October is the 10th month of the year, though it’s named after ‘octo’ meaning 8 in the old Roman calendar. Another one of those, right? It was moved into the 10th place with the establishment of January and February as the first and second months in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It was also known as Wynterfylleth to the Anglo Saxons, because it was thought that Winter begins at the full moon in October.

Don’t we all just love October? I don’t know many people who don’t get a little thrill when the weather starts getting chillier, when the wind starts blowing the leaves off trees, and when the pumpkin spice starts flowing. There’s just something in the air that makes you simultaneously want to be outside to see the beautiful leaves, and also go inside and prepare your nest for the long hibernation of the winter.

The weather is finally breaking a little here in Georgia, we’re seeing low 80s instead of the 90s that just didn’t want to give up the ghost. I’m seeing a lot of house wrens lately, particularly a pair that have set up a nest just below the window in front of my sink where I wash dishes. We also saw a big Eastern Kingsnake a few weeks ago, and it was lovely. I hope it stays away from the hawks and owls in the neighborhood and continues to eat any poisonous snakes or obnoxious rodents that are around. I also saw a committee of black-headed vultures hanging out on a cell tower yesterday. The leaves aren’t really changing yet, but they ARE falling from trees that don’t really carry a lot of color, like the 3 trunked ash tree in my back yard that I call The Three Sisters.

Lunations:
New Moon in Libra October 8th at 11:46pm EDT
Full Moon in Taurus October 24th at 12:45pm EDT

Astronomy:
October 5- Venus goes retrograde at 3:07pm in Scorpio
Orionids meteor shower peaks October 21st-22nd.
Southern Taurids meteor shower peaks October 28th-29th.

Celtic Tree Month:
Ivy (Sept 30- October 27): End of the harvest, looking back at our successes and losses, strengthening our resolve to face the future, taking the long-term view, fidelity and fertility, protection, healing, good luck for women and brides, guards against negativity and disaster, reaches around and through obstacles to find light and nourishment, reaching out, expansion.
Reed (October 28- November 24): Introverting, withdrawing, connecting with the past and with spirit, ancestors, messages from the spirit world, culling that which doesn’t serve us, dreaming- but not planning. Seeking basic truth, finding direction, giving meaning and purpose to your journey, skill and direction, secret strength and secret motivations, seeing beneath the surface.

Holidays (non-Pagan):
October 1- Shmini Atzeret (Jewish)
October 2- Simchat Torah (Jewish)
October 4- Feast of St Francis of Assisi (Christian)
October 8- Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day (I prefer the latter)
October 9- Navaratri (Hindu)
October 9- Leif Erikson Day
October 16- Boss’s Day
October 18- Dussehra (Hindu)

Holidays (Pagan):
October 6- Greek festival honoring Gaia and the Nymphs
October 8- Old European feast of the Triple Goddess, as mother transforms into crone
October 8- Festival of Greek Hekate, who guides followers through crises and transitions
October 9- Pyanepsion Noumenia- Greek festival honoring all Gods and Goddesses
October 11- Feast of the Charities to honor Goddesses of beneficence
October 12- Feast of Aphrodite, honoring peace and compassion
October 14- Proerosia- Greek festival where fruits of the harvest were offered to Demeter
October 14- October 28- Old Norse Winter Nights Feast, honoring ancestors and deities with toasts and offerings
October 19- Thesmophoria- Greek festival honoring Kore’s transition into Persephone (Goddess of the Underworld)
October 27- Apatura- Festival welcoming new children and newcomers into the community
October 28- November 2- Roman/Egyptian festival remembering Set’s murder of Osiris and Isis’s healing him
October 31- Day of mourning witches persecuted for their religion or women who were persecuted as witches
October 31- November 2- Samhain- Celtic/Welsh New Year and feast of Cerridwen
October 31- November 7- Hallowmas/Day of the Dead/Mid-Autumn- marks the end of the agricultural year and last harvest as well as the transition from focusing on life and growth to death and rest, also a day to honor ancestors

Themes for the month: The last harvest- bringing in the things you can use over the Winter and culling the things that you don’t intend to take forward with you. Sacrifice- giving up your crutches. The Ancestors, Spirit Guides, deepening your relationship to Deity. Speaking with spirits and the fae while the veil is thin. Introverting. Pumpkin spice and anything warm and cozy.

