Moonshadow And Altar Time

Book of Seasons and Festivities

I wanted to share some images of my work so far in a book of holidays, seasonal religious and cultural celebrations for my own personal path. :)

St. Mary Magdalene's Day - July 22

I fell ill that day, but I still want to post something regarding this wonderful saint.

Known as 'The Apostle of the Apostles', Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus's most beloved disciples. She is steeped in controversy and mystery through the many legends surrounding her origins and her connection to Jesus. She has been known as Jesus's companion and partner as early as 1500 years ago through the Gospel of Philip in the Gnostic faith, and she is seen often in Gnostic texts (way before Dan Brown entertained the thought she was Jesus's wife).

The Easter egg is rumored to be connected to her, as she is the first to see Christ's Tomb empty, and shows the disciples this news by showing them an egg turned red by God.

In folk traditions, Mary Magdalene is invoked in magic spells, especially love magic. The eve of her feast is believed to be a great time for prophetic dreams. She is the patron saint of beauticians, hairdressers, aromatherapists, perfumers, pharmacists, lovers, prostitutes, prisoners, and any who pine after someone else.

France is where she is most commonly celebrated. There are about 125 shrines in her name. Legend has it that she fled the Holy Land and isolated in a cave in France, where she communed with angels, and became a mystic in Christian thought.

So, for her feast day, it can be a good time for:

-Divination by chalice (for her connection with the Holy Grail)

-Dream spells

-Love spells

-Meditations for connecting to your power

-Women's health campaigns

-Studying any metaphysical texts with active learning

-gifts of myrrh, a perfume bottle, and wine on the altar

Mhm God I love seeing landscapes like this! It calls out to me!

Waiting for the storm - stormy morning in the Ecrins National Park, France - @gregoire_pns_photography [OC 2000x3000] - Author: greg_pns

as a trans man who feels a loving presence in my transition and in my faith, I needed to share this 🏳️‍⚧️❤️

today in church one of the priests referred to trans people as "those who are growing into the gender they were called to be" and i'm kind of enjoying the idea of like....divinely ordained top surgery

progress

Progress on my nativity scene box :) though I'm still pondering what to do on the outside of the box...

Holy Saturday’s vigil was lovely, even as I was visiting my in-laws and I didn’t have my altar cabinet or a church nearby who offered the service.

My paschal candle was prepared with my pocket knife with the Cross, Alpha and Omega and the year’s numbers, blessed with holy water and the ashes from the cut up bits of palm frond. I read from the Old Testament and the Gospel of Luke 24:1-12 (since in 2025, we are in Year C of the Lectionnary), read out the Litany of Saints, and played the Excelsis Deo with the ringing bells at around midnight. It was a simple and moving rite, and one that I love to take, since it has a section in the scripts used to undertake a renewal of baptism and vows.

My mom went to a church in St. Ambroise, in Saguenay for her vigil. She brought back a vigil candle, and Lillie was intrigued!

A Happy Easter to all the faithful, and I hope your day is filled with joy and love among your families and friends!

"Totentanz/Danse Macabre" Probably one of my most well known & and most fitting for the season piece is once again available as a tapestry print!

Google Docs

Werewolves Tapestry Pre-Order 2024

Pre-order for the following selection of tapestries: "Shapeshifter" "Totentanz" "Transmutation" "Nachtschwärmer" "13 - Death" "Perchta" "Bi

Legend of St. Hubert, oil con canvas. — Samuel John Carter (British, 1835-1892)

Folk Ways for an Acadian or French Canadian folk practitioner -The Heavens

Here are some Acadian folk beliefs tied to the skies and its celestial bodies. It is to note that Acadians lived by the tides of the ocean, and that these would create all kinds of folk sayings. The high times of the universe "les temps forts" were when powerful things could happen, such as when the moon was at its fullest and the tide at its highest (a child born at that time would be destined to become physically strong), or the night would be at its absolute darkest (when "revenants" or deadwalkers/ghosts were known to visit their family homes.)

*My painting of the Virgin Mary is in progress meanwhile.*

The Moon

When the moon is full, it's an opportune time to cut hair (it will grow back thicker), to slaughter pork (it will sell at a profit), and to split firewood (it will give off more heat), and to prune onion shoots (they will grow more full).

When the moon wanes, especially in the month of March, wood cut to make fences will not rot. It is also the best phase to sow root vegetable seeds, such as carrots. Wood cut to make sled runners need to be cut during this phase.

When the moon waxes, you must sow the other vegetables (tomatoes, peas, beans) and grain crops (wheat, barley). This phase is reputedly so strong, it can turn a post into a tree.

When the moon is new, if the horns of the moon point upwards, it won't rain, since you can hang a bucket on its horns. If the horns are pointing down, it's a sign of bad weather ahead. This is an awful rime to cut your hair, as the hair will grow too quickly.

