Scones alone: A Samhain story about feeding the dead

Well, it's that time of year again--October, when the air gets crisper and the veil between the world gets thinner.  It's the pefect time to dust off our best tales of ghosties and spooks, and also to celebrate the return of the beloved dead, our ancestors and departed friends.  One way to honor the dead is with offerings of food and drink, a practice that that exists throughout history and around the world.  In keeping with the season, I thought I'd share a little personal story about trying to serve tea to a spirit last All Souls' Eve.

I guess I should include some background.  I don't regularly work with the dead, and I don't have any great talent for mediumship.  But I have had some isolated experiences with spirit contact in my life--just enough to know firsthand that there's some validity to it.  When I moved into my current home three years ago, I gradually became aware of one particular spirit.  I now think of him as one of my ancestors, though he's not a blood relative.  He identifies himself as one of the settlers of the area, someone who loved this land before I did (and still does).  My house is just past the northeast edge of the land that was once his family farm.  He's not much like a ghost--more of a guardian spirit, one of the genii loci that just happens to claim a human past.  In the past couple of years, I've been able to find out more about him, through a mix of psychic means and regular ole mundane research.  Through various experiences, my doubts have been quelled, and I've developed a sort of granddaughterly affection for him.  He's also been an important teacher for me in the last couple of years.

As All Soul's Eve approached last year, I began to think about what might make a suitable offering to show my gratitude.  Food seemed appropriate--a lot of the memories he'd shared with me related to food.  He remembered the scarcity of wheat flour, and the trial of eating dry corn breads for a couple of years until they could get a wheat crop going and a mill established.  He told me about raising dairy cows, and that the milk and cheese produced from Texas grass never tasted as sweet as the stuff he remembered from home.  He loved the abundance of fruit here--berries and plums that could be cooked into jams that didn't even need sugar.  Since I knew that this spirit was originally from Devonshire, England, I settled on the idea of a Devon-style service of tea and scones for my seasonal offering.

However, I felt that the details had to be just right--and that wasn't going to prove easy.  If you've never had a Devon-style scone--well, its not a regular English scone, those dense and doughy triangles studded with fruit.  It's actually closer to a Southern biscuit, round, but drier and sweeter and made with cream instead of water.  I checked just about every bakery in town, but couldn't find anyone who made something resembling a Devonshire scone.  So I found a recipe online and assembled the ingredients.  Over the next few days, I tracked down the remaining essentials:  Clotted cream from Devonshire to represent the homeland.  Texas strawberry preserves for the adopted land.  Good tea (loose leaf, not bagged), china cups, saucers, spoons, and a teapot of hammered tin.

On Samhain, October 31, I took the day off from work.  I got out of bed and baked the scones.  (They came out a little dense and crumbly, but a good effort, at least.)  I put hot water in the teapot, and gathered the dishes and cream and jam.  Then I put everything in a cardboard box with a tea towel, belted it to the passenger seat of my car and drove the mile or so to where the old homestead was. 

Of course, the original buildings are long gone.  Part of the place is a lake now, part is a busy road, and part is a public park.  It's active in the evening with people strolling and exercising, but during the workday there's often no one in sight.  It was a crisp, clear late morning--a  Monday.   From the parking lot, I could look and see that there was nobody around for a quarter mile.  Perfect.

I carried my cardboard box into the park and found a bench.  I sat down on one end of it.   I set up two plates, two cups, and two saucers--one for me and one for him.  I put two scones on each plate and split them lengthwise.  I spread the cream on the scone first (Devon style--they do it backwards in Cornwall), then heaped on the preserves.  I brewed the tea and poured two cups (plenty of cream, no sugar).  Then I tried to decide what to do next.

You see, this was the first time I had made a food offering to a spirit, and I had some unanswered questions.  I had done some research beforehand and found that food offerings for the dead are common to many cultures, but I found few resources that addressed what you actually do with the food in case the hungry ghosts don't show up to eat it.  Some of the advice was even contradictory.  I read that you eat the food, and offer the spirit the experience of tasting the food, because spirits don't have mouths to eat, which makes sense.  I also read that you should under no circumstances eat the food, because it is an offering for the dead, not a snack for you, which also makes sense.  I was planning to do what I usually do in such situations, which is go with what feels correct at the moment and hope I don't screw anything up too badly.  I took the first sip of my tea, trying to stay in a magical mood but feeling just a little silly.

