halloween – zen BLITZ

Simple Ancestors’ Night Celebrations

I know this is short notice for most people who celebrate Samhain on October 31, but as I started planning for my own celebration this year, I was inspired to share a few simple ideas.

To start, I don’t always celebrate the Sabbat on Halloween – Often I celebrate it on the halfway point between the Autumn Equinox & the Winter Solstice, which for 2024 would be on November 6. (I’m not justifying my late post lol!) Another personal thing I wanted to point out is that I “do my own thing”, so I refer to the Sabbat commonly known as Samhain as Ancestors’ Night because that’s really what it is.

What is Samhain?

For those who don’t know, many occultists believe that the veil between our waking reality & the spirit world is especially thin this time of year, & it is celebrated as such by honoring the spirit world. We’ll all be joining it someday, so it’s important to many people to acknowledge this (”Memento Mori!”) and take some time to remember our loved ones who are no longer on our side of the veil. As I say about Dia de los Muertos, it’s a time to “celebrate life, & honor the dead”.

Simple Ideas for Celebrating

An Ancestor Altar. If you’re going to start one, keep it simple & keep it up year round. Just as Xmas should be a reminder to be generous throughout the year, Ancestors’ Night should be a reminder to remember daily where you came from & where you’ll be going. A small spot with a few photos & trinkets to remind you of your beloved departed are a beautiful reminder of how they influence who you are at your core. If you already have an ancestor altar or shrine, now would be a great time to thoroughly clean & refresh the space, adding or removing things as you see fit!
Candles. For quite a few years, I had a running list of proverbial ancestors (people not necessarily related to me who had a profound impact on my life and are no longer living, and even pets), and I would light a tealight candle for each of them. It turned into a fire hazard unfortunately, but it was a nice gesture at the time.
Letters. You can write a letter to any especially important ancestors, & tell them whatever you want! You can even burn it (safely, of course) to symbolically pass the message into the spirit realm.
Journal. Ask yourself if you’re carrying any dead weight, psychologically speaking, & how you can move past that in the coming months.
Hibernation goals. I’m listening to a flock of geese heading south right now, as a matter of fact. Nature is preparing to hibernate, harvesting what’s left for the journey into the cold months. Not that humans are able to hibernate, but it’s a good time to consider what you can do to slow down a bit more & enjoy some relaxation. Perhaps you’d like to read a book you haven’t yet found time for, or catch up on some sleep? Now might be a good time to think up some slow living goals.
Pumpkins. I’m sure you’re already carved your pumpkins, if that’s a thing you do. But if you have an uncarved pumpkin, harvest it! Scoop the shit out & make a pumpkin based dessert, or a savory soup! Roasted pumpkin seeds are really good for you too, and you can season them with just about anything you like (I’m particularly fond of cinnamon & sugar.)
Food. Make or buy your ancestors’ favorite foods as a way to honor them. My mom was always fond of surf & turf (steak & shrimp specifically), and I’m happy to make that for dinner lol! A couple of my favorite memories of my grandma were her hand grinding deli ham to make ham salad for sandwiches, and soup. She also kept me on a steady supply of homemade chicken noodle soup throughout my childhood. So, I love making my “magic” soup, with ingredients that are heavily inspired by her!

How do you honor your ancestors?

Share some ideas in the comments below – I’d love to hear them!!

Ghost Story #4 – The Deer

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my “ghost stories” series this month! Here I have the final installment. It’s not a particularly exciting one, but it’s the most recent, and interesting regardless.

About this time of year 10 years ago or so, the DJs on one of the local radio stations started talking about local ghost stories & urban legends during their show all month. My fiance at the time & myself just so happened to be listening when they mentioned the area we were living in at the time, and how there were sightings of a headless horseman with a lantern in the woods by our house, and ghost deer all over the area. “Ghost deer?!?” I laughed. “Are they sure it wasn’t an albino?!?” (There are a lot of deer in that area.) But they said they weren’t just your typical white ghosts – mangled shadow spirits resembling deer were also spotted in the area.

