COMING TO TERMS WITH THINGS THAT SCARE US

With Halloween just a few days away, I’ve been enjoying driving around and viewing other people’s Halloween yard decorations.  The current trend seems to be going for scarier displays.  Here in Michigan, a number of people have erected figures of gigantic skeletons and ghouls in their yards.  Then, because these objects are apparently difficult to take down and store, they leave them up year round, and decorate them for other holidays, like putting tinsel on them at Christmas.  Psychologically, this is a way of taming the things that scare us, (and that is a big part of what Halloween is about).

One of my new books on tarot that I’m working on offers folk magic remedies and other comments on how to mitigate fears when we pull a tarot card that throws a scare into us, so I’ll provide some snippets here, related to the Nine of Swords, The Tower, the Five of Swords, and The Devil, respectively, illustrated with The Halloween Tarot by Karin Lee and Kipling West, where the Swords suit is the suit of Bats:

Nightmares: The anxieties associated with Nine of Swords situations may well induce nightmares.  For children, put one of their dad’s used socks in the bed, as the testosterone scent is magically protective.  The use of dreamcatchers, (net-like, web-like hooped constructions, often enhanced with beads and feathers) originated among woodland Indians who hung them from cradle boards to ensnare the bad dream spirits; these have now become popular decorative items.  Some other traditional practices include putting an open scissors under one’s bed, or putting the key in the keyhole (of old fashioned doors that still have keyholes) to prevent the “mares” from slipping through.  An old Italian remedy was to put three sunflowers on the outside windowsill, as these are what the nightmare spirit “loves best.” 

                There are also folk remedies to dispel negative energies upon waking.  If you should wake up in the middle of the night and are afraid of going back to sleep, get up to turn on the light, comb your hair, wash your face, and brush your teeth; because these activities separate the Day World from the Night World, you can afterward return to bed to get more sleep.  In Japanese lore, a monster called the Baku, which is a strange creature that looks like a cross between an elephant and an anteater, will come and devour your nightmares if you call it three times by saying, “Bakusan, come eat my dream.”  (This can also be done prior to sleep.)  In Talmudic practice, a bad dream can be transmuted by saying, “I have beheld a good dream,” and getting at least three of your family or friends to respond in kind by saying, “Verily, it is good, and may it be good, and may God make it good,” and repeat that seven or nine times.  This way, the dream is reframed as positive.

Omens: Because of the sort of major life changes that The Tower can predict [when you pull this card], your Unconscious may already be sending you warnings through dreams and omens.  Omens occur when your Unconscious tries to get your attention by putting symbolically meaningful events and objects in high focus.  Some of these are personal, and some are cultural.  For example, there is nothing inherently unlucky about black cats, but because there is a common cultural superstition that black cats are unlucky, you may now see a black cat crossing your path and suddenly feel unsettled, even if you’ve seen plenty of black cats before and had no reaction.  If you do have some ominous occurrences, you can say, “I acknowledge this omen, and give thanks for the information.” Then, be extra mindful as mentioned previously.

And by the way, never take it out on the messenger when you get bad news or omens.  In the case of innocent black kitties, there's another superstition that you can reverse any bad luck by blowing the cat a kiss.  (Plus, you get extra good karma by being kind to animals, and that will help offset some bad karma.)  It can also help to ease your mind if you know that different cultures have different views of what is lucky and unlucky.  So, in parts of England, (and also in Jamaica), black cats are considered to be lucky, and it's especially lucky if a black cat crosses in front of a bride on her wedding day.  (Some brides even carry plush black cats along with their bridal bouquets.)

Transforming Perceptions: Although change itself is neutral, [the Five of Swords being a card about change], we tend to perceive it as stressful.  Part of the magical mindset is being able to change the way you perceive a situation, and in this respect, it is helpful to know a bit about how people in other cultures perceive things.  For example, I knew a lady who was disturbed because some bats had gotten into her house, and asked me, “aren’t they the Devil’s creatures?”  I was able to lighten her mind by explaining how in other countries, bats are good luck.  In China, for example, an image of five bats, called “Wu Fu” is a popular design motif, because the word for bat puns on the word for luck.  The five bats stand for the five Confucian blessings: health, wealth, longevity, love of virtue, and a natural death.  Bats are, of course, creatures of the Air, and a whimsical “Halloween” Tarot deck even uses bats to represent the Swords cards.  Therefore, if you find the appearance of the Five of Swords unsettling, counter it by wearing or displaying an image of the Wu Fu.

