09.30.09
Posted in Essential Oils, Fantasy, Information, Jewelry, Symbols, travel at 11:34 am by Administrator
Trick or Treating is the part of Halloween most kids are familiar with. In 2005, 93% of all kids in the United States said they were planning on “Trick or Treating”. I fondly remember going door to door, saying “trick or treat” and receiving a handful of candy. Our neighborhood was so big, my friends and I wouldn’t take a plastic pumpkin, but instead a pillow case. Often we would do one half of the neighbor hood, stop by the house to empty the pillow case and go out again for the second half. It took us months to eat it all, but by Christmas we would have it mostly gone.
Dressing up in costumes and going door to door for treats goes back to the Middle Ages and includes Christmas wassailing (going door to door to sing Christmas Carols). Trick or treating most closely resembles the practice of souling, where the poor would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1st) and receive food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2nd). This started in Britain and Ireland and was even mentioned by Shakespeare in the play “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” (1593). The custom of wearing costumes goes back to the Celtic tradition of attempting to copy the dead souls in order to placate them.
The term trick or treat was confined to the western United States before 1940. After that it slowly made it’s way eastward until the sugar rationing of 1942 to 1947. The widespread use of the term didn’t make it to the east coast until 1952 when Walt Disney made the cartoon Trick or Treat.
In Scotland and northern England, children do what is known as guising. Children wear costumes, go door to door and tell a ghost story in order to receive their treats. The practice goes back to the middle ages but became associated with Halloween in the 20th century. As a matter of fact, guising has made it’s way to America and in some parts of the country is now practiced exclusively on Halloween.
Mystical Charm hopes you have a wonderful Halloween and spectacular Autumn season.
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09.29.09
Posted in Essential Oils, Healing Oils, Information, Symbols, travel at 9:28 am by Administrator
Halloween is full of symbols. Every year people decorate their house with ghosts, skeletons, mummies and more. We carve pumpkins, place a candle inside and put them on our doorstep. We dress up in costumes and for one night a year we get to be Superman, Batman or whoever we want to be.
These symbols and customs had their start with the pagan folklore of the British Isles. The ancient Celts would place a skeleton in their window on All Hallows Eve to represent the recently departed.
The Jack-O-Lantern might be the most widely recognized symbol of Halloween. Originating in Europe, they were originally carved from a turnip or rutabaga. The original story talks of a man named Stingy Jack who tricked the devil into a tree and carved a cross into the tree trunk to trap him there. The devil was so angry he cursed Jack, condemning him to wander the Earth at night forever with only the light he had with him: a candle inside a hollowed turnip. Today we carve pumpkins because they are so available in America and much larger making them easier to carve.
Other imagery surrounding Halloween is usually a conglomeration of the season itself and Gothic horror stories and movies. Dracula and Frankenstein have been popular at Halloween for almost a century. The overall imagery revolves around horror, death, skeletons, bats, ghosts, witches, spiders, black cats, scarecrows and more. Other signs of the season such as corn husks, apples, and pumpkins are also popular. The colors orange and black are most associated with Halloween.
Mystical Charm wishes you a wonderful Autumn season and Halloween. This is truly a magical time of year.
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09.26.09
Posted in Information, Jewelry, Symbols at 8:37 am by Administrator
The Dharma Wheel is a globally recognized symbol for Buddhism and represents the Buddha’s teaching of the path to enlightenment. The wheel has been used as a Buddhist symbol since the early period of Indian Buddhism. The Dharma Wheel symbol was found in Indian art in the time of the Buddhist king As’okah.
More generally, the Dharma Wheel is known as the Dharmacakra symbol. It is a chariot wheel (cakram in Sanskrit), designed with eight spokes. The wheel has deep symbolism associated with it. Since its shape is circular, the wheel represents the perfection of the Dharma teachings, while its spokes refer to the “Noble Eightfold Path” of Buddhism. The hub, located in the center, represents discipline - essential to meditation. The outer rim refers to mindfulness which holds everything together, just as the rim holds the spokes in place.
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09.25.09
Posted in Information at 12:31 am by Administrator
Life in Salem, Massachusetts, was anything but normal in the spring of 1692. Hysterical young girls called out names accusing many of witchcraft in the Salem area. By the summer, 180 people had been accused, imprisoned, and one man named Giles Corey was even crushed to death in an attempt to obtain his confession. The cell conditions were horrendous, and the trials were anything but “innocent until proven guilty.” The list of people accused of witchcraft was quite extensive, as the photo below illustrates.
The Salem Witch Museum leads visitors through a reenactment of life in Salem’s 1692 witch trials. In addition, tourists can study Salem’s witch exhibit, featuring perceptions, stereotypes, and 17th century witchcraft.
To see supporting photos of the Salem Witch Museum click here.
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09.24.09
Posted in Fantasy, Information, Symbols at 10:12 pm by Administrator
The symbolism of bats varies across traditions and time. Most famous is probably the bat’s association with Halloween. This article not only highlights reasons that bats and Halloween partner up, but also shares some other, lesser-known beliefs about bats.
Traditional burning of bright bonfires at summer’s end was common around Halloween. The fires were meant to ward off bad energies and soften the chilly air. The bonfires’ brilliant light often attracted plentiful insects as well as their natural predator, bats. As such, bats were a common sight at these fall festivals, and are therefore connected with Halloween’s magical theme.
In some Native American traditions, the bat was considered a symbol of intuition and vision due to its beign highly sensitive to its surroundings. As such, a bat spirit would be invoked when special energy was needed to see through ambiguity, helping medicine people and shamans dive straight to the truth. In addition, the bat was a symbol of communication because it was highly social within their group. However, some groups of Native Americans such as the Creek, Cherokee, and Apache, believe that the bat is a trickster spirit.
