You say "Witch!" like it's a bad thing

My daughter sent me this Hallmark card last year, and I just love it. A great image, that perhaps doesn't reflect the true outside, but definitely shows the inside!!!

Just a little over two weeks until Samhain! Time is flying by (on a broomstick?).  I am thinking about my ritual for that night. The preparation for ritual is as important, and meaningful as the ritual itself. Perusing through all my books, looking  for something new to add, something different to try. Gathering candles, incense, herbs. Thinking about the ancestors, and how to honor them this year. And looking forward to casting a circle with my brand new athame (ritual knife). Usually I use a wand, a wonderful branch from an apple tree I found in Quebec, on family property. Apple trees that were planted many many years ago by relatives who have been gone for so long. The ritual knife is never used for cutting. It is not a weapon, not a piece of cutlery. It is used for directing energy. In this case, energy required for casting the circle, a protected, sacred place. A place to invoke the elements of fire, earth, water, air; and to invite the God and Goddess to share in my ritual. The circle is a place filled with loving, positive energy, and where one can meditate, talk to the Lord and the Lady, ponder magick and ritual, and to spell cast. It is indescribable the feelings of peace, love, magick, power, happiness and energy that one finds inside this circle. A time between time and a place to find perfect love and perfect trust.