A couple weeks later, as I was driving home from work late at night, a big tree about a half mile down started to look weird to me. Assuming I was just tired and stressed, I didn’t think much of it, but I kept watching purely for the entertainment. It was really weird. It was probably about 6 feet tall, walking weird, seemed to have white glowing eyes, & it eventually melded with the tree. As I said, I didn’t think much of it and simply headed home. Well about an hour later my fiance got home from work, and his face white as a ghost. Now, this man does not believe in anything paranormal, so for him to be freaked out like this was a sight few have ever seen. He drove from the opposite direction, more in the area where the headless horseman was typically seen, but he said he saw a large black mangled deer in the ditch with glowing red eyes, and it jumped off into the woods as he creeped up by it with the car. I laughed & told him my story. He said he was never leaving the house again lol! I don’t know what we saw, but there was definitely something strange in the air that night!

A couple weeks after that, I was again driving home late from work at night, and had another strange deer experience. I saw a doe in the road, and so I slowed way down, hoping I could just get around it without spooking it into running directly into my car. Plus, deer always travel in groups. It strolled casually into the other lane, but as I drove past, I realized she was lit up as though my headlights were still shining on her. Mind you, I was probably only going like 5mph, so I had plenty of time to look around & verify that there weren’t any other cars on the road, shining their lights on her. Looking in my side mirror, I could still see her, & she was still lit up. But when I stopped the car in the middle of the road & turned to look behind me, she was gone. I have no idea what that was all about, but it was…different.

So that concludes my life’s ghost stories. So far, lol. It’s been over a decade since this last experience though.

If you haven’t yet, check out the other ghost stories I’ve posted this month :

The Man of the House

The Ouija Board

The Air Base

Share your own stories below, and have a wonderful spooky season!! 🧡🎃

Ghost Story #3 – The Air Base

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I apologize for the photo quality, but I’m still learning how to edit well. Here’s a barely edited Google Maps view of the area I’m telling you about today, so you can get a visual of where we were when this happened. Most of the buildings are gone now, so I typed in where they were :

(This one is my favorite story of all time!)

Once my high school friends & I were old enough to drive, we discovered a small abandoned military base not too far from home, and spent a crazy amount of time exploring. It was a NIKE missile radio control base that closed in the early 1980’s. Still standing at the time was about 10 buildings, all with different uses.

Like I said, we explored there often. Always respectfully, of course, and always very carefully. There was only one building that we wouldn’t go into (though I did one night, just because I was that curious…and young & dumb), and that was because the entire floor at the entrance had caved in, exposing the support beams.

Nothing strange ever happened there, oddly enough. No unexplainable sounds or sights. Until one night, later in the summer. A few of my guy friends asked me to join them, and I reluctantly agreed. I was enjoying just chilling at home, but they practically begged me to go.

When we got there, we parked in the parking lot of one of the two active apartment buildings in the immediate area and walked down to the recreation center. I’d only been in there once, and I knew there was a very secure looking basketball court, and in the back was a bowling alley you couldn’t really get to because the hallway leading back there was completely overgrown with vines. To get into the basketball court, the entrance was like 3 90 degree turns, so you couldn’t see into the building at all until you were actually in the building, so I insisted my friends be extra careful. The most badass looking of my friends decided to go first, much to his dismay lol, and as soon as he stepped foot into the shadow of the entrance, a loud BOOM echoed through the basketball court. We all quickly decided to turn around & head elsewhere lol. But as we walked to a more familiar building, we began to discuss the sound we heard.

We all agreed that it didn’t sound like something had fallen from the ceiling because we didn’t hear any subsequent debris. It didn’t sound like the bleachers gave out & dropped because we didn’t hear any metal creaking or any other noises. The badass friend said “as crazy as it seems, it literally sounded like some picked a basketball up over their head, slammed it down on the ground, & caught it as soon as it bounced back up”. And it did. That’s exactly what it sounded like.

So, for the sake of safety, we headed to what we called the missile building because it had 3 large metal pads and a control room. What else could it possibly be lol. We got bored quickly though because that was the easiest building to get into, & we’d explored it a million times.. So we decided to see if we could get into the office building, which was backtracking to just past where we’d parked.