Blessing [in relation to pulling The Devil card]: Some old stories describe how negative entities were mollified by extending blessings.  A Polish legend tells of a bridge over the river Solokija in Belz, where anyone attempting to cross the bridge at midnight was pelted with stones by some invisible entity.  One night, after a traveler crossing the bridge was struck by a stone, he paused and pronounced a traditional Slavic blessing, “May you be in God’s care.”  A shade emerged and said, “Thank you for your good word.  So far everybody has been cursing at me, and it is you who put me under God’s care,” and so the haunting ended.  In Buddhist lore, a group of monks staying in a haunted grove were attacked by spirits who tried to frighten them off with gruesome apparitions.  However, the spirits were placated when the Buddha advised the monks to extend loving-kindness meditations toward them.  If you sense some negativity coming your way, you can use a simplified version of this by reciting, “May all beings be happy.   May all beings be free from troubles.  May all beings be protected.”

HALLOWEEN IN OUR HEARTS

My mother used to keep a Christmas tree up all year, and would tell people, “It’s always Christmas in my heart.”  Meanwhile, I used to joke that, “It’s always Halloween in my heart.”  Looking ahead to Halloween night 2022, I was thinking about creating some spell to capture the Spirit of Halloween, when I remembered the Halloween ritual featured in my book, “By Candlelight: Rites for Celebration, Blessing & Prayer.”  Unfortunately, the book is now out of print, but I’d like to share the ritual, along with illustrations of some cards from Stacey Demarco’s “The Halloween Oracle.”  If you have this card deck, laying out these cards while also performing the candle rite can serve as a spell to welcome Halloween magic into your life.

Here are some excerpts from the book:

"To experience the mystical energies of this season, you can light a candle on All Hallows Eve (and, if you wish, on the nights surrounding it).  … [A]s the focus of a family celebration or kick off a night of party-going, you could perform the following rite, to recover some of childhood’s sense of wonder."  

           

Light your Halloween candle while saying,  

             

 "I light this candle

      in honor of All Hallows nights,

  a time when the human world

      can touch the world of magic

   

                   So at this time,

                       may we also find wonder 

                           in the mysteries of the universe,

                   even as we rediscover

                            the enchantments of childhood.

                 So may our lives be filled with magic:

                       magic in our homes,

                                  and magic in our hearts."

Note that we can think of the days around Halloween as “Allhallowntide,” based on ancient customs where the days leading up to and following a special holiday were also sacred; this includes the old practice of the “octave,” where you have eight days of celebration around an important feast.  By the way, the cross-quarter day associated with Halloween, that is, the halfway point between the autumn equinox and winter solstice, is fifteen degrees Scorpio, around November 7^th.

Scary Tarot Treats for the Halloween Season

Normally, after my first-Sunday-of-the-month workshops, I like to discuss some of the ideas and tarot symbols we engaged.  Unfortunately, I had to turn my attention to completing another project, and now we’re more than half way through the month, so I don’t remember much.  However, I am looking forward to the November 6^th session.  Even though we’ll be 6 days away from the 31^st of October, the high energies of Halloween will still be crackling in the atmosphere.  We can stretch those energies, because astrological Halloween isn’t until November 8^th, (15 degrees Scorpio).

A big part of the American Halloween is its emphasis on the spooky stuff, related to our childhood—and atavistic human—delight in experiencing the shivers, (even if some of the decorations and other props can get a bit hokey).  Although Neopagans celebrate Samhain as the Celtic New Year, and therefore also a time for celebrating the cycles of life and meditating upon the past, the future, and our connection to the Ancestor World, the Faery World, and the World of Nature, we can’t ignore the tricks and treats and fun and games that make up the greater festivities of our American Halloween.  So, in honor of this aspect of the Halloween season, I’m thinking about having “Things that Scare You,” as one of our themes.  When we can “tame” our fears, (the way Mexicans do by celebrating the Dia de los Muertos with sugar skulls and other amusements that treat death playfully), we assert power over them.

I’ve been wanting to do something special with the colorful, whimsical “The Halloween Tarot” by Kipling West and Karin Lee, so here is an exercise that we may try on the 6^th, in the vein of “Things that Scare You.”  Shuffle the Halloween deck (or any deck) while posing a request like, “Please show me five things that scare me.”  Then, place your deck face up, (so you are looking at the pictures), and go through it until you find one of each: a Pumpkins card (Pentacles), Imps (Wands), Bats (Swords), Ghosts (Cups), and a Major Arcana card.  It doesn’t matter what order you find them in, just pull out the first of each type that you find.

