Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Well, my friends, my navel is here under the costume somewhere, and I have a lot of gazing to do, but Samhain is still ongoing, and there are jack-o-lanterns to attend. I hope all of you had a fabulous day. To me, this is the most wonderful time of the year.

Will write more soon.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Have a seat! I'll see if there's any pie left in the pantry.

If any of you are wondering why I'm not attending Saturday's March for Sanity, when it's just a little Amtrak hop from Philly, let me just say this: My application was denied.

That's okay. I don't want to be away from home on Samhain. Let's not sugar-coat things. There's a reason for the "spooky" traditions associated with Halloween.

Somewhere I read a snarky remark about the "superstitious Celts," who lit bonfires on Samhain because they were afraid of ghosts.

Just goes to show you that the way you word something can either make it sound brilliant or ridiculous.

So let's re-phrase.

Samhain marks the moment when the veil between the living and the dead grows thin. We wish to commune with Spirits, if those Spirits are loved ones or friends on the other side of the veil. But the existence of those Spirits presupposes that there are other, far less benign Spirits who we'd rather not have crashing around in the spare room.

You can call it superstition if you like, but I would prefer to say that we ought to be frightened of some energy. Not everyone goes peaceful into that long night. So at this time of the year, in addition to feeling my dear friend Tom in my kitchen, helping me tease the parrot, I also protect my home from the evil dead.

(Stop whistling Stevie Wonder! If you don't take Spirits seriously, you deserve their misguided wrath.)

You might ask: How does one protect a home from the evil dead? Well, what do you think that jack-o-lantern is for? And the funny thing is, the Celts didn't have pumpkins! Pumpkins are a New World food. The Celts carved turnips and hung them outside the door. They would have loved pumpkins!

Samhain is a good evening on which to smudge your home with a sage stick. Light the fragrant incense outside for your Ancestors and smudge the interior to keep unwelcome Guests out. There's a darker side to Samhain, under all that sugar-coating. It's the eerie awareness of death, the acceptance of a long tunnel of winter, a submission to the bored God Cernunnos -- He who knows both the bounty and the savagery of the forest. It's time to dance, but choose your partners carefully.

If any of this sounds "backward," then I have a question for you: How is it different from being told, by a guy in a long fancy robe, that some deity is going to come out of the sky and call your loved one up out of the grave ... but only if your loved one followed that deity while alive?


When you get right down to it, any engagement with death can be called "superstitious." None of it is, though. None of it.

Oh my goodness, readers! What can be said about the commercialization of Halloween? The picture above is not of Snobville, but it might as well be. This whole borough is lit up in orange and purple! Big giant spiders in the yards, ghosts hanging from the trees! People are doing up their houses with gaudy decorations!

My three readers will know that I adore crazy Christmas houses. But if this yard-decorating trend continues, I'll just foam at the mouth with glee! Will my golden years include crazy Halloween house crawls? Catch me, I'm fainting!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored" at the height of fall colors! I could never live in a place where the seasons don't change. Could you?

Today a substitute teacher who is new to the school walked up to me and said, "I've been thinking about you. You made an impression on me." (We had lunch together once.)

Laughing, I said, "I'm memorable!"

Truth is, I bewitched him.

You read so much about what witches aren't, but very little about what they are, with the notable exception of my friend Hecate and some other serious bloggers.

See? I used the term "bewitched," and perhaps your mind already goes toward something sexual or dark. Actually, it's quite easy to bewitch people, and it is not done to harm them. I do it for mutual aid in almost all cases. In the other cases I do it for self-protection.

As I said, it's very easy to bewitch someone. All you need to do is listen to them talk and be genuinely interested in what they have to say. In the case of mutual aid, the person will trust you and have positive feelings about you. In the case of self-protection, the person will think you find them interesting, and that will deflect negativity.

What did I do to bewitch this substitute teacher? I listened to him tell his life story. It was an interesting story, told with verve and satisfaction, and I rewarded him for it by frankly telling him what a fascinating life he has led. I said very little about myself in the conversation. I concentrated on him.

Before you level the criticism that he might have been flirting, let me whack that idea down with the palm of my hand. I can bewitch a woman as easily, or more easily, than a man. Who ever listens to a woman, in our modern society? I do. And let me tell you, I have any number of women friends who find me "memorable."

I know some men who are quite adept at bewitching. (Again you start on the sex thing, again I smack you silly.) My husband's best friend has the charming ability to make anyone and everyone seem uniquely special. No matter how dull you think your life is, he will ask questions until he finds something in you that you are proud of, and then he celebrates it with you. Once he visited here when The Spare was nine. He spent an hour talking to her ... and she has never forgotten that, or him. And he is like that with everyone. He would not see himself as a witch, because our culture has been taught to hate and fear witches. But what he does is bewitch people. Thoroughly, without thought to personal gain.

What happens to a man who can bewitch people without conscious knowledge that he's doing so? Well, he grows up poor in Chicago, works his way into the journalism business without a college degree, becomes a famous columnist in Chicago, Detroit, and L.A., and winds up living in Palm Springs, married to Dean Martin's daughter. Unconscious magick! You've got to love it. This man deserves all the blessings he has received, and more.

Every day I face the daunting task of bewitching 115 students, age 14 and 15. Wow. Talk about a challenge! It is possible to do it, though. Rather exhausting, but doable.

If you strip the concept of bewitching of its sexual and romantic overtones, it becomes simply this: deep engagement with another person. If you are genuinely interested in other people's lives, a strange thing happens. They start liking you.

Yes, this power can be abused. I'll admit I've used it for my own ends at times. But never, never for sexual or romantic power over another. That would be harmful to myself and the other person. I recently bewitched someone because he has the power to get me fired, and he's a young, immature fellow. Trust me, I am not flirting with this man. I'm trying to alter the power grid.

Like Hecate, I'm tired of reading about what witches don't do. So here's something I actually practice, and do, and believe in. I mean no harm. This is a holy thing.