The Real Practical Magic Blog Party Post: with Give-Away!

"Of all the Owens women, Jet Owens was the most beautiful, and she never even noticed. She preferred cats to human beings and turned down every offer from the men who fell in love with her. The only one she ever cared for was that boy who was hit by lightning when he and his brother went tearing off across the town green to prove how brave and daring they were. Sometimes, late at night, Jet and Frances both hear the sound of those boys laughing as they run through the rain, then stumble into the darkness. Their voices are still young and filled with expectation, exactly as they sounded at the moment they were struck down."

The give-away: 15 milliliters of Aunt Jet's Lavender Oil! This is my mix of several types of lavender essential oil, sweet almond oil, and food-grade lavender blossoms. Wear it as perfume, anoint cuts with it for better healing, dress candles for love and protection with it. Or come up with your own practical & magical use!

To enter the give-away, leave me a comment telling which PM quote I have posted was/is your favorite: Gillian broke hearts, The aunts tell you to look, What to do in August, or Aunt Jet the Beautiful.

I'll select the winner on October 1st! I have visited a few lovely posts, and I'm looking forward to wending my way through many more. I hope you always remember to plant roses & lavender for luck. And fall in love whenever you can.

More PM

Always keep mint on your windowsill in August, to ensure that buzzing flies will stay outside, where they belong. Don't think the summer is over, even when roses droop and turn brown and the stars shift position in the sky. Never presume August is a safe or reliable time of the year. It is the season of reversals, when the birds no longer sing in the morning and the evenings are made up of equal parts golden light and black clouds.  The rock-solid and the tenuous can easily exchange places until everything you know can be questioned and put into doubt.

On especially hot days, when you'd like to murder whoever crosses you, or at least give him a good slap, drink lemonade instead. Go out and buy a first-rate ceiling fan. Make certain never to step on one of the crickets that may have taken refuge in a dark corner of your living room, or your luck will change for the worse. Avoid men who call you Baby, and women who have no friends, and dogs that scratch at their bellies and refuse to lie down at your feet. Wear dark glasses; bathe with lavender oil and cool, fresh water.  Seek shelter from the sun at noon.

A little more Practical Magic

The aunts saw no point in jumping rope or tossing a ball back and forth. In their opinion, such things were a silly waste of time. Better to observe the world around you. Better to watch the swans, and the blue sky, and the other children, who shouted and laughed during wild games of kickball and tag. Learn to be as quiet as a mouse. Concentrate until you are as silent as a spider in the grass.

The real post is coming soon!

It's the Practical Magic BOOK for me...

Gillian broke hearts the way other people broke kindling for firewood. By the time she was a senior in high school, she was so fast and so expert at it that some boys didn't even know what was happening until they were left in one big emotional heap. If you took all the trouble most girls got into as teenagers and boiled it down for twenty-four hours, you'd wind up with something the size of a Snickers candy bar. But if you melted down all the trouble Gillian Owens got herself into, not to mention all the grief she caused, you'd have yourself a sticky mess as tall as the statehouse in Boston.

Not the real post; I'm building up to it!

From Women Who Run with the Wolves

"Creativity is a shapechanger. One moment it takes this form, the next that. It is like a dazzling spirit who appears to us all, yet is hard to describe for no one agrees on what they saw in that brilliant flash. Are the wielding of pigments and canvas, or paint chips and wallpaper, evidence of its existence? How about pen and paper, flower borders on the garden path, building a university? Yes, yes. Ironing a collar well, cooking up a revolution? Yes. Touching with love the leaves of a plant, pulling down "the big deal," tying off the loom, finding one's voice, loving someone well? Yes. Catching the hot body of the newborn, raising a child to adulthood, helping raise a nation from its knees? Yes. Tending to a marriage like the orchard it is, digging for psychic gold, finding the shapely word, sewing a blue curtain? All are of the creative life.
~Clarissa Pinkola Estes

And, I would say, of creative witchery. What daily activity do you infuse with magic? I think this proves that you are creative.

Cartoon by hugh mcleod!