I don't know what I was expecting to happen. I didn't see anyone, obviously.  I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary, other than the intensity of my concentration on the ritual.  As I mentioned before, I can be a little dense.  I don't always know when spirits are present, but I am a bit more confident in my abilities as a tarot reader.  So, I pulled out my cards--the ordinary 52-card deck I use when I'm in public and want to be discreet.  I asked if my guest was present.  I shuffled the deck and drew his significator on the first try--a definitive "yes" if ever there was one.  I still didn't know what to do.  I took a few more sips of tea.  It was aromatic and perfectly warming on that cool October morning.  I began to think I could easily drink both teas, if need be.

What happened next was baffling.  I saw someone approaching from the corner of the park.  Not an apparition.  Just a nicely dressed white man, slightly past middle age, walking a border collie mix along the path behind me.  When he was about six feet away, he stepped off the sidewalk.  He greeted me heartily, like we were old friends.  Then he came and sat next to me, just inches away from the second tea setting.

I guess I should have been worried, being accosted by a strange man in the park, with no one else in sight.  I guess he should have been frightened to come sit next to a crazy lady on a bench with two cups of tea and a cardboard box full of junk.  But it felt fine--normal, somehow.  I offered him the tea.  He didn't take the scones, but said they looked delicious.  I saw the dog coveting them, so I asked the man if his dog could have one.  Then we sat for a while, savoring the tea and watching the dog lick the cream off the scone.  I poured a refill.  I don't remember what we talked about--the weather, probably, and the dog.  I'm certain he didn't ask me what I was doing there with tea for two and some playing cards--because I wouldn't have had a ready answer for him if he did.

When we were finished, he stood up.  He looked me over and said,  "Enjoy your day...and God bless you."  And he continued on down the path.  And I did--I felt as blessed as could be.  When he had gone out of sight, I poured the remaining tea on the ground, and left the last of the four scones there in the grass.

I don't really have anything to add to this story, except to say that it comes close to typifying how magic, real magic, usually works--in unexpected and quietly stunning ways.  It's not always fireworks, but it's sometimes, just...wow.

Have a happy Halloween, y'all!

To know, to will, to dare, to keep silent: The Four Powers and the seer's art

To know, to will, to dare, to keep silent:  These powers are related to the four classical elements and are the cornerstones of Hermetic magic.  (They're also used by some Wiccans.)  These guiding principles are known by various names: Four Powers of the Sphinx, Four Powers of the Magi, Motto of the Sphinx, the Four Pillars, the Powers of the Elements, the Witch's Pyramid, the Magic Pyramid, etc.  Taken together, they form a "simple but not easy" program of personal improvement and spiritual development.  Today, we'll consider the Four Powers and how they relate specifically to the practice of divination and seership.

To know (sciere).  This is a good one to start with, since you could argue that "to know" is the entire point of becoming a seer.  When we sit down to scry or ask for a prophetic dream, we're hoping to get a peek into worlds beyond our everyday reality.  (Or, more prosaically, to find out what's happening in the next room or next week.)  All of the seer's work is done in the service of knowledge.

So, how do we cultivate this power?  Well, the most obvious way is through learning.  We learn through words and images, from teachers who have gone before us.  While human beings have made great technological and social strides in a few thousand years, our basic mental and spiritual capacities don't appear to evolve so quickly--I'm sure there's nobody alive today who's smarter than Plato or more spiritually aware than the author of the Psalms.  And what has worked for the ancients will most likely work today.  So, part of "to know" is to recognize wisdom where its given and try not to reinvent the wheel.  What's the saying artists have--learn the rules before you break 'em?  For the seer this means studying and practicing the spiritual technologies that are available--the time-honored practices of meditation and prayer, for instance.  Then adapt them if necessary.

