“Luck is believing you’re lucky.” ~ Tennessee Williams, (1911 - 1983)
I can’t show you my charm bracelet right now. To see it and find out why I can’t show it to you right now, sign up for my email newsletter, Nessa’s News.
I was born and raised Roman Catholic and with an extremely superstitious genetic background. Not Irish, but the original Celts going back to the Hallstatt era. Elves, talking birds, bees buzzy secrets in my ears, the ghosts living in a stone farmhouse over a thousand years old, salt and swords, roaring rivers swollen with melted glazers, and steers painted to fool an invading army filled my imagination long before I took my first breath. So, yeah, I believe in magic.
Even though I am no longer a Catholic or Christian, I can’t give up the rituals, my favorite part of going to church. The little container meant for holy water is older than the clovers and hangs by my front door (after living in my parents' houses for decades.) It holds Bavarian Alpine salt sanctified by the rising sun on the Winter Solstice while facing East on a New Jersey beach. Before I can leave the house, I touch the salt with the index and middle fingers of my left hand and touch my forehead, heart, and lips while whispering:
“Mind, body, and soul.”
A reminder to make the mundane world more sacred.
This picture has been in every bedroom I’ve occupied since I was a baby, even during college.
While going through things, I found these four-leaf clovers I’ve had since 1972 (that’s a long time ago for those of you who are mathematically challenged.) They must be working because as I look back and review my life as a whole, I’ve been pretty damn well blessed.
Revena’s emblem and good luck charm is the honey bee which symbolizes wealth and prosperity. She wears a signet ring with the motif and uses it to seal important documents in wax.
Mine, of course, is the Vampire Butterfly which speaks of eternal change and constant growth despite the pain such perpetual metamorphosis entails (stagnation means death, as the last few years have reminded me.)
Revena’s Revenge: not a pretty love story opens with Revena whispering the following spell over a mug of ale:
“Blessed fruit and honey ale
Bring him health without fail;
Bring him strength, improve his vigor;
Banish all that’s weak and frail.”
Are you superstitious? Do you have any old lucky charms? Do you wear an amulet or a signet ring? Do you have any special rituals?
