30 Days of Witchcraft: Aesthetic

I'm using the term to mean personal style.

I've loved Halloween as long as I've known about it, and delighted in the dark and dreary, the macabre and abandoned. I have a small collection of post-mortem Victorian photography. And the tradition continued in my family into the 1990s, when Grandpa died in 95. Mom sent his sister a photo of him laid out, since Aunt Wilma was unable to fly.

But my aesthetic is Witch Kitsch. I have a dozen (that's 13) signs in my house and on my door. Everything from Lucky Raven Cafe and Sleepy Hollow Inn (Broom Service available) to the one above the broom on the door that reads "come in for a spell." Even a little one that says "Yes, I do know how to drive a stick" under a broom.

If I still presented female, I would be all long gray hair and flowy skirts.
I'm more practical, jeans and novelty tee-shirts and an apron because I'm usually in the kitchen.



Also: Research a path that is not yours.

Hereditary witchcraft fascinates me. The women in my family are quite mad (5 generations of them), very psychic and not one would claim to be a witch.
I mean, we did the megavitamin and health food thing in the 1970s. We used certain herbal remedies: slippery elm for sore throats, peppermint for upset stomachs, aloe for burns, Vitamin B1 to ward off mosquitos. My grandfathers planted by the signs, just as their almanac said to.
But we were Methodist or Baptist (depending on the year), and we didn't subscribe to a lot of superstition.
My kids grew up with me reading weather signs. Olivia does it herself now and is usually right. They know how to ward and shield and ground. They knew I could make money happen when it was vital. They know I am not afraid to hex the daylights out of people who need it. And have done so several times, most recently, my grandson's birth father who was sending criminal buddies to harass my daughter-in-law.

I wonder if my kids will pass it on, and if we have started a hereditary witchcraft family of our own.