We also gain knowledge through our own experiences.  Moments of teaching occur throughout the day, and inspiration flashes through the synapses in milliseconds.  But most of the time we're just too busy and distracted to give our full focus to these transmissions  Seership is a way to set the process to slow motion.  We put ourselves in a relaxed state and tell the universe, "Say it one more time.  I'm listening."  So ask yourself a few questions:  Are you honoring the process of learning with your time and attention?  Are you keeping good enough records, so that the insights you catch hold of won't easily be forgotten?  Are you growing in self-awareness as you experience different visions and states?

Which brings us to what is certainly the hardest part of knowing: To know yourself.  The questions associated with self-knowledge are even more difficult:  Why do you want to be a seer?  What will you do with knowledge once its acquired?  They obviously don't have easy answers, but even if you can't answer them completely, it's helpful to keep them foremost in your mind.  The power of knowledge is associated with the classical element of Air.  When perfected, it gives you the ultimate perspective: a birds-eye view of yourself, your surroundings, and your place in the world.  This alone sounds like it could be the work of a lifetime.  But wait, there's more...

To will (velle).

A seer must be strong-willed.  As a member of homo sapiens, you have an extremely powerful and marvelous piece of frontal lobe, that nonetheless has a tendency to overestimate its own importance.  The conscious mind is so active that it would prefer to dominate every waking minute, leaving very little space for intuitive functioning.  It takes a strongly developed will to demand that your normal way of seeing get the hell outta the way, and let your less-developed sixth sense have a turn at the window.

From this, the power of Fire, we derive the inspiration to do some really hard work--the proverbial fire under your ass, if you will.  There is no "easy" method of divination--if there were, then everybody would be doing it.  No matter how talented you are, you still have to hone the skills of single-pointed concentration and visualization.  You have to overcome the tendency of the mind to wander to mundane things, and of all your conscious and unconscious desires to distract and deceive you.  You have to have the will to do your practice even when you don't really feel like it or when other obligations are clamoring for your time.

To dare (audere).

This power is associated with the element of Water, which has a long, long history of being emblematic of the psychic arts.  And with good reason:  Elemental Water is the source of creativity, intuition, and connection. Even in the mundane world, we talk about "streams" of consciousness and "going with the flow"--sometimes an inspiration "springs" forth or we "pool" our ideas with others.  Many traditional scrying devices (bowls, ponds, and wells) are tied to Water.  (Even crystals were thought by the Greeks to be made of water, permanently frozen.)  And the seer's practice of letting go--letting words and images float on by without attempting to direct them--is a watery skill.

But lest I make it sound like seership means drifting off into a gentle pool of soul-melting bliss, let's not forget that "daring" implies courage, not just happy abandon.  Are you really ready to confront all the beasties that lurk in the dark reaches of your unconscious?  Are you ready to start ringing the doorbells of the other denizens of the universe, which might just wanna pinch your l'il rosy cheeks...or not?  Taking up this calling means giving up your fixations on safety, predictability, and objectivity.  No one can promise you that you won't go crazy.   Nobody can prove to you that you're not actually wasting your time with all this stuff.  "To dare" means having the faith and the audacity to do a cannonball into the deep well of the mysterious.  Wooooooo!

To keep silent (tacere).

Ah, yes, the ancient art of shutting your piehole.  (Often said to be the most overlooked of the four.)  Just as some strains of Hermeticism hold that Earth isn't a real element, some people evidently feel that silence isn't a real magical skill, to their great detriment.  I'm sure you've seen the oversharer in action at your local psychic circle / coven / metaphysical group.  There's almost invariably someone who's so eager to share their successes or brag about their newfound talents that they just end up alienating everyone and looking like a fool.  Sometimes there's two or more of these folks and they spend the whole time one-upping each other (which at least spares other people the misery of conversing with them).  Meanwhile, on the periphery you find the more mature practitioners, who don't talk about their abilities unless someone asks--and sometimes not even then.

