My Magical Mystery Birthday Trip Through Massachusetts

On 2 July, I turned 29, entering the last year of this crazy decade I've called my twenties. This wasn't as depressing as it could have been, entirely because my amazing and wonderful bff Sarah who arranged a week-long trip to Boston and Salem, two cities in Massachusetts that I've wanted to visit my entire life. (Okay, technically I had been to Boston once already, as a very small child, but I remembered nothing of this trip. Parents, take your kids on vacations after they develop long-term memory.) Sarah did such an amazing job planning - every day brought new wonders!

But the fun started before we reached Boston. You see, this was no ordinary vacation. While we were on the Amtrak train up through scenic New England, the conductor dropped off a package. In it was a puzzle box, and in the puzzle box once I'd solved it was a cryptic note:

"The quest for your birthday present begins here and now!
It may begin common, but go through valleys to hills.
Come morning, follow the trail of clues and wow!
Free the mystery from obscurity for an abundance of thrills.
And since these puzzles do get greater,
Here's something you might need later..."

Attached to the note was a polybius square. And yes, the italics were present on the note. (It was printed out from a computer, so no handwriting to clue me in to the writer's identity.) Sarah and I quickly determined it was referring to the Freedom Trail, which starts at Boston Common and ends at Bunker Hill, and so decided to walk it on our first day in Boston.

This set off a scavenger hunt/mystery that wove itself throughout our entire trip. We did not know who this mysterious person - who we dubbed "the Watcher" - was, we did not know what they wanted, but they remained two or three steps ahead of us, leaving cryptic clues throughout Boston for me to find and solve, with no idea what would be at the end of the mystery.

Read on to discover what we did in Boston, and just how the Watcher's mystery unfolded! A minor warning - this entry is going to be A) long as hell, and B) VERY full of photos because I took SO many.

NYC Heathens Present: The Lay of Thrym!

I have not posted much as of late, as to be honest with you all I just do not have the mental or emotional energy lately to do much at all. My continued lack of a purpose and feeling of being trapped has not ebbed, and it's getting me way down. Also I've been working on a secret project, and also also I just got back from vacationing in Boston (hopefully I'll be able to find enough motivation to write that trip up sooner rather than later)

I have certainly been busy since getting back. I've been working long hours (since I have my regular shifts and I'm covering someone who is also on vacation) and I've also done a few things with the other NYC Heathens. And one of the fun things we did recently?

A group of us got together and did a performance in Battery Park of the Lay of Thrym, aka the best of all the Norse myths. It was a little bit religious drama, a little bit comedic improv, a little bit fantasy LARPing, and a whole lotta fun! (This is, after all, one of the more comedic myths.)

Naturally, I played the genderbending trickster god Loki (if any of you are at all surprised by that please read the rest of this blog's archives). Other players were Heimdall (who, as a god who sees all, was also the narrator), the beautiful and desirable Freyja, the king of the frost giants Thrym, and of course the mighty Thor.

The myth begins when Thor loses his hammer.

The Serpent Man, A Cryptid Nobody Asked For

Did you know that in the Pacific Northwest, dockworkers and boat owners use those inflatable air dancer things (you know, the ones you usually see at used car dealerships) to scare seals and sea lions away from the docks?

The poor pinnipeds stay away from these giant wiggling creatures, but the catch is that they need to be kept turned on, because if they leave them turned off for long, the intelligent sea lions might figure out they're not actually alive. That they're fakes.

But what if they were real? What if the seals and sea lions know something we don't?

Lokablót

Yesterday was April Fool's Day, a day that some modern Lokeans (I stress this is modern; this is definitely not an ancient Viking belief!!!) devote to Loki because, well, Loki loves fun and trickery, and it's a whole holiday for fun and trickery!

So I took my little toy seal/representation of my fylgja into Prospect Park this morning to go do a blót to Loki! (For my muggle friends, a blót is the most common ritual within Heathenry. In the old days this was done by feasting on an animal consecrated to the Gods and then slaughtered. As we are no longer farmers and our needs are simpler today, the most common blót is an offering of mead or other alcoholic beverage to the deities. In my case, it was some pumpkin cider because in my experience, Loki likes sweet flavoured beverages.)

