[1] Llewellyn’s 2022 Sabbats Almanac: Samhain 2021 to Mabon 2022

Spirit Dolls

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A spirit doll is a sacred connection to a spiritual entity. It might embody the energy of a tree or a river, it could be made as an offering to a eceased loved one, or it may even be an homage to a spirit guide or patrong god or goddess. They’re particularly appropriate for Samhain, simply because the veil is thinnest.

Spirit dolls are not a modern practice; they date beack for centuries and are practiced by many cultures, but recently they’re seeing a resurgence in popularity. Perhaps people are hungry to connect with something meaningful that returns the mto their roots. It does not matter what path you walk or how you make the doll. The most imoprtant thing is your intent. Remember, you are calling an entity to come and dwell in the doll; create a comfortable and meaningful habitat.

Materials

It’s hard to instruct you on exactly what to get, because every doll is different. The materials do not need to be expensive, and most can be found either in popular craft retailers or online shops. The list below is a sample of what might be used; the actual componets are left to your creativity, and not everything listed will be needed.

Something for the face: An old doll head or perhaps a form made from a mold.

Fabric or wadding for the body: Straw, polyester, or scraps of material all work.

Fabric or other materials to dress the doll: Let your imagination run with this one!

Something for hte stability: Any kind of stick – and this might even be optional.

Inclusions: What you want to put in the doll – herbs, crystals, amulets.

A needle and thread: Sharp needles and quilter’s thread recommended.

Glue: I like Elmer’s or tacky.

Embellisments: Think about charms or other items that help identify the doll’s purpose.

Cost: From absolutely nothing to over $50; it’s subject to what you have and what you want to spend.

Time spent: Anywhere from an hour to several days, depending on how deeply you want to involve yourself.

Birth Your Doll

As you start to gather the materials, think carefully about the spirit you want to embody in the doll. Is it a nature spirit? A guide or guardian? An ancestor? Just as different people have different personalities, your spirit doll needs to reflect the personality of the spirit you are inviting. Of course, allowing any glue or additional paint to dry.

You might want your spirit doll to be made up of natural components – although if you arelady have polyester stufffing and nylon fabric you’re not breaking any rules. Intent is everything. Many items can be wild-harvested, especially if you ive in a rural area. Ensure you have permission either from the landowner or from the nature spirits to take what calls to you.

The doll requires a sturdy form from the materials to be wrapped around. Sticks work, as do dowel rods if sticks are not available. I’m an avid knitter and I have a plethora of odd or wonky knitting needles and crochet hooks – yard sale finds, or or given to me by others when they were getting rid of their craft items, etc. They are the “bones” of my spirit doll.

The doll also needs a body, something to give it form and shape. I have seen straw and florist moss used, but I wonder about the durability of these, especially if the spirit doll has to last longer than a season or two. I’m keen on recycling, so I tend to scavenge old t-shirts from friends and family, cutting them into long strips and them wrapping them around the stick form until I get the desired shape. It’s possible to gvie the spirit doll arms by attaching a smaller stick perpendicular to the larger one, but I don’t bother with this. By the time I have clothed my spirit doll, the additional limbs are not missed.

Inclusions such as herbs or crystals or charms should be added now, wrapping them in the body materials and making sure they are secure. Anything that helps you to tell the story of the doll or enhance its purpose is appropriate. I can’t say it enough: it all comes down to intent. I frequently add sage or cedar to the spirit dolls I make. According to Scott Cunningham, sage represents protection, longestivey and wisdom (Cunningham 1985, n.p.). Cedar offers protection and purification (Cunningham 1985, n.p.). My Cherokee friends say cedar represents the ancestors.

Once the doll has form, it’s time to add the face. This is probably the most important part of the doll, for this is where it gets its character. Being a potter, I make clay faces for my dolls and attach them to the wrapped t-shirt with a bit of glue – or, more recently, I’ve been making holes in the clay before firing it, so I can sew the faces onto the body. It’s possible to use old fashioned doll faces, or make an original face out of clay; air-dried clay works just fine. Free form the face or use a mold – usually available in the same section of hte craft store as the polymer clay. The face could even be stitched or painted directly on the body fabric; there’s no right or wrong way to do this.

