I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the concepts of “spirit” and “connection.”
What evokes the sensation of connection for you? Some people may feel connected to nature while walking in the forest, or sitting silently beside the ocean. Others may experience it while performing music, or writing, or creating art, or kneeling to pray. Many others gain connection through making love, sharing a meal with family, or laughing with friends.
 
While we might find many of these activities pleasurable, it is the presence of this sensation of connection to your own core, or to something larger or beyond yourself, that differentiates a pleasurable experience from a spiritual experience. Only you can tell which things are simply, if delightfully, pleasurable and which things hold that unique sensation of connection.
 
“Wakan, Wakan, every creature
Wakan, Wakan, every rock.”
 
One of the basic tenants of Native American belief, and one of its most beautiful, is that everything in life has a spirit and is Wakan, or sacred. Our First People honor the primal force of life, the stream of existence in which each of us swims.
 
In witchcraft, when we look within ourselves to seek the nature of spirit, we often use the concept of “As above, so below. As within, so without.”
 
The Dalai Lama used the analogy of a pebble, dropped in the middle of a pond, whose ripples flow outward all the way to the edges of the water.  Unfortunately, people sometimes swim around in their little spot of water, largely unaware of the larger cosmos in which they are involved, and the miracles it can bring them. But you have to wake up and stretch your feathers to see the whole pond!
 
 Jean E. Charon, a French physicist, philosopher and author of the book, The Spirit: That Stranger Inside Us, says, “There are microscopic individualities inside every human. They think, they know, and (they) carry Spirit in the Universe.” He calls these bits of intelligence eons, also known as electrons.  “An electron that was successively part of a tree, a human being, a tiger, and another human being will thus remember for all time the experiences it has collected during these different lives. The electron will maintain within itself all of its experiences as tree, as human being No. 1, as tiger, and as human being No 2, to whose organisms it belonged.”
 
Wow!
 
The ancient Celts had a word for this concept, tuirigin (TOOR’ghin), a very precise word for which there is no English equivalent. The nearest we can get to a translation is, “a circuit of births,” according to Caitlin Matthews, a Celtic historian. She says it’s, “not quite the same as reincarnation. In tuirigin, the soul or spirit moves between the otherworld and this world in a series of journeys.”
 
The Gaelic word for God is Cruithear, which means ‘creator’ or ‘shaper,’ and the ancient people in Scotland, the Picts, were referred to as the Cruithne, “people of the shapes.” Roman accounts, as well as Scottish oral tradition, tell us that the bodies of these ancient ones were covered in elaborate blue tattoos of various animals and other shapes. According to Matthews, it was their way of honoring the sacred world that had shaped them.
 
How many of us live our lives as ambassadors of the sacred spirit in all things, be it human, plant or animal? If we do not remember our own sacred standing, we may do things that are not in alignment with ambassadorship. Rather than fostering harmony and living an inspirited life, we may instead create discord and destruction.
 
What if the soul that is our current self came into this lifetime for a specific purpose? First, however, we must recognize that purpose and consciously act upon it.
So this week, I turn my attention inward to my personal work. I take to heart the Dalai Lama’s analogy of a pebble dropped in the middle of the pond, whose ripples flow outward all the way to the edge. My actions ripple outward, having impacts I may never know.
 
For the rest of this year, whenever I find myself in a crowded place, whether it’s a football stadium, a Yule ritual, a movie theatre, football stadium, or driving in traffic, I’m going do the following activity: I will look at all the different people and whisper to myself, “Every man, my brother. Every woman, my sister. Every crying child, my child. Every old woman or man, my grandmother or grandfather. Every wounded soul, my soul. Every animal and creature, under my care.”
 
Will you join me in this exercise in conscious connection?
 
In my mind, your spiritual path makes no difference. The witch’s path, the tribal path, the Buddhist path, the Christian path. Your path.  All of us make ripples that radiate out around us. Let’s make the biggest loving ripples we can.
 
