OCTOBER'S INCANTATION, Crush Widows, & Chestnuts

Jaquie's Gargoyle - Le Marquisat - Oct. Tarot/Garden Day

Incantation - A charm or spell created using words.  Derived from Latin "incantare", meaning "to chant (a magical spell) upon, "from in- "into, upon" and cantare "to sing".   From the Old French "enchantment" - loaned into English since around AD 1300.    

" Corn and grain, Corn and grain,
 all that falls shall rise again."
 -  Wiccan Harvest Chant
                                                      
I'm under October's SPELL - filled with longing - embraced by enchantment.  Schopenhauer said that the will is an expression of longing, desire; the insatiable will to life. 

Three Graces - Tuilleries - September, Paris

October = the scent of apples in the air mingling with wood smoke. I see the giant orange pumpkins (though not so many this year) peeking out from behind their leafy foliage.  The French have been out en masse gathering the luscious cepes.  They guard their secret spots, sometimes carrying shotguns - they mean business!  We picked loads of black figs, wrestling them from the wasps.  The giant haul of plums from September is now percolating into wine, along with a champagne apple experiment.  K busy stacking wood.  We missed the walnuts, but the forests are still full of Chataigne (chestnuts) and fungi.

The chestnuts look like spiny sea urchins before they open up.  I've tried preparing them in different ways with very little success.  Easier to go to the Châtaigne Festival in Dournazac, which I did on Sunday.  You can get those "chestnuts roasting on an open fire," Nat King Cole style, or nicely condensed jars of Creme de Marron, even Chestnut beer.  They really are quite beautiful little nuts. The Brits put them on strings and play some kind of crazy game called conkers.  But those are horse chestnuts and I think they are bigger.  They take turns hitting each other's conkers which sounds amusing for three year olds or adults who've had too much Chestnut beer. 

Along the bike path

Left behind to fall back to the earth

Apple Orchard in Ronsenac

Autumn, the harbinger of winter, a time of harvest, of prepping the soil for spring and planting cover crops under the Hunter's Moon. Turning the fresh soil is next to Heaven.

Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc De Berry

 October, Tilling and Sowing

In this illuminated prayer "Book of Hours" painted by the Limbourg Brothers from 1413 to 1416, the massive Louvre overshadows the work of the peasants tilling and sowing their field.  This depiction of the palace is so detailed, that several hundred years after the building was destroyed, a very accurate model was created based on this painting. 

Some days have been soft as bunny fur, others full of mist & mystery -

Mural on farm wall near Doumerac

" I saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand,
shadowless like Silence, listening to Silence." - Thomas Hood

Pasture near Karena's

Grapevines - Le Marquisat

Et les autres jours, brrrrr - windstorms, tempests of heavy rain & hail. Some of the hail were half the size of pigeon eggs.  Quelle Horreur for the grape growers! the worst harvest in decades.  And sad for Les Veuves de Vendange, the Crush Widows -
all the wives who were left alone while their men worked in the fields bringing in the harvest in September and October.

Swallows (or were they Swifts?) flying in and out of chimneys like upside down confetti -

They really should find a perch and settle in quietly like these two well behaved birds!

Somewhere near Combiers

" He is outside of everything and alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary.  His beautiful, light imagination is the wing that on the Autumn evening just brushes the dusky window." - Henry James

Yesterday at the end of a tarot reading, a client asked me if I could give her a spell to cast on her new squeeze so that he would only have eyes for her.  I said I couldn't do that, but that there is a "cheering charm," which causes the person upon whom the spell is cast to become happy and contented.  It was first seen in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  But you can't be too heavy handed with the spell or the person may break into uncontrollable laughing fits.

I read somewhere that scientists are not too far from creating a "Love potion number 9", something to do with the oxycotin hormone.  But what is more potent is looking at our own beliefs.  Rituals and spells are a lovely form of self-hypnosis, like a prayer circle turned inward, then outward.  Most important is to be conscious of what we wish for! What story are you telling yourself?  Ask yourself more beautiful questions...

Jacquie picks a card - Le Marquisat

The Tarot/Garden event at Le Marquisat October 6th was a grand success.  The tea was poured, the cards were pulled, the futures were flowing -- it felt like we were held in the palm of simultaneity/ synchronicity where past, present and future converged. Several men came for readings.  So much fun to read for, one a footballer from UK & a novelist below.  A day to remember.

Reading for a lovely writer

Le Marquisat - Tarot/Garden Event October

 









"It lies also in the whole vision of a world in motion, a world not rendered insignificant but made more beautiful by its transience, its erotic energy, its ceaseless change."  
                 - The Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt


Casting a spell for "Poetic Inspiration":  Perform on a Wednesday when the moon is waxing.  Best if done when the moon is in Gemini, but it's not required.  Light a purple candle.  You can also burn some jasmine or rose incense if you wish.  Say this incantation:

Oh Goddess Brigit,
bright lady of the flame
blessed mother of the poets.
Lend me such insight, wisdom, and divine inspiration
that the words may flow to me
and that I may craft them beautifully
so that they spin a tapestry of magic
in the hearts of all who hear them.
So mote it be!

Leave the candle to burn itself out.  When it does, put it wherever you keep rituals remnants and give thanks to the Goddess for her gift.  From - Phantom 120

You can also share and find some worldly spells at "Poetic Spells" on Facebook.

Lantern Bearer bringing in the Harvest