Finally, the doll needs dressing. This is the fun part! Add bits of lace, crochet, knitting, fabric, moss, leaves, twigs, beads; the choices are infinite. Let the doll reflect both you as its creator and hte spirit you are honoring. The face gives the doll expression, but the clothing is where hte doll comes to life with personality and purpose. If the fabric seems to need more shape or form, it can be starched or immersed in watered-down glue or even have florist’s wire threaded through it. Add any accoutrements for the doll to wear at this time, such as jewelry, charms, or other items.

Does the doll want wings or multiple limbs or mother than one head? Let your imagination run riot and see where it takes you. You’re connecting with the other realms; as the spirits what they seek of you , then let your hands reflect the message. It’s been my experience that making the dolls doesn’t just connect me to another entity; each one also allows me to explore a different aspect of myself.

Your spirit doll has the potential to become your friends, confidant, and ally. After all, it is an expression of your true nature; it is something you have created with your heart and your soul as well as your hands. It was born from an idea in your mind and came into being through your own actions. Treat it with respect and see it as an extension of both yourself and your faith. [1]

Further Reading

The Healing Doll Way: A Guided Process Creating Art Dolls For Self-Discovery, Awareness, and Transformation by Barb Kobe, 2018.

How to Create a Spirit Doll by Chris Flynn, 2014.

Soul Mat Dolls: Dollmaking as a Healing Art by Noreen Crone-Findlay, 2000.

Reference

Cunningham, Scott. Cunningham’s Encyclopeda of Magical Herbs. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1985.

Resources

[1] Llewellyn’s 2022 Sabbats Almanac: Samhain 2021 to Mabon 2022

Pomegranate Punch

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Pomegranate is the fruit of death, as apple is the fruit of life, celebrating both in this liminal time. Warming spices of ginger and cinnamon contrast with teh cold beverage. 

Prep Time:  10 minutes
Cooking Time:  freeze ice cubes, 4 hours
Servings:  13
  • Pomegranate seeds
  • Water
  • 4 cups cold pomegranate juice
  • 4 cups cold ginger beer (strong)
  • 3 cups cold apple cider
  • 1 cup cold cranberry juice
  • 1 tablespoon pure cinnamon extract

Fill an ice cube tray with pomegranate seeds. Pour water over the seeds. Freeze until solid, about 4 hours.

In a large punch bowl, mix 4 cups cold pomegranate juice, 4 cups cold ginger beer, 3 cups cold apple cider, 1 cup cold cranberry juice,a nd 1 tablespoon pure cinnamon extract. Use the strongest ginger beer you can find, so it still has flavor when diluted. Serve over pomegranate ice cubes.

Autumn Orchard Crumble

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Apples and pears are the quintessential fruits of autumn. They mingle beautifully in this Autumn Orchard Crumble. Warming spices such as cinnamon and ginger reflect the fire-colored leaves of autumn and counteracts its cold wewather. 

Prep Time:  45 minutes
Cooking time:  40-50 minutes
Serves:  8
  • Butter
  • Flour
  • 2 firm cooking apples (like Granny Smith or Fuji)
  • 1 soft cooking apple (like Jonathan or McIntosh)
  • 2 tsp lemon juice
  • 2 firm cooking pears (like Bosc or Anjou)
  • 1 soft cooking pear (like Bartlett)
  • 2 Tbsp ginger chips or minced candied ginger
  • 1stp ground ginger
  • 2 Tbsp white sugar
  • 1 Tbsp tapioca starch
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp allspice
  • 1/4 tsp sea salt
  • 1 cup quick oats
  • 1 cup sliced almonds
  • 2 Tbsp flaxseed meal
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, siced (1 stick)
  • (For a gluten-free version, replaced the all-purpose wheat flour with a gluten-free flour. For a nut-free version, replace the sliced almonds with sunflower seeds or pepitas.)

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Butter a pie plate or large baking dish. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of flour into the pie plate. Tilt and tap the pie plate to move the flour around until it coats the whole inside.