The Stars

It is optimal to plant your garden the day after a particularly starry night.

When the stars are "creuses", or not many in the sky, it announces cold weather for the next day.

source: Dupont, Jean-Claude. Héritage d'Acadie. Collection Connaissance, editions Leméac, 1977.

I love how my community groups together to learn together! Keep sharing resources, and someday we may have a book on the shelves for our practice :)

Hello! i just discovered your account. I read the same chapter in the North American Folk Magic book and felt connected to it through my french canadian ancestors. I’m having trouble locating books or really anything about these folk traditions. Do you have any to recommend? thank you so much <3

Hello! :)

I’m so sorry this has taken me months to reply to—I’ve had a reply half-written in my drafts for ages, but the end of the year was crazy so I wasn’t able to finish writing it until now. Hopefully this is still helpful!

I’m going to start off by saying that I’m by no means an expert on this topic (I’m fairly new to reconnecting to these practices), so I’m probably missing some key sources. My French is very poor, so I’m unable to read a lot of the sources that are out there—especially Quebec-specific sources, which are often written in French.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any French Canadian folk magic 101 books (at least not that I know of!) out there, so we have to get a bit creative when it comes to sources.

First, I highly recommend checking out the website Courir le loup-garou (link)! They have a lot of articles about different aspects of Acadian and French Canadian witchcraft (sorcellerie). All of their articles are bilingual, and it’s an excellent, accessible resource to get you started. They also have a page on there with sources they’ve used (books, articles, etc.), so it might be helpful to take a look at those.

I’ll also direct you to @lesorciercanadien, who is a practitioner with excellent informational posts, as well as sources cited that you can comb through.

There is a podcast episode of Three Witches and a Druid, interviewing Laurence Cote, who is a French Canadian folk practitioner, about the subject. Link (goes to the Apple podcast app) here.

Another thing to do is to look at the living culture of your family members or people you know. Personally, my Acadian side of the family are very Christian and have no ties to any sort of magic or animistic beliefs—they don’t even pray to saints, which is a common aspect of French folk practices. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing for me to work with! Just means I have to be creative. For example, my Acadian family members use summer savoury in a lot of traditional recipes (meat pies, chicken fricot, stuffing on Christmas), so that’s an herb that I incorporate into my craft a lot of the time.

Food is an excellent and accessible form of culture that you can utilize in your own practice. By looking at common ingredients and working with the spirits of those plants and herbs, for example, or by practicing kitchen witchcraft as you try different recipes. I’ve found this a great way of connecting with my ancestors—following family recipes or even looking up Acadian recipes online and devoting that time spent cooking to those ancestors. It always makes me feel closer to them.

Similarly, I find that listening to traditional music is a great way of connecting to these ancestors. I’m unsure if it’s the same for general French Canadians, but I grew up listening to my Acadian family from New Brunswick playing folk music—specifically fiddles and mandolins and banjos. Sometimes I listen to this music as a way of reconnecting to that side of the family.

Another way to find sources is academic journals, and these will usually be articles about folklore, history, or religion. Use Google Scholar/JSTOR/etc. and search terms like the following ones: "province name"/"quebec"/“acadian”/“french canadian”/"city name" AND "witchcraft"/"folklore"/"magic"/"folk healer." Etc. These aren't always exciting reads, and sometimes the research goes nowhere, but I've found some amazing info this way.

Another type of source to look out for is folklore books—specifically ones related to French Canadian folklore. I was going to insert the name of an old one I read a while ago here, but unfortunately I’ve misplaced the name. I’ll include it here if I find it.

The story of Evangeline is one that is incredibly important in Acadian folklore, and the epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is worth a read. Evangeline is a folk hero to many, and is honoured by some folk practitioners.

I’ll also note that there tend to be a lot of awful racist stereotypes related to Indigenous people in some of the older articles and books about witchcraft in Canada, so that’s something to keep in mind as you do research.

Many of the mentions of Indigenous peoples within the particular papers I have read are due to the close ties some Acadian and Mi’kmaq peoples had with each other historically, which led to cross-cultural communication, trade, kinship, and the sharing of beliefs and knowledge. For example, the northern lights have shared folkloric beliefs for both cultures, which shows the cross-cultural communication that took place between them.

Until someone writes a comprehensive French Canadian or Acadian folk magic book, this is what we’ve got—unless there is a wonderful source out there that I haven’t come across yet! It’s a lot of work to dig through all of these sources to piece together your own folk practice, but I find it very rewarding. Putting in all that work just makes you feel all the more connected to the practices you’re doing, and it’s very worthwhile, at least to me!

Again, sorry this took so long, and I hope it helps! Happy new year :)