The Hunter Moon or Blood moon is in the fiery warrior sign of Aries. Honor your inner warrior, but choose your battles. Celebrate your strength. And get ready to be playfully alluring.
Aries Full Moon
You Are Magic
You are magic.
I’ve said it before. You won the jackpot. Out of all the genetic combinations possible between your parents, it was you who was born. Your parents, your grandparents, even your great-grandparents dated other people before they got married, they may have even been engaged to someone else and then called it off. So many pieces had to fall into place for you to arrive.
As Samhain (SAH-win) approaches (Samhain is witchy talk for Halloween) , the veil between us and our ancestors thins. (Halloween, or Hallowe’en is a shortening of All Hallow Even, the evening before All Hallows Day which precedes All Souls Day)
This is the perfect time to reflect on your lineage and to give thanks for everyone who came before you. Some of them went to great lengths and endured hardships, if not atrocities, to ensure you got here.
My grandmother, my mother’s mother, was adopted. The story goes something like this.
My great-grandmother desperately wanted a child. She finally conceived and carried the baby to term, only to have a miscarriage. While at the hospital, she learned of a woman who was having what seemed like her fifteenth child. Her family couldn’t afford another mouth to feed, another body to clothe. The women met, made a deal, got the Salvation Army to handle the adoption and everyone left happy.
Especially me. I’m happy to be here, to have a chance to do what I love, to fulfill the soul contract that I made before this life to heal others. To ensure that my son and daughter and their children and their children’s children can fulfill theirs.
I’m not sure if the dead great-grandmother I used to talk to was the birth mother or adopting mother of my grandmother, but she and I had a connection when I was little.
When I clear energy, dead people still come through and send messages to their loved ones. With only one exception they have all communicated nothing but love. Just last week, I was working with a client. We were talking about her father. I said, “I’m having trouble clearing because I’m seeing fireworks shaped like a heart and all I can smell is roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy.” My client said, “Oh! That was my dad’s favorite meal.”
We have two weeks before Samhain. Plenty of time to honor your dead and tell them how much they mean to you, whether you knew them personally or not. Here are some ideas.
- Sit in meditation, invite them to join you, and thank them
- Prepare and eat their favorite foods
- Donate money to a cause they believed in (My family donates to the Salvation Army)
- Pour a libation, that is pour a drink onto the ground for them
- Create an altar with photos or add photos to your existing altar
- Share your memories
My grandmother died when I was four but that doesn’t mean I don’t have plenty of memories of her. She had a real sense of style. She was a horrible cook. Her name was Evangeline (the Salvation Army are evangelists after all), but everyone called her Babe. She never had a full drink, just a little in a juice glass (that kept getting topped off).
But my most vivid memory of her was after I was in a car accident. It was the early 1960s. My mother was driving, and I had been in the front seat without a seatbelt. My mother stopped short, I went flying and hit the dashboard. I had a gash over my eyebrow and was bleeding like crazy. My mother drove straight to her mother’s house and plunked me on the sofa while she went to freak out. My grandmother told me to come with her into the kitchen where she would give me some Vernors. Vernors is a ginger ale everyone in Detroit drinks and believes to have magical medicinal properties. They’re fanatical about it. Upset tummy? Cough? Headache? Grouchiness? Bleeding from hitting the dashboard? No need to go to the doctor; have some Vernors.
It didn’t work. I had to get stitches. And I still can’t stand the smell or taste of Vernors.
Words Are Magic
Words are magic.
I knew this from a very young age.
When I was five, I started learning Spanish. I was jealous of my friends who got to go to Hebrew school.
I remember watching my dad read the newspaper and wondering how he could do that in his head.
When I was seven or eight, I decided my life goal was to speak seven languages. When I was seventeen, I discovered a life-long passion, linguistics—the science of language.
But I had always known the magic of language.
I’m sure it’s no surprise that my pet peeve is people who don’t choose their words carefully. Or who have no respect for what words mean. Prodigal does not mean returned. There’s a difference between phase and faze, between jibe and jive. Don’t get me started on there, their, and they’re.
Every word we utter, or even think can have profound consequences. Every sentence is a magical spell.
