Witchy Update - Issue #6

Last month we accepted the invitation of the underworld at the Mabon, and this month we continue to go deeper into the darkness. We end the month of October with the witchy New Year celebration of Samhain.

Meet Your Monster
Even if we don’t adhere to popular custom and dress up like little monsters come October 31, Halloween is still a good time to explore our inner darkness and take a look at the monsters within. And maybe even make friends with them ...

Here’s some advice from The Urban Primitive by Raven Kaldera and Tannin Schwartzstein on just how to do so:

1. Accept that you have monsters, and that they will likely remain monsters, and try to scrape up some kind of affection for them. If they don’t feel loved and cared about in spite of their grubbiness, they get worse.

2. Show that affection by giving them little gifts. Obviously, you can’t give in to all their atrocious demands; you’d end up dead or in jail. But you can find small things to do that give them pleasure that don’t harm others.

3. Build them a nice park to play in, inside yourself. Give them toys. Make sure there’s a strong wall around the park, if need be, but make it pretty inside. Bring in friends for them to play with - perhaps other people’s monsters, under carefully controlled and negotiated circumstances.

4. Don’t try to force them to heal, or get better, or un-monster. That never works. It’s the equivalent of beating an angry child to force them to be happy. Maybe they’ll get better with lots of unconditional love and attention, and maybe they won’t. Either way, it’s better than having them sawing holes in the floor beneath you.

Deeper Mysteries
On the more serious side, Samhain is also a time to explore the deeper mysteries of your craft. Where do your beliefs come from, and why do you hold them? One of the deeper mysteries at Samhain is the thinning of the veil between the worlds, and the presence and veneration of ancestral spirits. According to Raven Grimassi in Witchcraft: A Mystery Tradition, it was ancient custom to leave a heated blend of equal parts milk, red wine, and honey for the ancestors. Try that or some variation this year. After all, on Samhain you never know who might come to visit.