WITCHERY

Thursday night, I dreamt of snow. There was a bunch of other things in that dream that I only remember in a hazy way, but the snowing part I remember clearly. Some time early last week, someone said something about living in Kansas City for at least ten years now and not remembering that it snows in October sometimes. I told that person that it does because I have pictures of my Halloween decorations covered in snow. Yesterday Facebook wanted to share a memory of four years ago where I took a short video of snow falling from the sky. Sometimes it snows in October. I dreamt of snow on Thursday and it snowed on Sunday.

Clearly, I am a witch.

I was thinking of witches and spells while I was in Cape Cod. It’s hard not to considering all the history surrounding that area and witch hunts where in one year fourteen women were hanged for witchcraft. Could you imagine giving someone the death penalty for witch craft today? Can you imagine how completely ridiculous that sounds? Part of me believes the human race has evolved beyond that, but while I was taking pictures of the Founding Fathers National Monument, a woman popped up out of nowhere talking about the need to take this country back to the government of our Founding Fathers, back to a time when she didn’t have the right to vote or have her own bank account.

We are prone to believing ridiculous things.

I was reading some thing recently, it was probably a random meme, about how you shouldn’t dismiss your woo. “Woo” referred to the mystical lala crap that I not only dismiss, but completely ignore. I have many friends who thoroughly embrace woo. They follow the complicated version of star signs where you don’t just know your astrological sign for the month you were born, but the moon phase at the time of their births. Some of them not only know this about themselves, but they know it about others and how to use all of this to understand their relationships. I cannot hold any of that information in my brain. I seriously have to look up my star sign whenever I think to ironically read my horoscope. Even that feels complicated because I’m some sort of Acquires Capricorn blend because January 20th is more than an Inauguration Day. I’m more woo adjacent. Like I’m the one you text when you’re worried about mercury poisoning from your pot because I can tell you if mercury forms a bond with the THC compound. It can because THC is a thiol compound which is also why it smells very much like a skunk. Skunk stink is also a thiol compound.

Organic chemistry is my witchcraft.

I’m just the type of personality that believes there is a scientific explanation for everything. Once someone asked me if ghosts were real. The person didn’t ask me if I thought ghosts were real. They wanted to know if ghosts were real, which felt like a loaded question. Like the person was testing my scientific credibility. I told this person what I tell everybody who asks me about souls and spirits. The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy can neither be created or destroyed, only converted to another form of energy. Humans contain energy. Sometimes that energy stays close and does weird shit like make the lights flicker and sometimes it goes back into the planet, helping trees grow tall and strong. It goes somewhere and scientists are still working on figuring out the wheres and whys. It is of yet to be explained.

Sort of like this rambling post.

Years ago, while on a trip to Boston, Michael and I took a day trip up to Salem. Salem is pretty much what you’d expect it be. There’s historic witch houses and people walking around in costumes depicting the 1600s. Every other shop is a spells and crystals shop. It feels more like Silver Dollar City without the rides than it does historic despite it being an early European settlement. Any way, we spent the hottest day of a Massachusetts summer there, exploring the town on Bird scooters. I found a lovely journal in one of the shops that reads “Book of Spells” on the cover. I bought it thinking that I would write down ridiculous spell components, but I only wrote one or two before the journal was abandoned along with a stack of other abandoned journals. That’s a Chris thing, to have stacks of journals with only a few pages of written things in them. Another bit of energy I must have absorbed because now I have a similar stack. My book of spells was abandoned because I couldn’t really think of any spells I’d like to cast. I mean really. How many spells does one need to live a happy life? Maybe I should start writing spells for living a content life. Or maybe I should just devote this journal to revisiting organic compounds. As of right now though, that journal’s fate is still yet to be determined or explained.

Like ghosts.

I THINK I'D BE GOOD AT IT

Seeds

0 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Seeds"

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I know it’s going to sound really weird and maybe slightly unlike me. I’m not a crystal wearing sage burning type of person. I do not practice ‘witch craft’ nor do I believe myself to be a witch. Except maybe I’m a science witch. I am about to set up a PCR reaction to put a twelve amino acid tag into a specific yeast gene. To some people (most people) all of that sounds like witchery. Side note: we, my colleagues and I, were talking about dog breeding the other day. I mentioned I saw a miniature beagle once who looked like a puppy even though he was full grown. So then we started talking about how someone might breed to get a small beagle. Then we all wondered if they were using CRISPR on dogs because we all agreed that would be better for the dogs than rounds of inbreeding. See? My daily life does not reflect what I am about type next.

I want a set of tarot cards.

No, really. I think I’d be really good at reading tarot cards. I keep thinking about that time Chris and I were in Jackson Square and we decided to have our cards read by one of the many readers set up there that day. The woman who read our cards was very normal and straight forward. Basically she said “look, I’m going to tell you some things based on the cards you draw. They may or may not be true and it only pertains to the next six months.” I can do that. I can tell you stories based on the cards you choose that may or may not be true. I don’t remember everything the woman in Jackson Square told me. I think there were three things. One thing I do remember is that she said I would move to a place without Chris and this really did happen. I moved to OKC without Chris for three long horrible months. So, I really only have to get one out of three things right.

I don’t know why I think I’d be good at reading tarot cards. It’s just something I feel I have a knack for I guess. I can picture myself sitting at a table at a party, a nice drink in my hand and lovely deck of card at my fingertips. “Oh! You chose the death card!” I’d declare in some dramatic way. Then I’d spin a tale about how the death card doesn’t exactly mean you’re going to die. It just means the death of something, like a habit. At least this is how I would interpret the cards. I don’t know how I’d interpret the other cards because I don’t really know what the other cards are…yet. I just see myself telling people some nice stories based off the cards they pick out and if I get something right then I’ll shout out “I’M PSYCHIC!”

Reading tarot cards would make for a great party trick, but I’m only thinking about this now because it’s October and the month of Halloween stuff. Creepy Suzanne gets to come up out of the basement. Oh, how I’ve missed her (Michael has not). I get to put my Halloween wreath which turned out to be way cooler than my Christmas wreath. I have already bought one pumpkin covered in green warts. I don’t know why I get so excited about putting up these decorations. We never have trick-or-treaters. Our mail person has commented about how we always have the best pumpkins. Maybe that’s why I get excited. I know those decorations bring so much joy to our mail person.

Any way, I’ll read the cards for you if I ever get a deck. I’m sure you’ll have good fortune.