Aradia and I celebrated the full moon two nights ago, and had our early Samhain feast last night. Neither of these would be as significant, except that we’ve rather “fallen off the wagon” with both our magical practices and our social lives. So we decided it was time to have a party.
The story actually starts last weekend, getting the house ready for an old friend of Aradia’s to visit from St. Louis. Reflecting our mental and emotional states as I creep up on six months of unemployement and we both struggle with classes, our house was something of a disaster. Our house altar had been almost untouched since our practice group stopped meeting shortly after the Summer Solstice. It took us most of the week, but the house was clean (if not cleansed) and the altar prepared for Samhain less than half an hour before Firebird & Crew arrived.
Firebird brought three friends with her : two fellow spinners/manipulators, A and C, and A’s ladyfriend N, who invited herself along despite not having any actual interest in the entire affair. MagicCat didn’t like them at all, which turned out to be a red flag. Firebird was good fun, but her friends should have just stayed in St.L. By the time they left, Aradia, myself, and our house were all toxic. So we cast a circle and cleansed the house like we should have done before they got there.
Suddenly, everything was beautiful again. The Circle snapped into place as soon as we lit the Air candle, like we’d never left off. We went room-to-room with a burning wand of white sage and a lavender oil mister. We even did the porch.
Living with another witch for the last year has really changed my mind on a lot of things. Aradia and I went to the KC Renaissance Festival a month or so ago, and one of the vendors we passed by specialized in ornate “decorative” brooms. For the first time, I found myself seriously thinking about owning and using a besom. Given my absurdly macho, psuedo-ceremonial roots, this is not a tool that most of the things I’ve done or studied put any emphasis on. I’ve only used a besom once, in fact, when I helped make one for a workshop out at Heartland this last May. When we went back to the Faire last weekend with Firebird & Crew, we passed the same vendor and I found myself thinking – not “is this a tool I need?” but “which of these would be best for me?”. Apparently I had made my decision sometime in between … probably while pushing the broom.
Fast forward a week. The house is actually still clean, though in need of some work. We’re both still in a fantastic mood, despite the stress.
I originally had plans for Friday night, but they were canceled when the gremlins in Aradia’s car threw a party to remind everyone they were still there. I don’t remember exactly what she said about her own plans for the evening, but my response …
“It’s the full moon?”
When I say fell off the wagon, I’m not fucking joking.
We went over to Aradia’s family’s house to help them with the annual brush-burn and to incinerate a few things that that should have been disposed of long ago. We took our drums and tranced out for a while before doing our full moon tarot readings. It wasn’t formal, structured, or intense, but it was what we needed. We need to work our way back up to intense, and we’ve got about seven days. (Samhain’s totally going to kick my ass.)
Saturday came, and with it our pre-Samhain pumpkin party. We didn’t know what anyone’s plans for the actual weekend would be, or if there would be a ritual at all, so we decided to host a feast and carve jak-o-lanterns. The invitations went out almost a month ago.
I helped Aradia make pumpkin soup out of the five kuri pumpkins (the green-and-orange ones) you saw on the altar, and Aradia made a loaf of amazing tasty bread. We drank tasty pumpkin beer. My parents brought an amazing autumn stew. Our neighbor, K, brought pumpkin-filled doughnuts. Our friends Pasiphae and Aiden brought a feast all by themselves: pumpkin-banana bread, pumpkin-cheesecake pie, and Halloween-themed jell-o-snacks. (They also brought their munchkins – the MagicCat was not amused.)
We all had so much fun that we never got to the pumpkin carving part.