On Therapy, Seals, Faith, and Good Things

Swimming away from my problems be like...

Early one morning before people had gotten up, a man from Myrdal in the east was walking past some cliffs when he came to the entrance to a cave. He could hear that there was merrymaking and dancing going on inside the hill, and outside he saw a large number of sealskins. He picked up one of them, took it home, and locked it in his trunk. Some time later, in the course of the day, he went back to the cave's entrance. A beautiful young girl was sitting there. She was entirely naked and crying bitterly. She was the seal to whom the skin belonged that the man had taken. The man gave the girl some clothing, comforted her, and took her home with him. 

Later she came to accept him, but never got along very well with other people. She would often just sit there and look out to sea. After some time the man took her as his wife. They lived well together and had many children. 

The peasant hid the skin, locking it securely in his trunk, and he carried the key with him everywhere he went. 

Many years later he rowed out fishing and forgot the key at home under his pillow. 

However, others say that the peasant went to a Christmas service with his people, but that his wife had been sick and was unable to go with them. They say that he forgot to take the key out of the pocket of his everyday clothes when he changed. When he arrived home that evening the trunk was open, and his wife had disappeared with the skin. She had found the key, out of curiosity looked through the trunk, and found the skin. 

She could not resist the temptation. She said farewell to her children, put on the skin, and threw herself into the sea. 

Before the woman jumped into the sea, it is reported that she said:
This I want, and yet I want it not, --
Seven children have I at the bottom of the sea,
Seven children have I as well here above. 

It is said that this touched the peasant's heart. After this, when he rowed out fishing, a seal often swam around his boat, and it seemed that tears were running from its eyes. From this time on he was always successful catching fish, and luck often came to his beach. 

People frequently saw this couple's children walking on the beach while a seal swam along out in the sea accompanying them. It would throw colorful fish and pretty shells to them. 

But the mother never again returned to land.

~ "Selshamurinn" ("The Seal-Skin") as told by Jón Árnason

So I've started therapy. I've been at it for about a month and it is honestly so god damned weird sometimes but also I cannot recommend it enough. So far it's already been very helpful in getting me to begin to recognise when someone is unintentionally hurting me and how I can deal with that productively.

But it's also helping me recognise that I apologise too much. My therapist - hereafter referred to as "Dr. G" - asked me why I think this is. I guess on some level, due to past trauma, I'm afraid of displeasing anyone, but she also helped me to recognise that this fear is no longer serving me, and that I don't need to be so apologetic about taking up space. About existing. I'm not explaining this as well as she did, but I am trying to be more mindful about this, to stop apologising for every little damn thing and to stop putting myself out there and meddling in people's business every time I think there might be the smallest chance they might be mad at me. It's... easier said than done.

Dr. G, in trying to help me come up with a method of recognising when I am doing this, noticed that I was wearing my favourite socks that I own and asked "why not take on a seal as your personal power animal?"

I said "you mean like a fylgja?" because I am a white Heathen and have no right to the phrase "Spirit Animal" or its variants. (In fact, you shouldn't be using that phrase either.)

This is what I mean about therapy being weird. But what's weirder is that it's working.

Pocket Altar 101

Witches and pagans hear me out! Everyone else, ignore this post!

Have you ever been out in the park and suddenly thought "hm I'd really like to do a magical/religious thing right now but all my supplies are at home!"? You've probably already heard of the concept of a "pocket altar" but let me tell you, it is a lifesaver, and if you haven't made one yet then you really should! I mean, far be it from me to tell anyone how to do their own spiritual thing - like, you do you, obviously - but it is a nifty little thing that comes in handy.

First things first, you're gonna need an Altoids tin.

An Authentic Hindu Temple in Queens

If you measure the importance of an institution by the height of its buildings, Wall Street has it over religion here in New York City. (Considering that the New York region was originally colonised by Dutch merchants rather than English Puritans, this makes some sense.) Still, New York is a vibrant quilt of religious ideas and practise - a diverse, tolerant (for the most part), disunited, immigrant-energised phenomenon that grew up under the eye of mercantile sensibility. And one of the places where this is most evident is the enormous Hindu temple in Queens.

So... I actually went to this location way back in October and meant to write about it then but got the awful news about my nephew's death before I could. Still, I recently found my notes I'd taken when visiting and figured it was still worth recapping. SO.