To interpret these cards then, we are looking at them in terms of how the things these cards represent—both in terms of their traditional tarot associations and in terms of the unique imagery of the Halloween deck—may in some way denote some issue that is “scary” for you.  This could be some area of avoidance or resistance, if nothing else.  In this context, even cards that people normally regard and respond to as highly positive are to be scrutinized for what kind of anxieties they may arouse.  For example, “The Sun” card could denote a fear of “shining,” of showing off your talents or stepping into some public position, while the Ten of Cups/Ghosts, the happy family card, could denote some discomfort with family commitment, and the claims that “family ghosts” may have on you.  If you happen to draw a card that would normally be your significator, it could indicate a fear of “being yourself.” 

To apply the extra layer of the Halloween Tarot symbolism, you could view the Ghosts as representing things that haunt you emotionally, the Imps as things that get in your face or try to trip you up, and the Bats as the anxieties and obsessing over problems that are flitting around in your brain.  The pumpkins are a little harder to interpret in terms of a scare factor, because, they’re so colorful and cheerful.  Perhaps in the Pumpkins’/Pentacles’ material world associations, we can see them as symbols of the futility of clinging and craving in this ephemeral mortal life.  Jack-o-lanterns give off light for a few festive evenings at a time of year when the nights are getting longer and darker, but then they’re thrown on the trash heap to rot.  (This echoes the “gardens of Adonis” of ancient times, and gets into the Buddhist idea of “dukkha” = suffering / unsatisfactoriness, that all existence is change and separation.)  However, I don’t want to close this exercise on a downer note, because it is also in creating those little festive touches that we get to exercise some creativity, and also to exercise some caring, because we thereby offer a little cheer to our fellow beings.

By the way, the little manual that comes in the box with the Halloween Tarot cards is well written up by Karin Lee.  Though the lwb’s (little white booklets) that accompany tarot cards are necessarily brief, this one is pithy in its card interpretations and philosophical content.

Although the above exercise was created with the Halloween Tarot in mind, it will probably work well enough with other types of decks.  There are also some gothic and vampire decks out there, but I haven’t gotten around to obtaining any of these.  I imagine that the tone of the readings would certainly be darker, requiring a more emotionally mature group of querents.

Once you have had some time to contemplate what sort of fears your cards may point to, think about how to take action to mitigate them, and even ways that you can confront those fears as you align yourself with the powerful energy currents of Halloween.  (Refer to some of my past years’ blogposts on the “feng shui of Halloween.”)

Plans and Forums

My last chat session/work shop of the year will be on November 7th. I am still thinking about what I ought to plan, but one likely activity is the “Tarot Cards’ Parade,” which we have done in previous years. This is a parade where you don’t have to get out of your seat, because it involves passing certain cards around the circle in a way that moves their chi through our energy fields. (I believe I discuss some of this in past posts on “the feng shui of Halloween,” though you may have to dig for those, because I don’t think I’ve put tags in my older posts.)

While recently reading a book about healing rituals among the south Slavs, I learned of a healing technique that utilizes the energies of a mass of people in procession. In Slavic culture, there are a number of traditional occasions for making processions through a neighborhood or community. Some of these are masked carnival processions, while others are more serious religious or special purpose processions that do not involve masking. On these occasions, sick people will come out and lie down in the path so that the people in the procession will step over them. So here we have a folkloric example of taking advantage of the stream of chi that a procession generates. My tarot cards parade is similarly designed to move beneficial chi through the body and spirit.

I’m also thinking about a magical working that involves the holographic effect of multiple persons directing the energies of specific tarot cards (i.e., the same cards, but from multiple decks), at each person in turn, to help individuals more fully manifest special qualities in their lives. If you are planning to come, you might think about whether there is a special card whose energies you would like everyone to concentrate on, to bring them into your life. The idea behind this is to holographically refresh different archetypes within us, and this engages the tarot itself as an archetype of wholeness.

I will continue to think about additional activities for November, including bringing back the Faery Friends. In the meantime, I have been participating in a discussion forum at “Complete Life Healing,” (see the link in the left-hand column). Some of the ongoing discussion involves the intelligence of the body, (such as body memory, ensoulment, power of the spoken word, etc.), challenges of Asperger’s Syndrome, Tarot and divination, and getting into writing. Feel free to look in on and participate in any discussion threads that interest you.