The bat is also a totem. In fact, if one’s totem is a bat, these people are typically extremely aware of their surroundings and are perceptive on a psychic level, especially in their dreams. In addition, self-improvement using the bat as a totem requires 100% commitment to spiritual growth. People often wear either a bat tattoo or bat jewelry as a symbol of their totem.
Another historical belief about the nocturnal bat was that bats could indicate the presence of spirits or ghosts. One superstition stated that if a bat flew around a house three times on Halloween, then death would be coming soon to its inhabitants.
Bats are also closely associated with vampires, who said to sometimes shapeshift into bats, fog, or wolves. Modern tradition connects bats with often negative associations, including winged demons. Over the ages, however, bats were not always negatively associated. In fact, bats were sometimes seen as protectors, warding off evil. Perhaps this is true today as well, given the fewer mosquitoes that exist thanks to backyard bats.
More info:
Bat protection amulets
Published as an Examiner article
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09.23.09
Posted in Fantasy, Information, Jewelry, Symbols at 4:20 pm by Administrator
Focusing chakras helps a body in many ways, especially in the spiritual sense, by aligning the energy within a person. This helps one find inner peace. Many Examiners have written articles about the chakras of the human body. One excellent article was written by the Inner Peace Examiner and is titled, “Chakras 101.”
For advice on how to align your chakras, the Enlightened Journey Examiner wrote an article called “Aligning your chakras within seconds.” It provides an excellent way to align your chakras within a minute.
A rainbow of colors correspond to each chakra. Wearing a particular color helps one focus their energy to that particular chakra. In addition, wearing a chakra bracelet, necklace, or other jewelry can also help as a reminder to focus their energy.
In the photo above, the following chakras are each associated with a particular bracelet:
Root Chakra - Garnet (base of spinal column)
Carnelian Navel Chakra - Tiger Eye (spleen area)
Solar Chakra - Green Aventurine (stomach area)
Heart Chakra - Sodalite (heart area)
Throat Chakra - Amethyst (throat area)
Brow Chakra - Third Eye (facial area)
Crown Chakra - Quartz Crystal (top of the head or above the head)
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09.22.09
Posted in Essential Oils, Healing Oils, Information, Symbols, travel at 10:24 am by Administrator
The name Halloween is derived from Hallowe’en which is a shortened version of All Hallows’ Even (All Hallows Eve). Even is an older abbreviation of evening which we have shortened further to -eve. Halloween gets its -een from abbreviating even to -een. It is the day before All Hallows Day.
Many people today are unaware of All Hallows Day. In the 9th century, Pope’s Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the Christian feast day of All Saints Day from May 13th to November 1st in an effort to convert more pagans to Christianity. By having a “holiday” on the same day as a pagan “holiday”, it was easier for a pagan to keep many of their old traditions and still convert to Christianity. As a matter of fact, the old feast day of May 13th was once the pagan holiday of Feast of the Lemures (an ancient Roman day of driving malevolent or vengeful ghosts from one’s home)
Although All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day are now celebrated as two separate days, at one time they were celebrated on the same day.
Mystical Charm hopes you have a wonderful fall season. This is one of our favorite times of the year.
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09.21.09
Posted in Essential Oils, Fantasy, Information, Symbols, travel at 11:36 am by Administrator
I fondly remember celebrating Halloween as a child. It was, and still is, my favorite “holiday”. Although not officially a holiday, Americans have celebrated Halloween for a number of years. This is the beginning of a series of articles I am going to write that will cover the history of Halloween simply because I love this time of year and have always been fascinated by the holidays.
Halloween (also spelled Hallowe’en) has been celebrated on October 31st for as long as it has been around. It has it’s roots in Samhain, a Celtic festival celebrating the harvest and the end of summer. This was a time to take stock of their supplies and to slaughter livestock for the winter stores. Halloween is mostly a secular celebration but many Christians and pagans have expressed very strong feelings as to the days religious meaning.
The traditions we associate with Halloween today were mostly carried to us by Irish immigrants escaping the potato famine of 1846. It is a day that is associated with the colors black and orange as well as symbols such as the jack-o-lantern.
Celtic pagans believed that on October 31st, the boundary between the living and the dead was very thin and the souls of the dead were free to walk the land of the living and cause no end of problems. The tradition of wearing costumes goes back to the Celtic pagans who would wear them to placate their ancestors or confuse evil spirits.
Mystical Charm hopes you have a wonderful holiday season. We are very excited for the Fall season to begin and wish you and yours a wonderful harvest.
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09.16.09
Posted in Essential Oils, Healing Oils, Information at 8:37 am by Administrator
The school year is just beginning for most of us. Very soon, though, we will be faced with exams, midterms and eventually finals. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an easy way to increase your focus while you study AND help you improve your test scores? I think I can help.
First, a little biology. Our sense of smell is linked directly into the memory centers of the brain. A scent can bring back memories from your childhood you thought were long gone. For example, while growing up in Indiana, it was fashionable for everyone (in the 70’s at least) to have a Juniper bush. That scent was around me all the time to the point of not really being aware of it. Now, whenever I smell Juniper I am 10 years old again walking down the street to see if my friends can come out and play.
This simple recipe is easy to make and very powerful. Do this:
2 drop of Jasmine
7 drops of Sweet Orange
4 drops Patchouli
Mix together in a small bottle by gently rolling in your hands and add to a diffuser. Allow this mix to diffuse into the room while you study to increase your mental focus.
Here is where the science meets the real world. Remember how I can be 10 again just by smelling Juniper? Place a small amount of the oil somewhere on your body where you can smell it. The scent will trigger your memory from when you last smelled it, which should be while you were studying.
This really could work with any scent. Chose your favorite from Mystical Charm and feel better come test time.
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