Wash and pat dry the apples. Remove the stems and cores. (If you like your apple pie apples peeled, do that now, but it’s okay to leave the skin on.) Slice the apples thinly, but not so thin that the slices break easily. Put them in a large bowl. Sprinkle 1 tsp lemon juice over them and toss gently to coat the slices.

Wash and pat dry the pears. Remove the stems and cores. (If you like your pie pears peeled, do that now, but it’s okay to leave the skin on.) Slice the pears thinly, but not so thin that the slices break easily. Add them to the bowl of apple slices. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon lemon juice over them and toss gently to coat the slices.

Add 2 tablespoons ginger chips or minced candied ginger, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 2 tablespoons white sugar, and 1 tablepsoon tapioca starch. Toss gently to gcoat the slices. POur theh fruit slices into the prepared pie plate and spread them out. Mound them slightly in the center and make sure that the outer edges stay below the rim of the pie plate, leaving room to add the crumble topping later.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, and 1/4 teaspoon sea salt.

To the flour mixture add 1 cup quick oats, 1 cup sliced almonds and 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal. Stir to combine.

To the flour mixture, add 1/2 cup of hte firmly packed brown sugar. Slice 1 stick of unsalted butter (1/2 cup) into the bowl. Use a butter cutter to combine the ingredients in the bowl. It helps to have a table knife to run between the tines of the butter cutter and knock loose the packed butter. Keep going until the mixture is loose, dry, and crumbly. The butter should be down to pea-sized bits.

Use a soup spoon to put the topping over the fruit, starting in the center and spiraling outward. Keep an eye on the amount so you don’t run out of topping before covering the whole surface. When you get to the outside edge, put the spoon on the rim of the pie plate and tilt it inward to avoid spilling. If there is topping left over after covering the surface, look for any empty or thin spots and in the topping and depost the extra there. Otherwise, just distribute it evenly over the top.

Bake at 350ºF for 40-50 minutes until done. The crumble topping should be toasty brown and crisp, not wet. The fruit should be bubbling around hte edges of the pie plate, and it should feel soft when a toothpick is inserted itno the middle of the mound. If the topping seems to be browning faster than the fruit is softening, you can make a tent of aluminum foil to minimize further browning. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes before serving.

This recipe makes about 8 servings. Because a crumble dessert has no bottom crust, you will need to serve it with a spoon, bot a pie server. Popular additions include vanilla or ginger ice cream or frozen yogurt, caramel sauce, ginger syrup, cinnamon syrup, or gingersnaps.

Pumpkins

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Samhain: Pumpkins & Jack-o’-Lanterns by Jason Mankey

Despite our society’s obsession with pumpkins, most people know very little about them. Scientists will tell you that a “pumpkin” isn’t even really a thing; what we call pumpkins today are just several different varieties of winter squash. And despite often being thoguht of as vegetables, squashes are fruit. Technically a pumpkin is just a very large berry! Most of the “pumpkin pie” filling we consume each year comes from winter squashes that bear very little resemblacne to the orange pumpkins that sit on our porches in October.

Pumpkins are native to North America, more specifically the American South and Northeastern Mexico, and can now be found all over the world. People in Mexico began eating pumpkins nearly 7,000 years ago! Nearly every part of a pumpkin is edible, too; in addition to eating the lesh and seeds of a pumpkin, you can also eat the leaves.

Pumpkinsa nd other winter squashes are also part of the legendary “three sisters,” which have been a staple of Native American cooking for thousands of years. Beans, corn (maize), and pumpkins or squash were all grown together in garden plots. The maize acted as poles for the beans, while the broad leaves of the pumpkin plants kept the soil moist and helped to keep out unwanted bugs and other pests (pumpkin leaves are rather prickly!). When eaten together, beans, pumpkin and maize make for a very nutritionally complete meal.

Pumpkins are 90% water, maing them a low-fat and healthy food (though I’m not so sure about those pumpkin spice lattes!). Pumpkins are also an excellent source of vitamins and minerals including calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, and vitamins B, C, A, and E. Pumpkin oil can also help lower cholesterol. In Mexico, among certain Native American tribes, it was believed that pumpkin seeds bestowed energy and endurance upon those who ate them.