Queens is probably the most diverse borough in New York City - the 7 Train has been nicknamed "the international express" due to the fact that it passes through neighbourhoods primarily populated by immigrants from Thailand, Mexico, Tibet, China, Korea, India, and more. And if you get on the 7 Train, and get off in the Flushing neighbourhood, you'll find yourself in the centre of one of the most authentic Chinatowns in New York.  That's worth visiting in and of itself, but if you walk out a little further (it's about a 15-20 minute walk from the 7-Train), you'll spot - rising above apartment buildings and bodegas - an intricately carved Granite structure that looks as if it's been airlifted from the heart of India. (It is actually built of granite imported from India, so that's not entirely inaccurate.)

This is the Hindu Temple Society of North America, commonly referred to as the Ganesh Temple as Ganesh is its primary deity. It was the first Hindu temple in the United States, it's definitely one of the larger religious structures in NYC (though there are churches that are larger), and it's an experience like no other.

A Very Heathen Hanukkah

You GUYS. I gotta say I am touched.

I recently found out (just last night at a Lore Chat with the New York City Heathens group) that this blog has been getting outside attention due to an older (in retrospect rather word-vomity) blog post on this very blog. Throw. Back. In fact, some of my irl friends within the Troth mentioned having read it without realising I was the one who wrote it, which is... certainly interesting. (Whoever shared me with the Troth, thank you and hello from a fellow Lokean and Troth member.)

Anyway, did you know that I also consider myself Jewish? And that Hanukkah ended recently?

By night 8 the menorah was significantly messier with wax drippings, so have a photo from night 1

"But wait," say those of you who know little to nothing about Judaism and the fact that Jewish Atheism is actually a very common thing, "that makes no sense. How can you be Lokean and also celebrate a Jewish holiday?"

Fair warning, those of you who are very attached to the idea of the One True God who created everything? You're gonna wanna skip this post. If you choose to click through and comment in a way that is offensive to either Jews or Heathens, I will delete your comment and refuse to engage with you. You were warned.

Sukkot in the Twilight Zone

The title of this post is a bit facetious but this year, my Sukkot has certainly been a lot stranger and more dreamlike than in previous years. I used to celebrate it with Jewish friends back in California, so I'm no stranger to eating in the Sukkah and the overall joyful atmosphere of this holiday. But last night's celebration truly takes the cake.

First off, there's a well known anecdote about Jewish holidays about how almost every one of them can be described with "they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat!" Sukkot isn't quite like that. It's a lot more joyous. The Torah itself commands Jews to be happy. There is feasting and singing and dancing and you get to eat outside in a little hut called a sukkah that you decorate yourself and it's a lot of fun. And you get to shake the lulav, made up of four species of plant - the citron, which has taste and fragrance; the date palm, which has taste but no fragrance; the myrtle, which has fragrance but no taste; and the willow, which has neither taste nor fragrance.

Like many other things within Judaism, there is rich symbolism to this. To some Jews, taste represents Torah and knowledge, whereas smell represents mitzvahs. Thus, the willow represents the Jew who has no knowledge of the Torah and who does not perform mitzvahs. The myrtle represents the Jew who performs mitzvahs and tries to be good but does not know a lot about Torah. The date palm represents the Jew who knows the Torah and Talmud and all the Jewish history backwards and forwards, but who may not perform any mitzvahs. And the citron represents the Jew who is knowledgeable and performs mitzvahs.

And on Sukkot, all four species are shaken together because - in theory - it is a time when all Jews are supposed to come together and celebrate, despite our differences. And last night really embodied that aspect of Sukkot for me more than I've ever experienced.

Because last night I celebrated with the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews.

How To Care For Your Selkie Significant Other

Fun fact about me: my favourite mythical creature is the selkie - the Irish humanoid who can shed off the skin of a seal or sea lion to transform into a beautiful human - but if you startle them, they'll turn back into a pinniped and retreat to the sea!

Irish folktales are full of tragic selkie tales where they lose their sealskin and are trapped on land by a cruel fisherman, or where they fall in love with a human but the human cannot accept that for a selkie the sea comes first. But I don't think a selkie tale always has to be tragic. I think that if we really were to find and care for a selkie, it may take work and understanding (as does ANY relationship) but it can be romantic and beautiful.

