Annual

We begin our day like every other parent on the block. We wake up in the morning and dress our children in their desired persona for the day, and feed them breakfast. We will spend the day tirelessly explaining that we have to wait until the sunsets below the horizon, because the candy taste better knowing it has been acquired beneath the cloak of darkness alongside various astronaut princesses, zombies Batman’s, and roaming spirits on the way to visit members of family for their yearly tryst. Our sons and daughters are not unlike yours in their love for doing as we’ve raised them tonight and taking candy from strangers.

We begin our day the same, yes, but as the sun falls our schedules deviate, quite greatly, from yours. As you gather your children dressed in their spooky best, we send our loved ones, our husbands, out with the children to collect candy and bemuse their friends with tall ghost tales. They’ll allow them a single candy so as to not spoil their appetites. They’ll pile the children into a vehicle and cart them away to the cinema for an animated anecdote of slapstick horr-omedy. 

In their absence we open the house. We open the windows and allow the cool and crisp autumn air to fill the home. We leave and we will walk the dark streets alone to reflect. Our feet bare on the cold stone, we feel the earth beneath us. The presence around us, we open our eyes not to bedsheet ghosts, but to silk veiled spirits- among us. As we walk we meditate and reflect on our growth through the year. Our calendar year is unlike yours. Our New Year’s Eve is now. Today marks our 365. Tomorrow we wake to new beginnings put to play by what we’ve started tonight.

We, our Coven, will be celebrating our day 7300. This year is our 20th anniversary and it’s very special. This year is our first Samhain, our first All Hallows’ Eve, our first Halloween, on a Full Blue Moon.

After our walk of solidarity, we will converge in the park and return to the designated House of Hollow‘s. Together, we gather in the kitchen. We are a coven of a specific Wicca skill set, we are coven of Green Kitchen Witches. We know every spice and herb by heart and to use them accordingly. And we will use them accordingly. Tonight, we convene with the energies around us and pay tribute and respect to the autumnal being. We will drink apple cider made from farm fresh apples, oranges, and spices to promote health, protection, love, joy, purification, and youth.

As we drink we invite the lost ones to visit. We open the doors and tell them they’re welcome to stay as long as the sun is at bay. We prepare and make a stew of ingredients from the autumnal harvest. We line the table with parts and candles. Small tea lights and candelabras rest for mood at aesthetic. We feel our pockets for pieces of parchment. We place a bowl at an empty seat, and place ourselves across one another leaving the head untouched. 

We break bread with our ghoulish guests. We acknowledge their presence with the absence of eye contact and vocalization. Subtle sounds of silverware on porcelain clinking. When we finish, we stand and remove our parchment and place them over the flame of the tea light and return to our seats. We rise and join in a prayer. One by one we exit at the room, stopping by the spirit chair only to bid a soft goodbye.

We gather around the door as our husbands appear in the drive with the children. Too exhausted to fuss about candy. I gather my small boy in my arms, his cape wrapped around him for warmth against the cold on his frail skin. I brush away his dark hair from his face that’s been kissed blush by the wind. I remove his small shoes and costume, careful not to disturb him in his slumber state. I redress him in his superman pajamas that inspired his outfit of the day. I placed his candy atop his dresser and removed a single small Snickers for myself.

I retired to the bathroom. It’s late now and my new year is on the horizon of 11:59 PM and 12 AM. I cleaned the bathtub mindfully with vinegar, rosewood, cedarwood, and sandalwood oils. I leave the window above Open and light a vanilla and Jasmine incense. Around the clawfoot are candles in rainbow, each color for a different client. More blue than most because with a pail full of candy I’ll need the tranquility and patience more than anything the follow in the morning. I stir into the water rose petals and marigolds alongside lavender salt. I line my rose quartz with my clear quartz and amethyst. 

I submerge myself in the water and exhale as I sink lower. With my eyes closed, I meditate. I visualize the cleansing of my mind, my energy. I visualize waking up in the morning and starting my new year. I lose time surrounded by the cool air circulating the smells of vanilla and jasmine. The lavender soothes and my heart rate slows. My breathing slows. Time is lost,but my sense of purification is found. I exhale a smile at ten past twelve and stand from the tub. I wrap myself in a robe of silk and satin.

With the chain between my fingers, I pull the plug on the tub and the water and the vibrations of the past. I send them away and down the drain. I clean the clawfoot once more before departing. Being sure to wash away everything from the year before. I look up to see the smoke from my incense being pulled through the window and into the night. Taking with it the exchange of fatalistic palpation for the mental clarity and purification that it leaves me with. I know it to meet up with the exchanged vibrations of my coven sisters and to be released into the earth away from us. I empty my lungs one last time as I prepare to exit my bathroom and enter the next 365 days.