I’ll Kiss You, My Pretty!

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Kissing.  I’m whole-heartedly for it. Not only is it a peck of fun, but for us witches, it can be so much more. Being a mother, I’m quite familiar with kissing my son before sending him off to school, secure in the knowledge that my kiss adds a layer of protection to his day.

But kisses are amazingly multi-functional.  A quick jaunt through the Googlesphere shows they can be used:

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To heal – We kiss a child’s bump or bruise to “make it better.”

To obtain poesy – To get the gift of eloquence, we kiss the Blarney Stone.

To convey good luck – We kiss on New Year’s Eve for good luck.  And the first person (other than its mother) to kiss a baby, affects Baby’s luck in life.

To break an enchantment – Sleeping Beauty was awakened with a kiss. And apparently, if you kiss the right frog, he’ll turn into a prince.  In these instances, it’s not just any kiss that holds the power, but the kiss of a particular person (such as a princess), or sometimes a kiss of particular virtue (such as true love’s first kiss).

To seal or imprint intent – We seal our love letters with a kiss.  Kissing you’re signature in a book, or indeed kissing the Bible or other holy relic can seal your oath.  As well, there’s the kiss following the giving of fealty.

Protection or Curse – Some scholars believe that all those X marks – stand-ins for our kisses — may have ties the Hebrew letter tav, and posit that the mark of Cain (placed on Cain’s forehead to keep others from killing him) was the Hebrew letter tav.

Which doesn’t make much sense until you compare the modern letter tav:

With the older version of Tav:

Let’s not forget the famous mafia-style Kiss of Death.

(In my ever ready imagination, I can see this transmuted into the Kiss of Piss On Off.  A two-handed kiss, planted a la Michael Corleone. It would probably work a treat on all those pesky proselytizers!)

And a personal fav, smooching the Devil’s buttock (also known as the Osculum infame).

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Given all that, no matter the Work, a kiss may just be the most satisfying way ever to deliver it.

In that spirit, here’s a fun nursery-rhyme-like spell I wrote for my nephews. The right column is what I say, and the left column in italics is the accompanying action:

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Pitter pat.                              Tap chest twice.

Tit for tat.                              Touch index finger to right of nose, then left of nose

Good luck.                            Hold on to both ear lobes and gently tug once

Full of pluck.                        Another gentle tub

Evil duck.                             A third gentle tub

Amant!                                Kiss forehead

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So where’s the spell, you ask? Here’s the underlying Work:

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Pitter pat – catching the attention of the Powers that Be. Much like knocking on wood.

Tit for tat – reminding Them that help goes both ways, and you’re here for Them, too.

Good luck / Full of pluck / Evil duck – the things I want for the child. I want them to be lucky, to be brave and to avoid evil.

Amant! – Latin for “They love you.” In my case, I mean the those selfsame Powers That Be.

Now get out there, and get to smooching!

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Smooching the Devil’s buttock. Now with 90% more neighbor.

Today, in homes all across America, folks who wouldn’t dream  of practicing witchcraft will indulge in an act of sympathetic magic.  The eating of lucky foods on New Year’s Day.

In my over-active imagination, this is how common magical practices of the past migrated into the realm of folklore.  From fear of ridicule or persecution, folks no longer talked about the whys and wherefores of certain magical practices.  They laughed it off as something quaint their grandfolks did.  Something they continued doing for nostalgia’s sake.

Growing up, my mother certainly fit that bill.  She was insistent that we all eat some of each lucky food.  When I asked her why we were doing this, she’d say “you want to have good luck in the New Year, don’t you?”  She’d laugh at the silly superstition, but by God we’d all eat some of each.  And we could do it the easy way.  Or the hard way.

Here in the south, the usual menu is blackeyed peas, cornbread or sweet potatoes, cabbage and pork.  It’s pretty easy to draw a line between blackeyed peas and beads which repel the evil eye.  Cornbread and sweet potatoes are gold, which we’d all like to have more of.  Cabbage is green and patterned, like folding money.  Not sure about the pork, though …

My family will be eating Lionhead meatballs and cabbage in chicken broth, and blackeyed peas and their juice ladeled over our cornbread, like my grandparents, the farmers, fixed it. 

Today, me and mine will gather around the dining table and practice a little witchcraft.  

And from the lack of blackeyed peas on the grocery shelf, looks like my neighbors will be practicing witchcraft, too.

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Tribe of Lights

The other day my son announced  he wants to learn to read tarot cards.  I was – to put it mildly – flabbergasted.

Before now, my son has lumped card reading in with All Things Witchlike (translated: Under No Circumstances To Be Done In Public). But at a recent scout campout he saw another boy using them, so now all bets are off.  Well … at least when it comes to tarot.

You see, my son is every bit as careful as I am to stay closeted. He’s quick to remind me to turn off the pagan music before I open the car door. To confirm my work room is locked before bringing a friend over. And to loudly announce said friend as he ushers him through the front door, so we won’t say anything untoward.

As a matter of fact, the coven now regularly uses the phrase “Montague’s* here” when all talk of Smooching the Devil’s Buttock needs to come to a grinding halt.

Even when Montague is not here.

So you can imagine I was fair suprised to hear of my son’s plans to join the tarot-reading ranks.  He is, however, now the proud owner of a tarot deck of his very own, which he is busy communing with and meditating upon.

I’ve worked out a simple card spread for him to use, based on this witch’s pyramid-inspired one. Actually, I’ve used it myself a few times.  It’s fast and surprisingly helpful:

Tribe of Lights –Show me what’s hidden,
The help to be bidden,
The action to take,
And the habit forsake.

Basking in the glow of my son’s new-found interest, I have it in me to wonder … what on earth is next?

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*Not, of course, his real name.