These "tips" were adapted from a journal entry I made in my private journal about a fictional selkie character Sarah and I were talking about on Monday.

A pile of pinnipeds? Or selkies in disguise?

Tips for taking care of your Selkie S.O.:

• Run frequent baths for your selkie with bath bombs and cruelty-free bath products (with plastic-free packaging if possible) to keep both sets of skin hydrated and soft and clean.
• Make a commitment to cut down on your plastic waste as much as possibly can, as human-produced plastic waste kills the fish selkies need to eat and destroys their homes.
• Never ever ever hide your selkie's seal skin - not even as a joke!
• If your selkie hears a seal, sea lion, or even a dog barking, sometimes they'll bark back. As cute as this may be, resist the urge to tease them for it. They can be sensitive.
• The selkie-mermaid rivalry is real. Always take the selkies' side of it.
• Collect pretty shells you find to decorate the bedroom you share. Your selkie will appreciate your effort to make them feel less homesick
• Selkies' natural diet is mostly fish. One of their favourite human foods is sushi - the fish is raw, like they're used to, but they don't get strange looks for eating it in public. (Selkies are naturally cautious and tend to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to themselves.)
• Some selkies really like ice cream, but most of them are lactose intolerant. Be sure to have lots of Lactaid on hand to avoid tummyaches and smelly seal farts.
• Selkie society is very big on music and song. Even if you're not a strong singer, they appreciate the effort when you try. Alternately, make them a playlist. You can include sea shanties, Irish folk music, and whalesongs if you like, but they'll try listening to any type of music at least once.
• It's well documented that seals love to cuddle, and this goes for selkies as well. Cuddle your selkie often and they will consider themselves yours.
• Lastly, but definitely most importantly, accept that every now and then your selkie needs to return to the ocean for awhile. It doesn't mean they don't love you; it's just something they have to do. Wait patiently and soon enough they will return to you.

Hopefully with these tips you can make the most of your relationship with such a beautiful creature.

-Nym

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Ancient and Medieval Ghost Stories

FROM THE ARCHIVES note: This post is from an older blog of mine that has since been taken down from the internet. It is presented here with minimal editing because I still find it interesting enough to share. The original post was published on 18 August 2014.

I have long been fascinated with the idea of ghosts. Even in my teenage years, when I called myself an atheist (agnostic may have been a better description for my belief system at the time), I was a firm believer in ghosts, even if I never could wrap my head around the science of them. I'm pretty sure my house is haunted, but the spirits in the house (my old cat, a little girl, and a couple others) are pretty benevolent. I live down the street from the Bernal Ranch, one of two locations in San Jose that is certified as being haunted - the other being, of course, the Winchester Mystery House. (Also apparently being certified haunted is a thing?)

But do you ever notice that most ghost stories you hear about never seem to go back any further than the Renaissance? You hear about the ghosts of Anne Boleyn and Marie Antoinette and all those Civil War soldiers and murder victims from the Victorian era all the way up until now. But human history is way older than all of that. Millions and millions of souls have died after all - surely, there must be older ghosts. Did they all move on? Why don't we ever hear about them?

The thing is, if you do a little research, you totally can learn about them. For example, the Ancient Romans divided ghosts into 3 different categories - those crazy scoundrels loved orginising things into categories:

Lares - good spirits who were willing to help the living
Lemures - truly evil spirits who physically harmed the living
Manes - largely indifferent but generally good(ish) spirits

I am going to share with you three stories about ghosts, all from before the year 1000 CE. You're welcome.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Let's Talk About Aliens and Fairies

FROM THE ARCHIVES note: This post is from an older blog of mine that has since been taken down from the internet. It is presented here with minimal editing because I still find it interesting enough to share. The original post was published on 4 January 2014.

Picture this: You're lying in your bed. It's dark, and you have been sleeping. Suddenly, though, you wake up. It's dark and you try to sit up - but you can't. You feel numb, sedated even! You look around with your eyes and see blurry humanoid - but not quite human, they're off somehow - figures staring down at you. You try to struggle, but you can't move. Something is very very wrong. You black out. It's only later when you wake up in your bed and wonder if it was just a strange nightmare - until you look down and notice marks on your body as if you had been operated on or probed!

