Britannia Ovens (esp Range cookers) your experience

[Chucky Mama]

My 3 are out of the village with friends, YS has gone dressed as Wagner I haven't had any callers yet. I have one lucky dip bag that has sweets and another that has sweets, squashy bananas, peas and squash carrots

[Charlottechicken]

Just had 4 trick or chancers at the door. Four local under eight girls wandering around the street knocking on all the doors, and they aren't even dressed up!

 

By the time I got to the door they had moved on several houses, thankfully.

 

The only people who trick or treat round here are the little rogues

[CallyChook]

not a knock, so I get to eat my ferrero rocher all to myself (friend bought me so many treats, I have chocolate to last at least a week now )

 

In a nutshell... paganism is a broad umbrella term for any religion other than christianity, but has become more widely used for a religion which has more than one deity. So you could say that hindus are pagans. Neopaganism is a more accurate way to describe what I am, and that is still a very broad term, which includes everything from wicca, druids, celts and even egyptian deity worshiping folks. Or as my gran likes to say, "all those people who have no sense of a colour palette when they dress and have a tendancy to smell of incense like a hippy's van".

 

I can't say I agree with her description, but I do rather wear tie died skirts and have a fondness for silver pendants. Hippy's van though? Hmmm....

 

A silver pentacle represents the five elements in nature - earth air fire and water, together with "spirit", and the circle is the human body encompassing all to create life. It's mostly used by wiccans but is becoming more a sign of someone of any pagan branch!

[Cinnamon]

I am a non religious person,although I do find some religions like Paganism,Hinduism & the Jewish religion quite fascinating in their rituals & beliefs.

I believe our differences are something to celebrate rather than fight about or argue over,or in the most extreme cases,go to war over

 

One measley little trick or treater here..............which means there are 11 M&S chocolate lollies left over

[craftyhunnypie]

Thank you for outlining Paganism. I tried to look it up on the web, but got confused. It all sounds very sensible to me. I too like knowing of different beliefs & respect them. I had a Hindu wedding which I truly loved the rituals of. We still have our original coconut that we offer flowers to on the top of it. Has a Chrysanth on at the moment.

Wicca scares me a bit, but only because it's a fear of the un known. In other words, I don't know much about it & think it's all black magic - which it clearly isn't. I always think of the Wicca man film - very scary!

Do Pagans have altars with candles & gift offerings? Oh & is there something like a corn dolly that they make at rituals?

I know there is a place in the main street of Dollgellau, Wales that has a witchy room upstairs for learning & rituals - think it's called The Crafty Cauldron. Oh & in Austria, you can actually study witchcraft!

http://www.hexenschule.eu/hexenschule-e.html

 

Not one trick or treater so we have loads of sweets, choccy bars & choccy fudgey cupcakes. Mmmmmm midnight feast anyone?

 

Emma.x

[Mollie333]

Went to Disneyland Paris last year, didn't do anything this year..

[Seagazer]

We had about 6 different groups of little kiddies round.

 

I was holding out the bowl with the sweets in to one group when all of a sudden this Frankenstein came from around the side of my porch and went boo. Well the sweets nearly ended up on the floor and I nearly had a heart attack. It was a Dad, I did say to my OH he would have to open the door after that.

[bluekarin]

We've just had our second lot of trick or treaters at the door. My youngest held our siamese up to the window so you all you could see was his head between the curtains, and then lifted him up and down - it was very effective- a floating cats head well, his name is Boo!

 

LOVE it! Well we had the grand total of 2 groups of trick or treaters. We usually get at least 7, so a quiet year this year. I went out with DS and YD (ED didn't want to come) with a few friends and their mums round a different area just a few roads away, where one of the others kids lives. Hopefully people will think they were well behaved as we made sure they said thank you, weren't too loud and only knocked at the houses with something Halloween outside. One poor house though we thought was up for tricksters, but it turns out it was their house number, 31, which was a colour changing thing I was amazed at how many sweets the kids were given. And, when we got back home, ED was a bit miffed at the amount of sweets and said she'd come next year

[patsylabrador]

Sadly, the evening reverted to type around here. Our road has been reduced to one lane because of roadworks, which is often terrifying because it is still used by emergency services as a fast route but they are allowed to hurtle down towards oncoming traffic which horrifies me as we have an S bend with no vision at the end. So what do you do if you're intent on being a nuisance on Halloween? You throw the sandbags and cones into the usable traffic lane and cause utter chaos, I was so worried that an emergency vehicle would race down and not see them in time. I had just had my bath so didn't really want to go out and drag around cones etc about but luckily a couple of motorists cleared the road.