Blessed Be.

 
 The Queen was quite pleased with herself. It was the Monday before Thanksgiving and she planned to spend the next four days getting ready for her guests. First, she swept the floors and mopped them with magical herb water, singing, “Out with the negative and stale, in with freshness and prosperity!” She could almost feel the house breathe a sigh of contentment when she finished. Next, she bleached her sink and deodorized the garbage disposal and trash can with fresh lemon from her tree in the garden. She cleaned her cabinets and counter tops with lavender water. The room was gleaming and spotless.
      
On Tuesday, she thawed her turkey and plunged it into an herb-infused salt brine bath overnight to be sure it would be tender and flavorful. This year, the bird was so big--nearly 25 pounds--she’d had to go out and buy a metal tub to accommodate the chubby sucker. Of course, the tub leaked, so she ended up lining it with a trash bag and making another batch of brine to replace the first one which was now soaking into the back lawn. She hoped her husband wouldn’t notice the big patch of dead grass encrusted in a salt ring. It was pretty hard to miss, but she was going to plead ignorance, no matter how much he questioned her.
       
She was almost finished preparing all her dressing ingredients to mix and stuff inside the turkey. Of course, her favorite, the one with cornbread, apples, currents, onion and mushrooms, she’d have to make separately the day before. Her daughter-in-law was allergic to mushrooms, couldn’t stand the things, and refused to eat at the Queen’s house if she had fixed anything with mushrooms that day. As she diced onion and celery, the Queen’s mind wandered to other mushroom recipes. Ones where she might be able to completely mask the ingredient. A small smile curved the edges of her mouth upward, and she pulled her red stock pot from atop the refrigerator and started a batch of home-made stock. “Vegetable soup will be perfect tomorrow. It’s forecast to rain, and soup always tastes better when it’s rainy outside.” By the time the stock was bubbling, the Queen was humming happily.
     
 Wednesday she got down on her hands and knees and scrubbed the kitchen floor grout until it was the same color as the tiles. She timed herself:  twenty squares cleaned in an hour. Two hundred and fifty squares in the kitchen and entry way. No wonder she hadn’t cleaned them in years. By the time she finished, it was dark out. She could barely stand and her back was in spasm all night. She’d forgotten to eat her soup. But boy, that floor looked like new.

She got up before dawn Thanksgiving morning to stuff the turkey and get it in the oven. Almost screamed when she squatted down and shoved that twenty-five pound roaster pan of slimy poultry into the oven. Next house, she was buying a built-in oven she didn’t have to bend in half to use. She took some ibuprofen with her coffee. No time for breakfast, she had pies to bake. Oh, and that second pan of mushroom-free stuffing.
 
The Queen ironed her best table cloth, the linen one with scalloped lace edges. It had been a wedding gift, but she rarely used it. The stains were so hard to get out of linen. But today she thought, “It’s Thanksgiving. My loving family will all be here. My house looks beautiful. We have a delicious meal. I am so thankful for all this abundance for myself and my loved ones.” She was so happy, in fact, that she set the table with her best china and crystal.
 
The house smelled delicious already. With all the wonderful scents in the kitchen, her daughter-in-law would never know she made that mushroom dressing.
 She added a vase of bittersweet to the dining table and lit candles in the front windows. Feeling contented, she headed the bathroom to shower and dress for dinner.
 
While she was in the shower, the Prince arrived, home for the long weekend from Flagstaff.

“Mom, I’m home,” he hollered. He dumped the soft drink from his car in the gleaming sink, leaving it brown. Peeking into the oven, he checked the turkey. It smelled good but it wasn’t done. So he rummaged in the pantry for chips and salsa, dripping salsa on the counter as he filled himself a bowl, and leaving the dirty dishes in the living room when he went to his room to play video games.

