The Witching Hour

The Wheel has turned, the Veil is thin, the Special Night has come. Now is that most magickal of sabbats, Samhain. The Ancient Call goes out to all who understand and heed it . . .

The Sacred Hour is upon us, Sisters, and we must assemble in praise and service of She Who Stirs the Great Cauldron-Womb of Life and Death.

Make your way, Wise Ones. Tune up the old broom or purchase a new one for the occasion, if need be.

If you are a Green Witch, come by public transport. It matters not how you arrive, just that you do.

Ride, Daughters of the Moon! We must ride tonight! The New Year is here.

Samhain Blessings to you all.

Halloween Image Dump

So this post just unloads all my leftover Halloween images (apart from the ones being saved for Friday's Samhain post) in one big glorious witch's brew! A few I will comment on, but most I won't. Giving you a break today from my incessant nattering, LOL!

What a lovely ghoul . . .

. . . and this must be her baby!

How skeletons are really created!

Awesome skelly horse --

Okay, shutting up for awhile.

Hey, doesn't this look like a kitty Dr. Frankenstein?

Some last minute costume ideas for you procrastinators out there --

And finally, a couple of LOLs for you foodies out there --

It's Pumpkin Carving Time!

Don't you just love pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns at Halloween? There's something so ancient and eerie about how their flickering lights glow and dance in the darkness of our favourite October night . . . .

This pumpkin looks like it would gladly take a bite right out of you.

And this one must be the Great Pumpkin -- come quickly, Linus!

Now this jack-o-lantern has either a baby or a wart. Or maybe a wart-baby.

This one gets by with a little help from its friends . . . .

We always think that jack-o-lanterns must be made out of pumpkins or, in our modern society, at least out of plastic. But here's a few JOLs made from other materials --

I love the jaunty caps on these next ones!

How about a steampunk version?

However, this alternative JOL just goes too far . . .

[captioning courtesy of

 Cal's Canadian Cave of Cool]

Finally, how does a pumpkin decide which kind of face it should have?

Pumpkins give us so much pleasure and yet they know that, at heart, we humans are all sick and sadistic bastards.

The Black Rabbit of Inlé

I've mentioned before that I am a huge fan of the book Watership Down by Richard Adams and also of the excellent animated movie based on it. I love how the author created a whole myth-based spirituality for the rabbits centred around their sun-deity, Great Frith.

At this time of year, it seems only fitting to do a post honouring Great Frith's alter-ego, the Black Rabbit of Inlé. Like our own grim reaper, the Black Rabbit appears to all rabbits at their predestined hour of death and guides them from this world. "Inlé" is the rabbit word for the moon.

Here's the Black Rabbit as portrayed in the 1978 movie --

And here are some exceptional fan art interpretations of the Black Rabbit of Inlé --

[by Imaginary Goddess]

[by Sally Elford]

[by evion]

[by Fiszike]

[by XxXstarwatcherXxX]

And don't think that you are immune to the Black Rabbit just because you are human. Go ahead, check under your bed and see if you have one of these --

[by swandog]

Spooky Ouija Board Fun

When we were 12, my friend Horsey Girl and I spent the entire summer holiday having long, deep conversations with a ouija board. Between the two of us, the magical planchette positively flew around the board, answering all our questions and spelling out fantastical information. We even made contact with our very own ouija board spirit! She told us her name was Natasha and also gave us her entire life story, spelling it out letter by painfully slow letter. Natasha was our conduit to the other world, the spooky world of weird.

Oh, how we loved Natasha! We had just learned to embroider in 4-H so Horsey Girl made a beautiful yellow satiny cloth with "Natasha" embroidered on it. After every session, we would wrap the planchette in Natasha's special cloth until the next day when we would consult the oracle again.

I can't remember now anything that Natasha told us but I do know that once the summer was over, Natasha departed and never returned again. When we pulled out the ouija board after that, the planchette would barely move for us. The magic was gone, gone, gone. We were bereft. After a while, the ouija board just got left in the closet. What was the point if Natasha wasn't present?

For whatever reason, our highly-charged adolescent psyches, emotions or something like that just "clicked" that summer and the ouija board came alive for us. I know that neither of us was pushing the planchette. Our fingers were barely touching it. In some mysterious way, we were externalizing our imaginations and our creativity and Natasha was born.

Has the ouija board ever been a factor in your life?

Superheroes Assemble!

Of all the kids who come to the door trick-or-treating on Halloween, I think the cutest are the ones dressed up as superheroes. Here's some especially adorable examples from the internet --

Now I know that these next two aren't technically superheroes, but they're just so darn cute I have to include them!