After that I was not going to open the door and at about 10pm there was knocking on the door and giggling which I ignored, after a couple more knocks my son called through the letterbox, 'Mum, let me in', he was there with his new girlfriend. They thought it was funny.

My daughter dressed up as a Slytherin girl and spent the evening in Windsor. She said it was spookily quiet.

I still like Halloween even if some people try to spoil it.

[CallyChook]

Wicca scares me a bit, but only because it's a fear of the un known. In other words, I don't know much about it & think it's all black magic - which it clearly isn't. I always think of the Wicca man film - very scary!

Do Pagans have altars with candles & gift offerings? Oh & is there something like a corn dolly that they make at rituals?

Emma.x

 

your wedding sounds wonderful, I love the hindu marriage ceremony (as much as I have seen on telly and been talked through from my friend's photographs).

 

Yes pagans have altars, or at least we do and most of my friends do too. We do our rituals in a magic circle - rather than dedicate a whole room to religion though, I have quite a practical approach - my altar packs up into a box, and we just have a bookshelf "permanently" dedicated for passing prayers and daily thoughts. The box comes out whenever I want to do something bigger or more formal. I have a roll of white carpet 10' x10' that stores in the airing cupboard with a circle 9' diameter mapped out so that I dont have to measure every time, I just unfurl the carpet!

 

On my altar I have two carved figures, one of the male god with a large *ahem* and one of the goddess, she is very erm bountiful? in appearance! Candles are coloured appropriately to what the ritual involves, last time was a money spell and I used blue. Incense in the same theme too, such as frankinsense for a money spell or rose for a love spell. When I work a spell, I also make a cake or bread to represent earth (incense being air and candles fire) and have a cup of wine. The left over cake and wine after ritual is always given as a libation to the gods. Sometimes I will have crystals or photos, pictures, whatever goes with my ritual....

 

Dollies... well, at certain festivals I have made a corn dolly, the last time was at mabon (autumn equinox) last yr. It's not a poppet though - which is the kind of dolly that represents a person in a spell - it was an offering to the goddess in thanks for her bounty at the second harvest. You can make a corn poppet, and even try darker magic using dagards (pins) a la voodoo and myth - but "white witchy"/wiccans and pagans believe in the wiccan reed - do as ye will, an it harm none (do whatever magic you please and live as you wish, so long as you don't wish harm) and also believe that any evil or malintent sent against a person will come back three fold to the caster.

 

Basically, as far as I have experienced, wiccans are very kind people who don't do dark magic. Then there's hedgewitches, like me - old lore, holistic remedies and bubbling cauldrons. I also have strong beliefs on the darker side of the world, and have been described as a bit of a "brutal pagan", but that's a long story!

 

 

sorry for hijacking the thread!!

[meezers]

Only 3 lots of trick or treaters last night. But some little toerag has nicked our pumpkin It didn't take me long to carve, but I wanted it for the chooks . Was looking forward to giving it to them at treat time. I've even wandered up the road to see if it was left on someones doorstep, but no sign of it did notice a neighbour with 2 smaller pumpkins though, might go and beg those later

[chickencam]

I can appreciate Halloween as a pagan festival, but I hate the commercial side to it.

 

We took the children out dressed up when they were younger, but only ever to houses where we kew we would be welcome. It was OH who induldged them if it had been left to me they would have stayed indoors. I always have a few sweets on hand but hope that no one will call, which for 2 years running now they haven't, we only usually got the lad next door anyway and he is 15 now so usually out and about elsewhere.

 

YD went over to our neighbours who are her godparents on Saturday evening with a couple of gifts from our holiday, she thought it was halloween and gave her 4 apples and 4 chocolate bars and the usual packet of out of date crisps (2 months over this year) We had already agreed that the children wouldn't go out this year. YD did carve a witch into a pumpkin which we lit up outside and it has been made into a lovely spiced leek and pumpkin soup today. I can't stand throwing them out they always end up as soup because we grown them ourselves.

[chickenNutter]

We had a smashing halloween, with loads of young trick or treaters with their parents, all good natured, even four 14 year old girls whose bluff my husband called and sid 'trick!' they replied that something terrible would happen in the next 5 minutes. 5 minutes later the doorbell duly rang again and the four had arranged themselves on the floor all over our porch and steps and the path outside, looking like a bad accident! We all had a good laugh and gave them the goodies.