Then the King arrived. He dumped a pile of junk mail on the table, next to her vase of bittersweet. He’d been collecting it in his car all week and decided this was the day to clear the passenger seat in case they used the car that night.
The cat jumped up on the table to greet him, and knocked over one of the good wine glasses, sending it to the floor in an explosion of shattering crystal.
 
The Queen was out of the shower by then. The king joined her in the bathroom, giving her a quick peck on the cheek and grabbing a quick feel-up. “Uh, don’t worry about the broken glass, honey, I’ll clean it up in a few minutes.” Then he headed into the next room to turn on the football game, leaving a trail of muddy boot prints on her pristine floor. It was raining outside.

 The Queen stumbled through the house in disbelief. 
 
 NO! I've only been gone for thirty minutes. She sank into a chair, feeling numb. It was the first time she had sat down in four days, except to sleep.

The front door opened and daughter-in-Law popped her head in. “Do I smell mushrooms?”

Several newspapers lay amongst the pile of discarded mail. The tired Queen picked up the most recent one.
 
 “Screw the Thanksgiving goddess. I’m going to the movies.”

Happy Thanksgiving to all. And may your day go better than this! 

​Winter is coming.

My blood is thin and my bones are cold in the evenings. My animals no longer stretch out on the cool tile to sleep. Instead, they curl their tails around themselves, and tuck their noses into warm blankets.

The coats on their backs are changing also; every cat and hound has become fluffy.

But I have no fur, so I sit in my chair covered in the red Christmas blankets I pulled out of the chifferobe this week.

I often use the winter when I need to move through some of the smaller changes in life, allowing the Wheel of the Year to pull me down into the dark, where I can do my deep work. It pulls me out again in the spring, armed with a clearer plan for the year, resolutions made, and to-do lists quantified and prioritized.
​
But the last three years, I haven’t done a winter hibernation. 

The fires of change roared through my life in 2015, burning many of my hopes and dreams in its path. 

Like the wildfires now raging in California, I didn’t see the fire coming. There was no chance to sort through life, decide what was most important to keep, and let the rest go up in flames. Instead, the destruction was uncontrolled, and painfully destructive, as if the fire recognized those things in the forefront of my mind, the things I held most dear, and demolished them first.

I felt hopeless, and spent much of the next year in despair.  Finally last year, I began to rebuild. Hopes. Future plans. Newer, stronger relationships, forged from the lessons learned. 

Now I’m ready for another, albeit controlled, burn. This month, before I descend into my psyche for the winter’s deep work, I’m consciously shaping some fire imagery to use in some planned spellwork for change. 

rst, the image of fire to create an alchemical reaction, burning off the last of the dross in the alchemist’s chalice, until I am clean, pure gold.

Some negative connections of negativity remain from that old life, and they need to be ashed and released to the winds. It’s taken me this long to be willing to let go, even while the holding on stabs me now and then. (Aren’t we strange creatures? We hold onto the things that hurt us, because we are afraid that being free of that pain may hurt even more.) 

The second of my intentional images is the forge’s fire, seeing myself as a sword being forged by the Goddess through both fire (determination, will), and water (emotions, fear). She is honing my edges for a new usefulness, which she will reveal to me in her own time.

These are my Crone years, and I’m slowly learning to make the most of them. I know that if a person has resented his/her life--the burden of freedom, the chore of keeping body and soul together and pure-- then death will be just as unwelcome and resented. Our next life is predicated on the soundness of this one, and your undone work will be waiting for you at the crossroads, there’s no path around it. I figure letting go now of that which does not serve my highest good, is good practice for the time when, at the end of life, I must let it all go, and move on to my next lessons. 
 
P.S. NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) is progressing slowly. Until today, I’ve been editing my existing chapters instead of forging ahead on new words. But those chapters are now clean-spanking polished. Tonight, I move ahead into new novel territory.
Goal=have rough draft completed by December 20. Cross your fingers, this baby is overdue!

