Samhain is coming up!

The month of October is almost here now, and this is the time where the most supplies for witches become available, or at least the ones that are hardest to find, such as black candles, besoms, cauldrons, etc. so it's time to start stocking up for the coming year, and time to start preparing for your Samhain preparations. Usually for Samhain, my best friend and I get together starting early on in the day and for the entire day, we bake festive cakes, cookies, and make ciders and such. We also usually go to a pumpkin patch and pick out a perfect pumpkin and pick out the spells and rituals that we plan to perform when dark whisks over the land. Our circle is usually gigantic with a bonfire in the center and candles along the edge, turning the sight into something truly magical. Our treats are placed on a table inside of the circle and we have logs to sit on  around the fire, and once inside of the circle, the magic begins, and between spells and rituals, we take breaks to eat our goods and pay thanks to the God and Goddess for a great year and ask for another great year to come. Pumpkins tend to linger around the circle, being the festive fruit of the season, and the insects chirp and the bats flap as the candles burn lower and the magic grows stronger. This is what Samhain means to me. What does it mean to you?

Wands

   Though real witches may not be able to flick a wand and clean up a house in seconds like in Harry Potter, however, we do use wands and other instruments to direct energy, which may be the difference from a successful or failed spell. Now, when choosing or crafting a wand, you may go and find a stick and choose it as your wand and do nothing more to alter it, however, there are several things to take into consideration when making or choosing a wand. The type of wood(if the wand is made of wood) is something very important to take into consideration. Different types of wood are better for different types of magic, so when choosing your wand, you may want to look up magical properties of woods. Another thing to consider are crystals, which many people embed into their wand or fasten to the tip. Crystals are great for directing energy, better than wood, and they also have various metaphysical properties that will influence what type of magic your wand is best for. Some people use just a length of crystal for their wand, and crystal wands are also very effective, however, often times they are not as ornamental as wooden or metal wands, which brings us to our next point; metal! Metal is one of the best materials for directing energy, especially copper and many people take a wooden wand wrapped with copper wire and tipped with a crystal point. The wonderful thing about wands is that the type of wand you want is up to you and you may find any number of wands that appeal to the eye and are more than acceptable for directing energy. Do a little research on wands and see what you find, you just may be amazed.