To get there, we had to walk around the most massive building, go down a little road to where it teed off, and make a right. As we headed to the “T”, I lit a cigarette. When I looked back up, I saw 2 women walking about 20 feet in front of us. Plain as day, they were walking in the same direction, on a casual stroll, just chatting amongst themselves. But I could see through them. And I couldn’t hear them talking. Being that I was a stoner as a teenager, I assumed I’d just smoked too much & was hallucinating lol, but when I turned to my friends, they were staring in awe at the same sight. We all slowed down & let them get far ahead of us. At the “T”, there was a relatively small building with a streetlight on the corner that cast a shadow to the right of the building. We watched these ladies walk into the shadow of the building and literally disappear. We all stopped for a moment, and began to discuss what just happened.

We all saw it. But what exactly did we see? We tried not to make a big deal out of it and continue on to our destination, assuming they were fellow explorers. But as we turned at the “T” & examined the area we’d seen them, there was no evidence anyone had been there. The grass around the building was about 2 feet high, so if anyone had walked through there, there would’ve been a very noticeable path. It was also very dark inside & behind the building, but there were no flashlights. There was nothing.

Still examining the building as we continued walking, all of a sudden the alarm on the car we came in started going off. It was as though the car alarm was going off, but there was no pattern to it! You know how a normal car alarm alternates flashing the headlights & honking the horn every 2 seconds, for example? It wasn’t like that. It was more like one headlight, brights, long honk, short honk… The owner of the car held his key fob up & said he had no idea what was going on, and that he couldn’t make it stop. So, since I’m sure it was drawing attention to us from whoever lived inside the apartments, I insisted we head home. Literally, as soon as we walked up to the car, it stopped. Without anyone touching it. So, we got in the car & headed home.

On the road just outside the complex, you could see about a mile down. As we drove away, a particular car speeding in our direction caught my eye, & I wondered if it was a cop. With how much weed my friends & I smoked at the time, & being that it was illegal at the time, I got pretty good at spotting cop cars, whether they were speeding toward me or not lol! Sure enough, as it sped past us, we could plainly see that it was a county sheriff. And sure enough, he pulled right into the complex we were just leaving.

This experience has haunted us all ever since. What was going on there? Who was trying to get us out before the cops came? And why was this the only time anything weird ever happened? We’ll never know. But holy hell, was it fun!!

Do you have any true “ghost stories” you’d like to share? Leave them in the comments below, I’d love to hear them!

And if you haven’t checked out my previous ghost stories, here they are :

The Man of the House

The Ouija Board

I have one more to share next week, so stay tuned! And happy spooky holidays!!!

PS – I can’t find any of the pictures I’ve taken of this place, but if you’re interested in seeing someone else’s photos, do check out this person’s Flickr album from 2010

Ghost Story #2 – The Ouija Board

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While I was always fascinated by Ouija boards (I got my first from my mom for my birthday when I was about 9), I never really believed in them. I’d always get messages like “stay away”, “danger”, & other ominous things for no apparent reason. I quite quickly realized how easily people can manipulate objects they’re not even trying to move. Or how often people will intentionally move things to make an experience more fun, lol!

In high school, I had a friend who did too much acid. She always said she was very in tune with spirits, & she was always saying she’d have weird things happen to her, & she’d get messages or feelings at random times. Even when she was sober. Of course, nobody believed her because she was so “out there”, but then one night we were bored & playing with the Ouija board in our other friend’s basement. I decided to take a break to smoke a cigarette because the “spirits we were talking to” were boring, and she asked if there was anyone I wanted to contact. I figured why not, & told her to try to contact my mom. And she did. It was the freakiest thing I’d ever experienced. I spent most of the time just asking tricky questions that no one else would know, & it was unbelievable! She didn’t have a whole lot of energy to work with, but she ended with something along the lines of “take care of your father, because no one else will”, and no truer words have ever been spoken. I took care of him for the rest of his life.

Moral of the story – don’t discount the Ouija board. Or hippies LOL

If you like this post, make sure to subscribe to my blog! And if you have any creepy stories you’d like to share, leave them in the comments below – I’d LOVE to hear them!