But the purpose of magical silence isn't just to look inscrutable and cool--although that's definitely a fringe benefit.  Resisting the temptation to chatter really can benefit your practice.  In the ancient world, boasting about personal success was thought to draw the malediction of the evil eye or jealous spirits.  Modern practitioners are more likely to say that blabbing too much will scatter the energy of your working or diminish your enthusiasm.  At the very least, you can be sure that touting your skills will attract the wrong kind of attention, at least as far as your own psychic development is concerned.  Some people will be outright dismissive, and this kind of skepticism isn't helpful in the early stages of learning the craft.  On the other hand, some people will be way too into what you're doing; their neediness will feed your vanity and distract you from the work at hand.  Allow a new practice to be nurtured in darkness, the way a seed is able to grow to viability in the darkness of the soil.

The power of Earth encompasses not only literal silence, but inner stillness and patience.  Patience is really a form of courage--the courage to wait and see, to not be anxious for results, but to trust that our efforts will bear fruit.  When we possess the strength of Earth, we're okay with allowing our abilities to develop slowly, in pace with our (hopefully) growing maturity and wisdom.   Earth is also about integration--bringing everything together in a harmonious whole, symbolized by the pantacle.  I like to think that Earth is represented last among the four powers, because part of learning the power of Earth is integrating it with everything the other elements have taught you.  For example, you use your discernment to know when and where to break a silence--which brings us back to the first power, "to know".

(In case you're wondering why I decided to break my own silence with this blog--well, I'm thinking it through as I go along.  I certainly hope it's been helpful to you.)

Love and blessings,

M

Pagan annoyances, or demons I'd like to banish

 It can't all be sweetness and light.  Sometimes associating with the pagan/occult community can drive me to the end of my rope, so please indulge me in a bit of vitriol.  Here's three things that have been trying my patience lately:

Whining.  I get so tired of listening to people grouse about being so persecuted for the pagan path that they chose, and presumably enjoy.  So, Mom doesn't like that you go out to the woods to burn shit and dance naked?  Big deal!  (Unlesss you're fifteen)  You aren't comfortable discussing your Samhain plans with coworkers?  Boo hoo.  Save your outrage for the real injustices.  And please shut up about the Burning Times, capital B capital T.  I'm willing to bet that neither you nor anyone you've ever known has ever been in danger of being burned alive for your beliefs.  If you're living somewhere you can safely read this post, you're living somewhere that free speech and religious liberty have at least a fighting chance--for which you should be thanking every god you can think of.  So walk your chosen path with strength and integrity and quit expecting a pat on the back from everyone. 

Cheap, crappy incense.  Ah, there's nothing like wafting, fragrant smoke to set a sacred space and lift the spirit to higher places.  Unless your incense of choice is waxy sawdust doused with cloying solvent.  Here's how to tell if your incense is shit:  Does it come from a Renn Faire, dollar store, or head shop?  Does it smell like a bowl of grandma's potpourri (and grandma's been dead for 15 years)?  Anyway, good incense is like good pizza--just a couple bucks more, and totally worth it.

Eco-fascism. I live in a place that is plagued by swarms of mosquitoes in the summer.  Every year, we have local outbreaks of West Nile virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes and which can be fatal.  I'm extremely susceptible to the bites (swollen limbs, sleepless nights, etc.), so I buy big spray can of insect repellent and carry it everywhere between May and September.  And it works.  Better than any solution I've tried before, anyway.  But at pagan gatherings, I courteously step away from the group to douse myself, and return to a chorus of unsolicited counsel:

"Oh, you should try eating more garlic.  Then you won't have to use that stuff."
 "You know what works great for mosquitoes?  Orange oil and clove oil." (No it doesn't.)
"Have you tried this organic brand?" (Hell no!)
Me: "No, what's the active ingredient?"
"Ummm..." (Because there isn't one.)

Yeah, I get it: The Earth is our mother and our home.  But let's not be ridiculous--every creature alive is programmed to look out for its immediate survival.  That's the way Momma Earth intended it, and that's what I plan to do.  So here, have some Diethyl M-Toluamide: Fffwwwwwwssssssssssssssshhhhhhhh.  You can thank me later.