Any time my husband and I travel, we always make an effort to visit a local cemetery. Each one is different. Paul takes photographs, and I wander and visit the graves that I feel pulled to.
​
Many of the cemeteries in the Midwest, where I grew up, are calm, almost drowsy, places, often in the oldest part of town.  Huge oak and maple trees give a feeling of comfort and solidarity, and many of the plots are grouped by family name, so you can discern their history even if you don’t know them personally. Some are tiny, and some are wide-open “rural” cemeteries.

Others, like the stark stone markers at the Culloden Battlefield in Scotland, are filled with gut-wrenching grief.

Tours are given of the monument, and as you walk the wind-swept steps to relive that battle, the wind sings the names of those doomed clansmen. It was haunting.

Before 1831, America had no cemeteries. It’s not that Americans didn’t bury their dead, but that large, modern graveyards did not exist.

With the construction of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, America began to build large cemeteries in its more populated areas. 

Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA

Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati Ohio

Strolling Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio

​Personally, I like the idea of being connected back to the earth—becoming food for somebody or something, and also being connected to a place, if just for a generation or two.

It’s vain to think that people will come back and visit for generations, but I’d like to have a place where my children and their children could spend some time with me. After that, I’m fine with being re-released to Mother Gaia. 

 Often a statue of Xoloitzcuintli, a dog, are left to help guide the spirits back to heaven when the party’s over.  Other offerings include pan de muerto (bread of the dead) and the deceased’s favorite foods, as well as toys for children, and alcohol.

Every ofrenda also include the four elements: water, wind, earth and fire. Water is left in a pitcher so the spirits can quench their thirst.

​

I skipped a blogging week to attend my son Josh’s wedding in Wisconsin last weekend.
​
And now… it’s almost time for that month of madness known as NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

Do you know what the plot of your novel will be? The personalities of each of the main characters? The escalating crisis that will build to your climactic final scene?

Or are you starting from scratch, without a plot or any idea of characters?

If you’re struggling, here are some ideas to help get you started. Feel free to plagiarize anything here. Please add suggestions in the comments section below. I’d love to have some fresh ideas too.

1. A woman buys an antique bureau. In the backboard, she finds a mysterious map with a route marked in symbols. 
2. When he was picked to be Mr. February for the Firemen’s calendar, he thought his romance worries were over. 
3. The holidays with relatives were always strained, but the couple expected even more discord this year, considering what had happened. 
4. A woman is killed while walking her dog. Her spirit enters the dog’s body and decides to cohabitate alongside the dog’s spirit. 
5. The old man sat on the park bench soaking up the warm summer sun when a familiar face walked by that sent a chill up his spine
6.  It's a freezing cold night. Your character finds a homeless family on your doorstep and invites them into his home to sleep. But in the morning, the family won't leave.
   
7. After an automobile accident, a woman begins to see auras around people’s heads that indicate their good and evil thoughts.
   