Here’s the previous installment of this series : Ghost Story #1 – The Man of the House

Ghost Story #1 : The Man of the House

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Since it’s Halloween season, and I’ve always wanted to share my ghost stories online, I thought I’d take the opportunity here. I plan to go in chronological order (the third story is my personal favorite), so let’s start with when I was a kid.

My mother was a huge Sci Fi fan, so I watched more than my share of Star Trek & Unsolved Mysteries when I was a kid. I had quite the active imagination, but I was also very skeptical – I always tried to find logical explanations for things I’d experienced. My first encounters with a spirit had no other explanation.

I was sitting on the couch in our living room, and my parents were sitting together in the kitchen behind me after dinner. From where I sat, I could see the hallway to the rest of the house. One night, I saw a man, glowing white & dressed in what I can only describe as 1950’s business attire, walk down the hallway to the rest of the house. I shouted, & told my parents, & of course they told me that there was no such thing as ghosts & not to worry.

But for a couple years after that, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was around me whenever I was alone in the house. Now, the house isn’t that old. It’s not like anybody died here, so I had no idea who it could be. And that’s what really frightened me.

Another night, I was alone in the house. I was probably about 8 years old. My father was outside shoveling the driveway, in anticipation of my mother coming home from work. I was, again, watching tv on the couch. The living room & dining room were one room, separated by the couch. So, with my back to the dark dining room, I felt like someone was behind me. Not menacingly, just…there. I looked out the windows as though someone would possibly be casing my middle class family’s home with 3 feet of snow in the backyard, but there was no one there, nor was there anyone in the dining room. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling! So I got up & walked to the bathroom on the other side of the house. I just sat in there for a moment, before it felt like someone walked by the door & was standing in the doorway of the next bedroom over. You know how you can sense the movement in the air when someone quietly walks by you? That’s what it was. After a couple minutes of feeling like someone was waiting for me in the next room, I decided I’d rather wait impatiently for one of my parents to come in the house in a more comfortable spot, so I went back out & sat on the couch. A few seconds later, I felt someone walk by & sit back down in the dining room. It was like I could’ve watched them walk by, but I couldn’t see them. Another 10 minutes or so passed before I started panicking. I started pacing around the house, looking out the front door to see how close my dad was to finishing the driveway. It got to a certain point, where I just stood with my back to the front door, & I yelled out into the house 3 times in a row “I don’t know who you are or why you’re following me, but you’re scaring me! Please go away!” And it went away. Just like that.

Fast forward about not quite a decade, & I found out who it was. My mom admitted she believed in ghosts, but she wouldn’t tell me why. Come to find out, she was married once before my father, for about 10 years. They couldn’t have kids, so he got sucked into a gambling addiction, slipped into major depression, and eventually ended his own life. I absolutely think that spirit was his, just babysitting me when no one was around. And I feel like I’ve made peace with him. I also feel like he never really went away, just kept further distance.

So there’s my first ghost story! I have a few more to share, so stay tuned!

And if you have any spooky stories of your own that you’d like to share, please do! I’d LOVE to hear them!

Halloween Art Jar & ATC

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I always liked lots of little things displayed together in…bigger things. Dioramas, shadowboxes, jars…they’re neat! I bought myself & my cousin each a jar from a personal art sale down in the mountains of NY over the summer, & I decided to experiment with a jar of my own. Since Halloween was approaching at the time, I made a little Halloween art jar!

Easy Assembly

I used lots of Dollar Tree items, including : a jar, black gravel, orange confetti, Halloween stickers, Mod Podge, & a fake tealight candle. I also painted a rock from the creek on my aunt’s vacation property & turned him into a ghost. I didn’t glue down the gravel because I didn’t want to risk being able to see the glue, & I just set everything together on top of it. That way, it can always be fixed or changed. I Mod Podged some fabric onto the lid, screwed it on tight, & wrapped some ribbon around it. It was a lot of fun to make!

A Little Something Extra…

I also tied a friendship bracelet around the lid to attach the gift tag I’d made (not really shown). My aunt appreciated the amount of work that went into the whole thing. While I was working on the tag, I decided to make an ATC (Artist Trading Card) to match :