 

I know some people think that Halloween has become Americanised, but in fact it has always been big in some ares - including here in Lancashire, particularly East Lancs as we have a long tradition going back to the trials of the Lancashire Witches, so even when I was a child it was customary to dress up and go round the streets scaring people, even if we didn't get sweets. I don't think the trick or treat thing is a huge leap forward from our old traditions, and as long as it isn't used by older yobs to casue trouble there's nothing wrong with it. I am grateful to the yanks that we are now growing pumpkins in large quantities - we used to have to use large swedes to make lanterns, which are hard as rock and take hours to carve into a semblance of a lantern!

 

I get a big bucket of treats and put Pumpkin lanterns out, it is great fun. We also had a girlie halloween sleepover going on for DD age 12, so it was fun all round. Roll on bonfire night!

[Alis girls]

Went T and Ting with 2 friends and kids. We were like the witches of Eastwick and my broom was savaged by a passing dog Also had the darned thing back to front - would be useless as a witch me thinks

[sari]

Wicca scares me a bit, but only because it's a fear of the un known. In other words, I don't know much about it & think it's all black magic - which it clearly isn't. I always think of the Wicca man film - very scary!

Do Pagans have altars with candles & gift offerings? Oh & is there something like a corn dolly that they make at rituals?

Emma.x

 

your wedding sounds wonderful, I love the hindu marriage ceremony (as much as I have seen on telly and been talked through from my friend's photographs).

 

Yes pagans have altars, or at least we do and most of my friends do too. We do our rituals in a magic circle - rather than dedicate a whole room to religion though, I have quite a practical approach - my altar packs up into a box, and we just have a bookshelf "permanently" dedicated for passing prayers and daily thoughts. The box comes out whenever I want to do something bigger or more formal. I have a roll of white carpet 10' x10' that stores in the airing cupboard with a circle 9' diameter mapped out so that I dont have to measure every time, I just unfurl the carpet!

 

On my altar I have two carved figures, one of the male god with a large *ahem* and one of the goddess, she is very erm bountiful? in appearance! Candles are coloured appropriately to what the ritual involves, last time was a money spell and I used blue. Incense in the same theme too, such as frankinsense for a money spell or rose for a love spell. When I work a spell, I also make a cake or bread to represent earth (incense being air and candles fire) and have a cup of wine. The left over cake and wine after ritual is always given as a libation to the gods. Sometimes I will have crystals or photos, pictures, whatever goes with my ritual....

 

Dollies... well, at certain festivals I have made a corn dolly, the last time was at mabon (autumn equinox) last yr. It's not a poppet though - which is the kind of dolly that represents a person in a spell - it was an offering to the goddess in thanks for her bounty at the second harvest. You can make a corn poppet, and even try darker magic using dagards (pins) a la voodoo and myth - but "white witchy"/wiccans and pagans believe in the wiccan reed - do as ye will, an it harm none (do whatever magic you please and live as you wish, so long as you don't wish harm) and also believe that any evil or malintent sent against a person will come back three fold to the caster.

 

Basically, as far as I have experienced, wiccans are very kind people who don't do dark magic. Then there's hedgewitches, like me - old lore, holistic remedies and bubbling cauldrons. I also have strong beliefs on the darker side of the world, and have been described as a bit of a "brutal pagan", but that's a long story!

 

 

sorry for hijacking the thread!!

 

 

I'm the other end of the spectrum, I suppose....I have a kitchen window sill...which has the OH's Buddha on one end..with incense and flowers...and my stuff on the other..with a lovely green man my daughter made me at Pre school...and a couple of curved stones, to represent the feminine divine...I have got a wall hanging the girls bought me for Christmas, which is a green man and woman in a pentagram, with seasons of th year etc on it....not strictly my taste but they bought it with their pocket money.... I have season appropriate flowers, conkers, fruits etc..pictures of people in need, things I pick up on walks or in the garden. I found a beautiful owl feather in the garden the other day, and that went on the window sill. I can also see the Hare in the fields..and consider that a gift from my kitchen goddess!! etc...and it gives me a small place to focus on when I'm thinking....I'm almost a secular Pagan, as I don't really believe in a god and goddess...the Earth is my divine object..and I believe in male and female " energy for want of a better word....I'm full of good intentions..don't do spells or formal rites, the closest I get is lighting candles and incense, and focussing my thoughts.