Category Archives: Weather Magic

Ascension Day, Part 2

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Icon of Ascension Day, showing Christ enthroned in glory above with the apostles and Mother of God below. The Ascension icon can also be viewed as an image of Christ coming at the end of time to judge the world.

Icon of Ascension Day, showing Christ enthroned in glory above with the apostles and Mother of God below. The Ascension icon can also be viewed as an image of Christ coming at the end of time to judge the world.

Ascension Day is an important day in the church calendar and in the rural, farming calendar as well. It is also an important day among the Pennsylvania Dutch (The Pennsylvania Dutch, commonly called “Amish,” maintained numerous religious affiliations, with the greatest number being Lutheran or Reformed, but many Anabaptists as well.)

Among the Pennsylvania Dutch sewing on Ascension Day is strictly forbidden. Other work of many kind, especially farm work, is also eschewed. Lightning has been reportedly striking those sewing or working on Ascension Day. Rain water from an Ascension Day storm is thought to cure eye and vision problems if used to wash the eyes with. Not only does rain fall and thunder rumble down from the heavens above, these are generally associated with Thursdays; as Ascension is always a Thursday, making the 40th day after Easter, thunder came to be associated with Ascension as well. (The Pennsylvania Dutch name for “Thursday” is a variant of the word for “thunder.”)

Reportedly in Bulgaria the grandmother of each family will go to the cemetery on Ascension Eve and lays face down atop the grave of the most recently deceased family member. She prays there a while for that family member and for all the deceased ancestors, following which she nicks her left breast (above the heart) and lets a few drops of blood fall onto the grace to feed the ghost(s) and bring blessing to the deceased for another year. Happy ancestors will bring fertility and good luck to the family, their farms and farm animals until the next Ascension Day.

For more, see the excerpts from Eastertide in Pennsylvania: A Folk-Cultural Study.

“Happy New Year?!” Lady Day 2015

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A Coptic icon of the Annunciation, showing the angel Gabriel presenting a lily as he announces the Incarnation to the Mother of God.

A Coptic icon of the Annunciation, showing the angel Gabriel presenting a lily as he announces the Incarnation to the Mother of God.

Lilies are often associated with the celebration of Annunciation. When Eve was driven from Paradise, lilies bloomed wherever her tears fell onto the earth and Gabriel presented lilies to the Virgin Mary when he announced that her Son would re-open Paradise to mankind. Other legends say that lilies blossomed from drops of milk from Hera’s breasts that fell upon the earth and that the lily was therefore the only flower with a soul. Lilies are traditionally considered to drive away ghosts and evil (esp. the Evil Eye) and can break love spells. The first lily of the season strengthens whoever finds it.

Roses are also associated with Annunciation and are used to cast love spells or in healing magic. If you plant roses in your garden, they are said to grow best if you have stolen the seeds from someone else and will then attract the faerie folk.

The Annunciation is celebrated on March 25 (the traditional date of the springtime equinox). Not only was Annunciation — and the equinox — vital to keeping track of time for secular purposes, many ancient and medieval authors claimed that the Annunciation/equinox date were vital at many points of salvation history: the birthday of Adam and the Crucifixion were said to have occurred on March 25 as well. Some also said that March 25 marked the fall of Lucifer, the parting of the Red Sea, as well as the day on which God said, “Let there be light!”

Sometimes called “Lady Day,” the Annunciation was kept as New Year’s Day in many places; the last to give up Annunciation as the New Year’s Day was England and its American colonies in 1752. The correct synchronization of the equinox with the Annunciation is a critical element in the calculation of the date of Easter and the medieval and Renaissance disconnect between the Annunciation and the equinox prompted Pope Gregory XIII to reform the calendar in 1582.

New werewolf book is in the works

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In WOLFBANE, Alexei inherits his grandfather's magical wolf-pelt and thereby assumes the position of village "metsatöll" (Werewolf) in rural late 1880s Estonia to protect the area by fighting the terrible storms in the sky that could devastate the farms and fields. But he breaks the terms of the wolf-magic and loses the ability to control the shapeshifting, becoming a killer. Heartbroken at what he has become, Alexei flees his home in hopes of finding an enchanter who can free him from the curse.

In WOLFBANE, Alexei inherits his grandfather’s magical wolf-pelt and thereby assumes the position of village “metsatöll” (Werewolf) in rural late 1880s Estonia to protect the area by fighting the terrible storms in the sky that could devastate the farms and fields. But he breaks the terms of the wolf-magic and loses the ability to control the shapeshifting, becoming a killer. Heartbroken at what he has become, Alexei flees his home in hopes of finding an enchanter who can free him from the curse.

My short story/novella Wolfbane was released in August 2013. One customer review on Amazon posted, “An interesting new twist on werewolves… I can’t wait to see where he takes us now.”

Although I had hoped to release a full-length novel featuring Alexei by the end of 2014, another project took my attention but I now have the time to come back to Alexei. I have begun the research and planning necessary for the novel and have written two chapters in Alexei’s unfortunate series of adventures which will take him through Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland or Slovakia and Bohemia. Although these are now individual nation-states, there had been unions of Estonia-Latvia and Latvia-Lithuania dating from the Middle Ages, making for broad sweeps of common cultural heritage(s). There is a wealth of fascinating folklore and history to draw on from these regions which, combined with the social upheavals of early industrialization during the 1800s, promise exciting twists and turns as Alexei makes his way in search of liberation and redemption.