Now what does this sound like?

Ghost Stories of New York City

Who is that in the study's window...?

Yesterday at the Grange, I heard phantom whistling at the back of the house after one of my tours.

This is not the first time this has happened to me. In fact, I made a comic about the first time I experienced it, even though Sarah and I determined it was probably an auditory hallucination:

But now that it's happened again, 2 months later, I'm not so sure anymore. Is it possible it could be a ghost?

Logically, I'd have to say no. I don't believe Hamilton Grange is haunted. There'd be a lot more stories about Hamilton's ghost if he were still sticking around. I'm fairly certain the guy has no unfinished business keeping him on this mortal plane. And even if he were to stick around in the house that meant so much to him, the building has been moved from its original location. Twice.

But it's fun to think there might be a paranormal explanation to the whistling. Is it likely? Not really. But imagining I might come face-to-face with a ghost is fun, especially this time of year! It's happened before, after all - back at Winchester I had quite a few paranormal encounters. I never got a bad vibe from the ghosts of the Winchester house. The spirits there are pretty benign, and will respect you if you respect them.

The Winchester Mystery House is, of course, notorious for its hauntings. Hamilton Grange is not. But that's not to say New York City doesn't have its fair share of ghosts, Aaron Burr being only one of the most famous. And that shouldn't be too surprising. It's had a very large population for centuries. That's a lot of people dying. Statistically, if ghosts are real, there should be a higher-than-average number of them in New York City. And there are. If you know where to look.

I'm going to give you three New York City ghostly tales, starting with one with a connection to Hamilton and Burr. But I encourage you to look up more yourself. New York has a fascinating paranormal history, and I'm barely scratching the tip of the iceberg here. And hey, if you have a ghost story of your own you'd like to share, be it NYC-related or not, please tell me in the comments or on my facebook page.

Meeting the Norse Gods in New York City

You came to New York City for college. You expected it to be different from home. But who could have expected this?

Odin is your college professor who speaks in a western drawl, who always wears black cowboy shirts and cowboy boots, who seems to relish looking out-of-place even in a city as diverse as New York. While your classmates whisper possible ways He lost his eye, no one dare asks Him how it really happened. After finals, He invites some of you to a dive bar near campus and buys drinks for everyone. He challenges you, a dangerous glint in His eye, to go shot for shot with Him. You know better to accept this challenge.

You meet Thor at a BLM march. He's the massive guy screaming down a fascist dickhead who dared show his face, but when you see Him again later, He's all smiles as He passes out snacks. He goes to a lot of these marches, He says - for black lives, yes, but also for immigrants, for women's rights, for gay rights. If the cops show up, He says He makes "a good human shield!" You're unsure if He's joking. His laughter is infectious either way.

Freyr shows up next, at the farmer's market in Union Square. His squash are the longest, His peaches the plumpest, His berries the most fragrant. "Try an apple," He urges you. It's the reddest apple you've ever seen, and when you bite into it the flavour explodes in your mouth and the juices dribble down your chin. "How much?" You ask Him. He asks you to pay Him in song.

You take a train to New England one day for a change of pace, and strike up a conversation with an old gruff fisherman in yellow coveralls. You help Him pull up a net of crabs and He teaches you a sea shanty, and offers to buy you a drink. It's only on the train ride back to the city, when you open up your wallet and find a $50 bill that definitely wasn't there before, that you realise this was Njörd.

Thor invites you to Pride, but you lose Him in the massive crowd, and in the chaos, your rainbow tutu gets torn. The most beautiful woman you've ever seen comes to the rescue with a sewing kit and some glitter, which She helps you apply to your body and face. She's looking at you as if you're the only person in the crowd, and when She smiles, you know it is Freyja. She dances with you, then lets a cute butch cut in. When you turn your head, She is gone, but you get a date with that cute butch for the coming Tuesday.

You meet Loki a week later. He's busking on the subway, doing magic tricks better suited to a Vegas stage than the 6-train. The kids on the subway love Jim. Somehow He swindles you out of $5, but you later find Him using all the money He got to buy a homeless man a hot meal. After this, Loki keeps showing up in the same places you go, a different face every time, but you always know it's Him. You resist His attempts at friendship for a long time, but within a year you'll count Him among your best friends.