While plain old pumpkins are justifiably popular in the autumn, the pumpkin as the jack-o’-lantern symbolizes the season of Samhain for many Witches. But the exact origins fo the jack-o’-lantern are difficult to pin down, and among historians there is a lot of disagreenent about just how the pumpkin jack-o’-lantern came into being. Many have pointed Ireland as hte most logical place for the jack-o’-lantern origins. According to that theory, the Irish originally carved out beets, turnips, and later potatoes and placed a small candle inside of them. The candle was to symbolize souls stuck in Catholic purgatory and perhaps offer those stuck there a way back home to their relatives.

On the surface, this theory has always made a lot of sense. In Ireland, first Samhain, and then later All Souls’ Night (the evening of November 1), have traditionally been associated with teh dead, and a acandle for souls stuc in purgatory has always felt appropriate. But for years there was very little evidence for hte turnip-o’-lantern. Surprisingly, descriptions of lanterns made from turnips or beets are mostly absent from folklore. (They are also quite difficult to carve!) However, a turnip lantern dating from the 19th century was recently found in Ireland, givine more credence to this particular interpretation.

The term jack-o’-lantern probably comes from the trickster figure “Jack” who shows up in a variety of British and Irish folktales. Jack was said to be such a naughty fellow that upon his death he was denied entrance into both heaven and hell. However, the devil took pity on Jack and threw an ember from the fires of hell toward Jack, which the trickster caught in a hllowed-out turnip. From then on Jack was cursed to wander the earth until the Christian Judgment Day. This version of Jack became known as Jack-o’-lantern (Jack of the Lantern) and sometimes Stingy Jack.

The frist recorded use of the term Jack-with the-Lantern is in the Oxford English Dictionary from 1663, and it next shows u pin 1704 in a reference “Jack of lanthorns” (Skal 2002, 31). Both early uses of Jack-with-Lanterns were in reference to a night watchman, though our modern pumpkin-derived jack-o’-lanterns are certainly similar to watchpersons. Jack with the Lantern was often blamed for a variety of strange lights in both the British Isles and North America. Generally, these lights were the result of swamp or bog gas that looked like ghosts of lantern light in the dead of night.

Many holidays over the centuries have been associated with petty vandalism and the playing of tricks or pranks, most notably All Hallows’ Eve and hte Yuletide season. By the early 1800s, the term jack-o’-lantern began to tbe associated with pranks, though not necessaarily pranks at Halloween, or any involving pumpkins. It’s possible that pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns came together in the 19th century as a result of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which was first published in 1819.

Halloween is never mentioned in Irving’s novella, but the public imagination has generally imagined the story as happening at the end of October. Jack-o’-lanterns aren’t mentioned either, but the Headless Horseman does throw his head at porr old Ichabod Crane. At the end of the tale, it’s revealed the Headless Horseman’s missile was most likely a pumpkin. When the scene plays out in the mind’s eye, it’s easy to imagine the Horseman’s head as a glowing pumpkin with human features, something very close to Jack’s old lantern. From there, it’s a quick jump to carved and lit up pumpkins being named jack-o’-lanterns.

No matter its origins, the jack-o’-lantern serves as hte nearly official symbol of the Samhain season. Glowing pumpkins gaze outward from porches in late October, scanning for trick-or-treaters, and pumpkin decorations haunt street corners and grocery stores. And for Witches, jack-o’-lanterns serve as a guidepost for the returning souls of our belived dead, inviting those we’ve lost to be with us once more. Whether we carve them, eat them, decorate them, or use them in ritual, the pumpkin is one of autumn’s most delightful gifts.

References

Morton, Ell. “Trunip Jack-o’-Lanterns Are the Rootf of All Evil.” Atlas Obscura. October 28, 2015. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/turnip-jack-o-lanterns-are-the-root-of-all-evil.

Skal, David, J. Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween. New York: Bloomsbury Books, 2002.

Resources

[1] Llewellyn’s 2022 Sabbats Almanac: Samhain 2021 to Mabon 2022