Affirmations, of course. Every day, in every way, my joyous prosperity grows and grows. My life is an adventure taking me wonderful new places. I choose to see the beauty and love that surround me.
And self-talk. I’ve written about that before, about how seemingly little things like “I’ll never figure this out” become self-fulfilling prophecies. How self-deprecation does us no favors.
Look at the emotions these sentences create:
I want to kiss your elbow.
What was that noise downstairs?
He ruined listening to my favorite album for me.
You‘re going to have twins!
Let’s play Twister.
I brought you a cup of coffee.
It’s stage 4 cancer.
I trust you with my secrets.
How about word superstitions? Voldemort, or He-who-must-not-be-named (speak of the devil and he shall appear). Saying “God bless you” after someone sneezes (but never after someone coughs). Using euphemisms for death. Saying “dead” doesn’t bring it about any more than saying “pregnant” makes that happen.
Authors create magic every time they write. They draw us into another world, introduce us to new people, change our mood, our outlook, or our mind all with words.
I challenge you to create a little bit of your own magic, to write a story in one sentence.
It can be as simple as “When he walked into the room, I knew my life would never be the same.”
Or as clunky as, “Cass sighed and called for the jaws of life to release the man from the car that was upside down on her front lawn, blaring INXS.”
Or finish this sentence, “What if…”
What can you create with those two words? What do they offer? What spell can they cast? Where can they take you?
What if… you believed in magic?
New Moon in Libra Tarot Spread
It’s time for introspection and for socializing, for finding pleasure and deeper emotional connections, about give and take. This new moon is in Libra after all, the sign of the balancing scales.
The Power of Magic
When my daughter was little, Santa brought her a magic kit. She was so excited about it. We sat down on the floor of my parents’ family room (which probably still had gold shag carpet, impeccably raked) and opened the box. A box of magic!
We pulled everything out and I said, “Let’s see what the instructions say.”
I saw her face fall. It wasn’t a box full of magic after all. It was instructions and adult involvement.
I still feel guilty about shattering her belief in magic. I wish I could go back and say something to make it right. Something like, “There is definitely magic in the world—Santa simply misunderstood what you asked for.” I wish I would have thought to show her how both real magic and stage magic work.
I love both kinds of magic. My husband and I went to the Magic Lounge in Chicago last Friday. He likes to try to figure out how the tricks are done. I prefer to be astounded. And magic, either kind, should astound.
Years ago, I was out with my friend Jean. From seemingly out of nowhere I started talking about my old buddy JR. I finished my anecdotes saying, “I wonder what that old JR is up to!” I went home, dug around online, found him, and sent him a message. It felt so out of the blue. I wasn’t even sure he would remember me since I hadn’t seen him in over twenty years.
It turned out that JR had been looking for people who had been in Estes Park during the summer when a horrible flood killed close to 150 people. At that time, that’s where I lived. In a sense, he conjured my email to him.
When my husband and I were looking to move out of Oak Park, we were originally looking in a city called Huntley. We had settled on a subdivision and a builder and were in the process of designing our house. While driving in the area, I kept seeing billboards that said, “Bigger Is Better!” I didn’t pay them any mind.
Around the same time, I went to get my hair done, but my regular stylist, Petra, was sick. I was chatting with the woman filling in for Petra, telling her how we were planning to move to Huntley. Even though Huntley is fifty miles away from the salon, that stylist lived in the exact subdivision we were looking at. She said, “Don’t move there! Move to Crystal Lake.”
The next time I saw the Bigger Is Better billboard, I noticed it was for a neighborhood in Crystal Lake. With the same builder we were working with. I drove over to look. There was one house available. The very model house we were designing. With all the upgrades we had chosen. On a much bigger lot. For a lot less than we were going to be paying in Huntley.
That’s magic.
I have a top hat full of stories like that. Hearing from a friend I hadn’t spoken to in over twenty years after seeing a photo of him the week before. Being magically unscathed from car accidents that should have killed me. Having jobs, jobs I was sure I wasn’t qualified for, even jobs I never applied for, fall into my lap. Books that had the information I needed appear. Teachers. Healers. Friends.
The secret is in believing that powerful magic swirls around you. In knowing that you can conjure, that you can co-create with the Universe. In never giving up on the childlike wonder that allows the magic to be real.