8. A huge crowd of the undead stood pounding on the doors of St. Peter’s Cathedral seeking salvation. 
9. It wasn’t until they were in bed together that she noticed the green reptilian skin on his back. 
10. What if a lethal virus spread across the world, and vampires were enlisted to help prolong the life of those few people who produced antibodies? 
11. Children playing in the woods find something odd sticking out of the ground and start digging. 
12. A woman inherits her Scottish uncle’s castle and possessions, but she must destroy the contents of the attic without examination. 
13. Write a spin-off article about an interesting historical or scientific topic that is mentioned in your novel. 
14. Write short stories that can be spin-offs for your major novel characters. 
15. What if global warming caused large scale melting at the major Arctic regions on Earth? What changes will take place in the world? How much of the world would be under water? In what regions would humans be most likely to survive, and how would those regions cope with the tremendous influx of people? 
16. What if the bees on Earth died off? Write about the ‘trickle-down’ effect of that loss on crops, food, animals and humans. 
17. You are the patient of a psychiatrist who has been murdered, and you think you know who killed him. 
18. While planting a tree in the back yard of your new house, you accidentally dig up human bones. 
19. You suspect that your next door neighbor is a witch, and you decide to investigate and learn more. 
20. You put down your dog’s food, but today he ignores it. Instead, he sits down and begins talking to you, starting with what he’d really like to eat this morning, the errands he wants you to run with him, and the things he needs your help to accomplish. 
21. While visiting the art museum, you stop in front of a particular scene, and find you can step into the painting and be transported there. 
22. A group of friends band together to survive following a nationwide terrorist attack on the country’s energy infrastructure. 
23.  My next door neighbors, The Johnsons, were all asleep in their coffins when I climbed the fence to get the ball.  
24. Your character's car breaks down when he is driving home from a business trip late at night. Fortunately, there is a hotel nearby, so the character decides to stay there and deal with the car in the morning. This hotel is creepy. Why? Create the atmosphere. According to the hotel's policy, the character pays in advance for the night. When he goes up to his room, and things get even creepier. How? Show us. Your character wants to leave the place but tells himself he's being irrational. He's already paid for the room, and he tells himself everything will be fine. But it gets worse. Depending on how you write this, it could be a ghost story, a crime story, a realistic psychological drama, or a comedy. You could even try your hand at all of them and write four stories. 
25.  At a Chinese restaurant, your character opens his fortune cookie and reads the following message: "Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing." 
26.  In an emergency, a small boy is left to stay with his grandfather for several days. The grandfather pretends to be annoyed at the inconvenience, but, secretly, he is delighted. He adores the boy. He is embarrassed about displaying emotion, so he acts gruff with the child, who is therefore frightened of him at the beginning of the visit. Show the old man's actions, but also let his real feelings show through. 
27.  At the airport, a stranger offers your character money to carry a mysterious package onto the plane. The stranger assures your character that it's nothing illegal and points out that it has already been through the security check. Your character has serious doubts, but needs the money, and therefore agrees. 
28. At a garage sale, your character buys an antique urn which she thinks will look nice decorating her bookcase. But when she gets home, she realizes there are someone's ashes in it. 
29. Your character starts receiving flowers and anonymous gifts. She doesn't know who is sending them. Her husband is suspicious, and the gifts begin to get stranger. 
30. Your character meets someone on an online dating site. Your character writes an e-mail to the person, describing him/herself. Write the e-mail. This e-mail contains two lies. What are they? Why did the character tell them? Also: your character has a very mistaken idea of the impression he/she makes on other people. What impression does your character think he/she makes? What impression does he/she really make? Figure all this stuff out. If you want, fill out a character profile. Your character arranges an in-person meeting with the person he/she has met online. What happens at the meeting? Write the story. 
31. While housesitting his teenage grandson while the parents are on an extended vacation, Grandpa Reed discovers that his grandson has a small marijuana plantation behind the garage. Grandpa confronts the grandson, who, instead of acting repentant, explains to him exactly how much money he is making from the marijuana and tries to persuade Grandpa to join in the business. 

Did one of these prompts spark your writing interest? I know I have listed several I’d like to explore.  If you would like to list other ideas, drop them in the comments section.
 
Next week’s blog is on Dia de Los Muertos, traditions for Day of the Dead, which runs from October 31-November 2.
 
In the meantime, get those NaNo ideas churning!  

​In her latest book, The Rules of Magic, Author Alice Hoffman has finally returned to the Owens family to fill out the family backstory on the mysterious “aunts” Francis (called Franny), and Bridget (known as Jet). And—surprise! They had a baby brother!

The Owens women have always had grey eyes, an intrinsic understanding of hedge witch spellwork, and bad luck in love. Like all the other Owens women, Frances and Jet are witches descended from Salem escapee Maria Owens. More than 300 years ago, Maria was seduced and abandoned by Salem trial judge John Hathorne (real-life ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who added a “w” in his name to avoid comparison).