You go, on a whim, to a BYOB knitting class. Frigga is the teacher. At this point you're not surprised by that. You've never been able to get the hang of knitting before, but with Her guidance, you have a scarf going in no time. The act of knitting a scarf makes you think of a beloved great aunt who used to knit and who died when you were in high school. You're so embarrassed when you start to cry, but Frigga holds you close and lets you cry against Her. She invites you and your girlfriend over for a home-cooked meal the next evening. You go and She's made your favourite comfort food. You are surprised to see your old college professor there.

You still refuse to go shot for shot with Him.

Mysteries of Kinderhook

Hey, remember when Sarah and I went to Albany?

When we did that, we were actually staying in a small town just south of Albany called Kinderhook, best known for being the birthplace of President Martin Van Buren and not for much else. It's an adorably quaint historic town, though, and a little over a week ago, we went and stayed there again for Sarah's birthday, taking excursions from there to Albany, Hudson, Adirondack, Lake George, and Saratoga Springs. We did so many exciting things, from escape rooms to ropes courses to a historic spa!

But one of my favourite things that we did happened in Kinderhook itself. Sarah and I helped solve a mystery.

No, really. I'm dead serious.

Kinderhook happens to be full of mysteries, as every quaint small town should be if fiction hasn't lied to me.  Some are more historical in nature, some more paranormal, and some straddle the line. I'll of course be talking about all types in this blog entry but first allow me to brag about the mystery Sarah and I helped solve. Ours was more historical than paranormal, but who isn't down for a history mystery?

It was pretty much one the coolest things that has ever happened to me, but like an idiot I did not have the foresight to take photos of the object in question. However, I did at least get a photo of the outside of the historic house in Kinderhook where our mystery was solved:

Built in 1819 and now known to locals as the "House of History" (What a great title, amirite?), the Vanderpoel House was originally the home of prominent lawyer James Vanderpoel and his family. In the 19th century, it was used as a boarding house. It stands today as an outstanding example of Federal style architecture and is one of four museums in Kinderhook run by the Columbia County Historical Society.

Sarah and I had stopped in on the morning of the sixth and I happened to strike up a conversation with the woman running the place about my own experiences working in historic homes, both the Winchester House and the Federal style Hamilton Grange. And that's when this woman's eyes lit up.

"Maybe you can help me with something," she told me as she led me to the front door.

Musings on Loki, Baldr, and Modern Perceptions of Norse Mythology

Hey guys, did you know that what I actually studied in school was basically Vikings?

My major was in archaeology, yes, and my minor in early medieval history, but all of the research I did, all my papers and projects (with a few exceptions that I very begrudgingly trudged through for the sake of my professors' respects), were focused on Old Norse culture and mythology. ('Viking' is technically a misnomer for the culture but I'm using it here for the sake of recognisability.) Even outside of school, I lived for this stuff. I read up on Norse mythology. I taught myself how to read three separate runic alphabets. I re-enacted as a Viking. For over five years I lived and breathed Vikings. And while I don't get the chance to show off this knowledge much when at the Grange, I do still love it all.

Hey guys, did you know that there's currently a series of very popular movies with a rather interesting take on Norse mythology?

In case you didn't realise what I was talking about.

Now, unlike certain friends of mine, I actually have no problem with how the "Thor" movies loosely interpret Norse mythology. It's a superhero franchise, it's as deep as a wading pool. No one is realistically gonna come away from these movies thinking that the Vikings believed in the Incredible Hulk.

But the trailer for "Thor: Ragnarok" has me thinking lately about how we now portray a very particular god from Norse mythology in our modern pop culture. No, not Thor. This guy:

No, wait. That's not right. This guy:

NO GODS DAMN IT THAT'S NOT RIGHT EITHER.

This guy:

This post is about the mythological Loki. Not Tom Hiddleston, not Alan Cumming in "Son of the Mask", but the Loki of Norse mythology, the Loki the Vikings would recognise. More specifically, this post is my own personal meditation upon the myth of Loki and Baldr.