The Rest of the Story
Earlier this week I got together (virtually) with my friend Lindsay. She’s a medium. We sometimes swap gifts—I clear her energy, she tries to contact my dead relatives, but none of my ancestors ever come through. It’s always a message for someone else.
She said a woman was coming through, a grandmother or an aunt or a grandmother’s sister—there was a sisterly energy to her. She was a homemaker, wearing an apron. She had had a long life and died peacefully of old age. She said thank you. She also mentioned Heather, who had been struggling. This woman said she’d use roses as her sign that she was with the people she loved who were still living, especially Heather (“Who’s Heather?” Lindsay asked. “I don’t know a Heather,” I said.) who had been struggling, so watch for roses.
“She says, ‘I’m doing great up here!’” Lindsay reported… “And her name is Jane… or June.”
Do you remember my blog post from last week? Last week I wrote about June’s memorial service.
P.S. Lindsay does not subscribe to my newsletter. She doesn’t read my blog. I hadn’t talked to her in a few weeks, so she did not know about June’s service.
We create connections in our time on earth that last even after death.
We continue to love someone after they die, and they continue to love and care for us. We create ties that are not easy to break. Even after we’ve fulfilled our soul contract with a person, after we’ve learned the lesson they had to teach us (and us them), we can continue to travel in the same soul circles.
It’s kind of like staying in the same area as your extended family. We enjoy spending time with the people we love. Sure, we can text or call, but that’s not the same as hanging out. A video chat can never replace being in the presence of our family and friends, hanging out, sharing a meal, giving a hug.
June told Lindsay that she would continue to pass messages through me. I can’t wait to see what she has to say next.
Do these sorts of stories give you chills and goosebumps? Do they make you roll your eyes? Do they give you a sense of wonder or excitement? I’d love to hear your ghost stories.
Tarot Spread for the Full Moon in Pisces
Here’s a tarot spread for the Harvest Moon in Pisces September 20, 2021.
This full moon is full of emotion and intuition. Pull some cards to see what needs releasing and healing.
Grief
Last week I attended the memorial service for the mother of one of my best friends. I couldn’t make it to June’s funeral mass, but the impromptu speeches at the reception following it were a tribute to how much she cared for others—and how much others cared for her.
Two days later, I found out that a friend of mine, Tim, had died. I hadn’t seen him in years. His life had spun out of control which so many times leads to alienation from people who were once close.
I pulled these two cards this morning as my cards of the day. Together, the Hermit and the Hanged Man remind me to go within to find a new perspective.
We think of grief as an emotion that begins when life ends. But for both June and Tim, their loved ones started grieving long before their deaths. June suffered from dementia for years. Or perhaps I shouldn’t say she suffered; she was always cheerful. It was her family members who suffered. And as Tim became increasingly isolated, his family and friends suffered the loss of his full presence as well.
Grief is wily. It’s sneaky. It doesn’t always show up when it’s expected. It can hide behind anger or guilt or even shame. It makes us forgetful and clumsy. Grief batters the immune system and can increase our blood pressure. It leaves us depleted and yet unable to sleep. It can hit us on every level: emotional, of course, but also physical and spiritual.
And we grieve all sorts of deaths. Break-ups. Moves. Job changes. Children moving out of the house. Chronic illness, alcohol or substance abuse that change a friend into someone we no longer recognize.
People who experience a loss probably get tired of others telling them to be gentle with themselves. But it’s true. We need to recognize that we’re grieving and that the anxiety or inability to concentrate, the loss of appetite or desire to do anything, are all signs that we’re mourning. We may cry. Or we might not.
Everyone grieves in their own way.
And in their own time.
The feelings of loss never go away, but they do eventually change into something less raw.
I feel it’s important for me to recognize my own feelings of fragility when someone I know experiences the death of a loved one. I try to take a step back and realign myself with my heart and my purpose. I remind myself that we’re all connected and that my friend’s loss is my loss. I hope I can extend sympathy, compassion, and empathy to them. But I also hope I can tap into what emotions it brings up in me and lead me to contemplation and a new perspective.