General activities for the month: Apple picking, cider-making, making and dressing in costumes, carving pumpkins, making and eating candy, trick-or-treating, watching horror movies, visiting haunted houses, knitting for the upcoming Winter, communicating with spirits and ancestors (carefully!), divination, cutting away anything you don’t want to take into the long winter.

Herbs I’m using: Pumpkin spice- come on, it’s everywhere. Coffee beans- this is when I start to up my coffee game because it’s cool enough that I can drink it without sweating. The scent just brings me into Autumn and Winter. Sandalwood- I burn incense a lot around this time of year too. It seems too overpowering in the Summer, but it feels cozy and warm as the temps start dropping.

Stones I’m using: Petrified Wood- not only is it a tie to the past, and hence the ancestors, but I had a particular piece kind of jump at me recently and say it wanted to be used. Who am I to argue? Lepidolite- I got a really beautiful piece at a rock show recently, and I can’t leave it alone. As much as I love Autumn, it does bring some darker moods as the sun spends less and less time in the sky. Lepidolite is really good for depression, and will help see me through, emotionally speaking, until next Spring. Chrysanthemum Stone- good for cutting away all that doesn’t serve you. This is a great theme for this time of year.

Goddess of the Month: The Norns and The Fates. These are similar groups of 3 deities who rule over the destiny and fate of each of us. I feel really drawn to fate this time of year, and they’re great to connect with for tarot readings, which I feel especially drawn to right now. I’ll be working on deepening my connection with them, and asking them to help me in my tarot/divination practices for the coming year.

Our reading this month is interesting, and I feel like it has to do with a lot of what’s going on in the news right now.

First, we see the Three of Bats, which corresponds to the Three of Swords. So this signifies that we’re going into this month with some suffering. We’re feeling grief and really struggling with our emotions. This could be due to several things. This could be because of things that have happened to us personally, but I think it has something to do with the Kavanaugh hearings and the pain that this has dredged up for a lot of women lately. I’ve been having trouble engaging in social media because of all the #metoo stories, and though I think it’s really important to witness the pain, it can be difficult to feel inundated by it.

Next, we have the Five of Pumpkins reversed. The upshot of what’s been happening in the news is that we’re realizing that we’re not alone in sharing our stories. We’re realizing that we have a lot of similiarities, and that the only way to make any sort of change is for us all to stick together and stay strong together. I think that’s a really important lesson. If one of us can help pull someone who’s struggling out of the cold, and show them they’re not alone, then we all can, and we can begin to heal collectively.

Lastly, we see The Lovers reversed. I don’t see this as trouble in our relationships on a personal level, but rather a call to re-examine how we deal with each other as men and women. If we’re going to come to a place of mutual respect and healthy relationships, we need to take all the rules we learned about what it means to be a man or a woman and turn them on their heads. It’s time to stop going with the harmful status quo and envision a new way of relating.

For our special guidance card, we see Skull of Stars, Infinite Possibilities. This card represents letting go of the daily BS we all deal with and thinking much, much bigger. We’re all a part of this same universe together, and when we realize that, we can find our highest selves in our highest future. It’s time to cast off old beliefs and old ways of thinking and create this universe together.

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Haunting Haunting
By Emmanuel George Cefai

Haunting
haunting
down the glooms

haunting
haunting
graves and tombs

cemeteries that light
in the middle of a night
torches that go round
cemeteries held and bound
by ghosts and shrouds

So verse speaks
but ah! in dreaming

The Sub-Conscious further
speaks.

My personal tides: A lot of things are still up in the air for me. They’ve been decided, but I just have to wait to hear back about decisions that have been made and determinations for my future. So I’m just trying to be patient and wait it out. In the meantime, I’m working hard on creating tarot classes, which I’ve been wanting to create for over a year. I keep getting the sense that I’m meant to teach in some way, and that feeds into my mission statement, which is to bring magick into the lives of others.

My personal goals: Write, record, edit, release all my Tarot 101 classes before Yule. Begin to take steps to ‘find home’. Figure out where we’re wanting to move and start looking at prices for land. Create magick for Samhain! <3