An Aura Reading in Chinatown

For those of you not in the know, my birthday was a couple of weeks ago - on Sunday, 2 July, I turned 27. And I did quite a lot for it, including many things I hadn't yet done or seen in New York City, from finally visiting Historic Richmond Town in Staten Island and the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, to seeing "Indecent" with my roommate. (Which was excellent, and I highly recommend it for anyone who happens to be in New York before it closes in August!) But as of a few days ago, I still had a bit of birthday money left over.

I'm not used to having extra money. I do tend to try to live frugally. But since it was from my birthday, I wanted to do something with it. Something unique, something I'd never done before, something completely self-indulgent and slightly bizarre.

So I made my way to Magic Jewelry in Chinatown to get my aura photographed and read. Because why not?

Behold, my aura

I went in with an open mind and no expectations other than expecting to pay the $20 they charge. I don't know a lot about auras or chakras or the like - these things are not part of my own spiritual practises, personally. Even now I still don't know what I believe. But I wanted the experience, and it did not disappoint.

Just Breathe - A Meditative Vision of an Irish Goddess

I discovered the power of meditation in college, shortly after switching my major to anthropology as a form of stress relief. That's how it began for me. University is fucking stressful, and my anxiety-ridden neurotic ass didn't want to develop an ulcer.

I took a yoga class in an effort to reduce my stress, and for the most part I got nothing out of it. I respect that a lot of people do get something out of yoga, but while sun salutations were kind of fun I got almost nothing out of them, and I downright hated downward-facing dog. Stretching and contorting my body into pretzels wasn't helping me do anything except feel ridiculous.

What I did get out of it, however, was that at the end of each class session the teacher would turn the lights down and instruct us all to lay on our mats and breathe deeply while soothing new-agey music was played. We would end each class with 15-20 minutes of meditation. That was my favourite part of that class, without fail. That was what turned me on to meditation.

I've done all sorts of meditation since then, whether it's laying there and breathing in silence, sitting calmly and deep-breathing in a Buddhist temple at a meditation class, or listening to guided meditations and having visions in my "mind's eye" as they call it.

And this last Saturday I attended a guided meditation devoted to the Celtic goddess Brigid - though I am not a Druid nor have I ever really given Brigid more than a passing thought, I figured 'why not?' Surprisingly, I got a lot out of it...

A Victorian Seance

New York is weird, okay? New York is really weird. Where else in the world could I have had my hand kissed by George Washington, befriended a monk, seen a barbershop quartet on the subway, tried durian ice cream that smelled kind of like a corpse (it was as nasty as you're probably imagining), seen a bunch of sculpted Christopher Walken heads just sticking up out of the grass like flowers, and attended a Victorian-style Séance at a place devoted to all things death-like?

Yes, you read that right. On Sunday, the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn held an event advertised as "a traditional Spiritualist message service, a ritual that dates back to the Victorian era."

Obviously I had to go.

Happy Halloween!

It's the most wonderful time of the year! As I've said before, Halloween is my favourite day of the year, and I always dress up, sometimes as a historical figure (in past years I've been Marie Antoinette and the Byzantine Empress Theodora), sometimes as a historical figure (last year I was Grunkle Stan from "Gravity Falls", the year before that I was Velma Dinkley), and sometimes (but rarely) in something more generic.

This year, I've decided to go as a Puritan woman, inspired by my love of movies like "ParaNorman" and "The Witch", and the play "The Crucible", and my fascination with the historical Salem Witch Trials. (Also, if I'm being honest, inspired by the fact that I had a budget of like $10 for this.)

I think I did pretty well with the money I had.

And the more I wear this costume, the more it begins to feel... well, almost like an alter ego of sorts. She even has a backstory...

*******

Young Goody Nym sat outside the meeting house in the chilly morning air before that Sunday's sermon reading her Bible like a good, Puritan woman.

 There had been a devil's scourge sweeping through Salem as of late - tales of women signing their souls to the devil and sending out apparitions that tormented local children. A shiver went down Goody Nym's spine as she recalled those poor children - young Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam among them - writhing and sobbing in the meeting house. Why, just last Wednesday there had been pins discovered in the girl's scalp, placed by witches!

Truth be told, Goody Nym didn't know what to make of any of it. But these trials frightened her. If the Devil really was active in Salem, she feared becoming the next victim of His legion of evil witches.

That was when she heard it.