July 30th, 2016

I'd like to share a cool weather charm I learned to make while in Japan. I used it today, and it worked... well, like a charm!

These little guys are called Teru Teru Bōzu (照る照る坊主), "teru" meaning "shine", and "bōzu" meaning "monk". The ones in the picture above are fairly elaborate, decorative varieties, but the ones I learned to make were quite simple.

You need:

• Two (2) sheets of paper
• I used regular printer paper, but cloth or tissue paper is probably more traditional
• String or a rubber band
• Marker(s)
• Other decorations as desired

Begin by taking one sheet of paper and wadding it into a firm ball. Take the second sheet and pull it tightly over the ball to make a sort of ghost shape, with the ball-containing end becoming the head. Tie a string or rubber band around the charm to hold the ball inside the second sheet of paper. (Ever make ghost lollipops for Halloween/Samhain? It's the same principle.) Then draw on a face or otherwise decorate.

These "shining monks" are weather charms which became popular in the Edo period and are still used today. I was taught to make them by some high school students in a Japanese farm town. The Teru Teru Bōzu are hung up outside under the eaves to keep away rain before big outdoor events like school picnics and etcetera. They can also be hung upside-down to invite rain during a dry spell.

We were supposed to have big thunderstorms all day today, but it was my town's annual summer parade and carnival, and I really didn't want the festivities getting rained out. I set out my Teru Teru Bōzu (pictured below), and while we had some pretty dark clouds go by for a while, we never got rained on, and actually had some sun and blue sky by afternoon!

Apparently, there is a traditional nursery rhyme (warabe uta) which can be sung along with their use. I'll add the translation under the YouTube link.

Lyric Translation:

Teru-teru-bozu, teru bozu
Make tomorrow a sunny day
Like the sky in a dream sometime
If it’s sunny I’ll give you a golden bell.

Teru-teru-bozu, teru bozu
Make tomorrow a sunny day
If you make my wish come true
We’ll drink lots of sweet sake.

Teru-teru-bozu, teru bozu
Do make tomorrow a sunny day
but if it’s cloudy and I find you crying
Then I shall snip your head off.

Spooky Yellowstone

While we were in Montana, on the way up to Glacier, we stopped for a few hours in the town of Livingston. Long considered the "gateway to Yellowstone", Livingston has had a long history of locomotive activity and tourism, and we spent time in their local railway museum. While there, I purchased a book about hauntings in Yellowstone, because I was not aware there were any, and it seemed like it might be neat to learn about them before we went there.

Title: Spooky Yellowstone: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore

Author: S. E. Schlosser

© 2013

Schlosser is a storyteller with a literature degree, who also developed and maintains AmericanFolklore.net, a site which collects folklore from across North and Central America, with legends from all fifty states. Her book, Spooky Yellowstone, draws on a wide variety of resources, including websites, newspapers, personal interviews, and texts.

The book opens with a map of Yellowstone marking places where the various sightings Schlosser recounts took place. I appreciated the inclusion of such a map, not only because it gives a visual of the spread of incidents across the park, but also because it makes it easier to compare to an actual map and find potential ghost-sighting routes. I wasn't able to convince my family to go ghost-hunting (we were a little pressed for time as it was), but we did pass by some allegedly haunted areas, which was neat to make note of.

Part One of the text retells 13 different accounts of ghost sightings, some of them modern and some of them hearkening back to the early days of the national park. My personal favorite was the story of a ghost train on the Cinnabar track ruts. While some of them felt more authentic than others, these were stories which on the whole were fairly straightforward tales of the paranormal.

Part Two goes on to describe other miscellaneous occurrences outside the explicable. Some of them resemble hauntings in nature, or, as in Fire!, examples of psychometry in action, with participants accidentally touching on a strong memory related to an area. Others were stranger, including one Bigfoot sighting, and one story of black magic gone wrong which was a bit too far-fetched for me.

Spooky Yellowstone was an interesting text with some stories that make me wish all the more that we could have spent longer exploring the national park. That being said, some of them also struck me as being a bit dubious. Was it fun to read? Yes. However, I would not call it a comprehensive guide to finding ghosts in Yellowstone. For me, it probably falls into that category of books which I liked, but did not need to pay full price for.

April 24th, 2016

Had a busy but good day today, part of which involved heading over to the Gaia House for a few hours, to enjoy a reception for the artists who have work in the Pagan art exhibit which has been on display there this month. We enjoyed coffee, lemonade, and an assortment of little snacks, and generally were able just to hang out and chat.

My painting, with description, that I've had hanging up.

A collection of paintings, all by one lovely individual.

A series of nature photography, all by another artist.

Triple Goddess painting by one of our more Norse-inclined practitioners.

These two photos, by SIPA director Tara, have a rather interesting story. They were taken on vacation while visiting a haunted potter's field of unnamed soldiers. Apparently, just after these were taken (on actual film, not digitally), it started to storm, so obviously there was not enough sunlight to cause lens flare (the white patches on the photos are just glare on the glossy paper; the orange is actually present). Also, these were the only two photos on the whole strip of film with these strange colors, so it couldn't have been water damage. As such, Tara's thought is that she caught some spirits on camera. The one in the top photo actually even looks humanoid.

Me with my painting.

Hand-made grimoire.

Set of runes.

And just for good measure, this is the spiral garden I helped build last spring. As you can see, the plants are pretty well-established now. The sage and kale really took over, so that's pretty much what's growing at this point.