Bananas
Bananas, bananas, and more bananas. I’m seeing them everywhere. On TV, watching the Property Brothers, Queer Eye and Atypical. On shirts. In the comics. In Ask Amy. They came up while I was working with a client and I could taste banana cream pie. Louis Prima was singing about bananas, great big bananas…
Spirit is trying to get my attention, but I can’t decipher the message. Do I need more tryptophan? Or am I acting a little bananas?
I’ve written before about developing a lexicon with your guides and angels. This is important so that they can send you messages that you can interpret quickly and easily. For me, monarch butterflies mean I need to make a significant change. Crows remind me to remember the magic in life. The number 777 means things are unfolding exactly as they should.
But bananas? They hardly seem like the most spiritual fruit.
It seems the joke is on me.
A few years ago, when monarch butterflies were coming to be like bananas are now, I also saw a car with a vanity license plate, BALCER. I saw it every time I left the house. Sometimes twice.
I finally googled it. Balcer is a form of Baltazar. Baltazar was one of the three magi who, according to legend, visited Jesus’s birth. A king. Like a monarch, like the butterfly. The Universe likes to hammer things home for me.
Why didn’t I think to google the spiritual meaning of bananas before? The scientific name for bananas is musa sapientum, which means…
Fruit of the wise men.
Just as monarch butterflies symbolize transformation, perhaps the banana message is about change as well. A reminder to be wise and to handle people gently so that I don’t bruise anyone’s heart. Or maybe a nudge in the other direction—to not be so fragile, so easily bruised myself.
We can gain great insight when we go within, when we meditate or spend time in quiet contemplation. Meditation strengthens our connection to the Divine. For as much as I wish I could spend all day meditating (who’s with me?), I came, we came, to have experiences in the outer world.
We can ask to receive messages from Sprit through all our senses, what are called the “clairs.”
- Clairvoyance is the gift of second sight
- Clairaudience is hearing messages
- Clairsentience is feeling, a strong empathy
- Clairalience is smell, like smelling the perfume of a dead loved one
- Clairgustance is taste, like that banana cream pie I mentioned
- Claircognizance is a clear knowing of things we have no practical knowledge of
And don’t forget the seventh sense, the sense of humor. Bananas, indeed.
I’m Average
I’m average. Of course I am. The overwhelming majority of us are. That’s why it’s “average.”
I have one of those faces that looks like someone’s fourth-grade teacher, or their sister-in-law’s cousin. No one ever remembers what color eyes I have.
We all want to know that we fit in, that we’re not too tall or heavy or loud or quirky. We want to look and act enough like the next person to blend in. We want to feel our actions and our reactions are in line with everyone else’s.
A large part of this is biology. We had to fit in or be cast out, and we wouldn’t have survived without the group.
Naturally there are those who want to be the fastest or strongest or able to eat the most hot dogs in ten minutes. That’s what the Olympic games and the Guinness Book of Records are for.
But, by and large, we’re all pretty vanilla.
And yet.
And yet we are somehow all unique. Like the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the beach, we seem the same until examined up close. In an intimate relationship we are able to see what makes another special. We’re attracted to their unique blend of personality traits. And they enjoy our distinctive mix of characteristics.
For many of us, our children share the same set of parents and yet they are individuals. We share things in common with our friends such as values, sense of humor, perhaps a similar upbringing or education, but they’re not interchangeable. We are individuals and yet we belong.
If you’re reading this, it’s because you know you have a magical spark. You have a unique purpose in this life, something only you can do in the way you do it. I’m not the only person who clears energy, or reads tarot cards, or communicates with spirit guides, angels, and dead people. But I’m the only one who does it my way. And you’re the only one who does whatever it is you do your way.
How can you nurture that spark, that magic?
- Accept compliments with grace
- Give and receive love freely
- Make a list of things you like to do
- Make another list of qualities you like about yourself (and “my penmanship” is not allowed on the list)
- Decorate your home in a way that expresses who you are
- Be a part of a larger community. Volunteer. Mentor. Share your unique gift
And here’s the secret sauce: When you order something online, send it to yourself as a gift and attach a love note.
P.S. Why does vanilla get a bad rap? Is it because it’s ubiquitous? Vanilla is delicious. The beans are expensive. I love vanilla..