Signs and Omens
T his chapter is itself a compendium of information about divination and reading the signs. Betwixt the good earth and the blue sky, there are many things that influence the lives of the people in southern Appalachia. We are going to start with divination and reading omens, grounded in the thin soil, and surge upward to consider the effects of the moon and other planets on planting procedures and magical techniques in the region. There are techniques that are practiced here, including tea leaf and coffee grounds reading, scrying, and cartomancy (card reading).
As we explored in the previous chapter, the folk magic of this region is often concerned with healing, whether ailments or situations, and also with what the future will bring, which is determined by reading signs and omens, and consulting different forms of divination. That’s probably true of most folk magics. When I teach about these folkways, I frequently say that clients’ needs fall into a few simple categories—resources, luck, health, love, and justice/revenge. It’s a helpful grouping for discerning what’s what and whether you can help.
I encounter this so often and I don’t have a name for this set of esoteric skills, skills that seem to be inherited in some way. They include prophetic dreams, hands-on healing, second sight, overlooking (a kind of remote viewing), and seeing the dead and hearing their voices. We discussed the Scots-Irish and some of the seemingly natural gifts that flow into their Appalachian descendants. When I was growing up, I was told that when I became a woman (had my first menstrual period), I’d inherit one of the family gifts. I’m not the only one to be told this in that way, and ours is not the only family to pass this down—far from it.
Once a young woman I didn’t know sat down opposite me for a tarot reading. As is my custom, I asked her what she was looking for. I listened as I shuffled the cards and laid them out, facedown. She answered in a quiet voice. I want to know if I’m crazy. I looked up then into her pale, strained face. She told me she knew things she shouldn’t know, that she saw ghosts and heard their voices. I held out both my hands and she gripped them tightly. Where are your people from? I asked. McDowell County, she replied. Before that? The answer was evident in her milk-white skin and auburn hair. My people are English and Scotch-Irish. I squeezed her hands, asked her to take a deep breath, and then told her what her family should have told her years before, about those peculiar skills that often manifest in the descendants of Scots-Irish and Scottish immigrants.
I was angry on her behalf and for all the descendants of immigrants who brought more than hopes and dreams to their new country. Skills that their Christian families are often terrified and suspicious of, assuming them to be “of the devil.” And instead of encouraging these helpful, often practical, abilities, those who exhibit them are punished, shunned, and terrorized in order to save their souls. These children are never told about their great-aunt and how she knew all the news before anyone else in a way that honored her. Instead they’re excused as the weird or tetched relative, belittled, betrayed. I talk to people across the Appalachian diaspora who shut down their gifts in order to stop the parental censure, only to discover that their grandmother had the same abilities, that it runs in the family. I was lucky, possibly because my parents weren’t religious is any recognizable way. I was told about it in a perfectly natural way and it became a perfectly natural part of my life as I grew up. I did the same for my daughter, and one day, if she chooses to, she will pass the information on to her children.
Prophetic Dreaming
Prophetic dreaming includes dreams of events that later come to pass and recurring dreams that warn of danger. The latter vary person to person, and tradition tells us that the content of the dream must never be shared or the gift will be lost. These are the dreams my grandmother had, the ones that colored my childhood. I also have them but irregularly.
Second Sight
Second sight is popular in fiction and film. It is also called “knowing” or “having a knowing” about a person or event. It is also well documented in folklore circles. In Gaeilge, it is an da shealladh or d-shealladh, which means “two-sighted.” In my experience, second sight begins at the first signs of puberty when it joins other confusing physical issues. It sometimes manifests sporadically and usually includes foreknowledge of an immediate event. You’re walking in the city with your kid, starting to cross the street, and she pulls you back onto the sidewalk just as a car runs the red light. It could be a coincidence, but it should pique your interest. It may seem like a difficult conversation with a child but your honesty and care will help them deal with a gift that is useful but too often misunderstood. It will help them understand that they aren’t “crazy.” We’ve given a whole new spin on the concept of “the talk.” You can do it. Be gentle and share what you know.
Some of these gifts are forbidden by some of the religious groups in the area, groups that view them as demonic and anti-Christian. There are families that practice these skills quietly and avoid public rebuke. In any case, the skills are useful and traditionally practiced by the people here.
Overlooking, or Remote Viewing
I’ve been thinking about what I learned as a youngster about “overlooking” and sometimes “looking over”—a remote viewing technique that I’ve tried with some success. The point is to check out what someone is up to though they are physically far from you. It was years later I discovered that it was also called remote viewing. In this age of video chat, it seems so unnecessary. But it’s an elegant nod to old traditional ways and you may want to give it a try.
Here is the technique I learned and the one I use. Set up a mirror on a sturdy table so that it sits at a slight angle away from you as you sit. Put a medium-size taper candle in a low candle holder and light it, allowing the flame to settle. Turn off the lights so that the room is dark except for the light of the taper. You’ll see the flame, reflected in the mirror, as well as your face lit by the candle. Look away from the actual flame and focus on its reflection, the candle in the mirror. Breathe your way to some quietude. Breathe. Breathe. Look past the candle in the mirror and into the reflection of the darkened room. Bring to your mind the place or person you want to observe. In your mind’s eye, trace the features of the face or location. Keep breathing as your eyes search the darkness in the mirror. You may need to focus on a particular aspect in order to connect in—your daughter’s braided hair, your mother’s hands. When you start to bring that into view, you can begin to build the rest of your loved one and then watch what they’re doing. Start with a short session but expect that most sessions should be brief, no more than fifteen minutes. You can adjust the placement of the candle and the mirror as you tune in, and it sometimes helps to unfocus your eyes. This technique was popular with mothers who continued to live in the homeplace after the children had moved into town for work or marriage.
Cartomancy
Reading cards has been a hushed-up activity for a long time here, mostly because strong Baptists find playing cards a gateway to worse vices. So there were folks, mostly women, in my experience, who squirreled away a battered deck of playing cards that were never used for card games because that was dangerous. I learned this method of cartomancy early on before I got a partial tarot deck (major arcana only) in a book from a Scholastic book fair in junior high school. It is a handy skill to have and was often used to see how an illness would go or if a love match would prosper. The cards are usually wrapped in a piece of pretty cloth, like a linen hanky, and tucked away in a drawer until needed. I never knew anyone who had a particular layout for a reading, like we do today. The cards were mixed up or shuffled briefly and several cards laid out in a row on the table.
The first time this was done for me, a neighbor sat me down at her little table and went to get the cards. There was a question she needed answered about a family member and this seemed the best way to go about that. She came back to the table, unwrapped the little deck and shuffled it twice. Slowly she laid out the cards, going from right to left. Eight cards were carefully settled, one after another and faceup. She wrapped the rest of the deck and sat back with her hands resting on the edge of the table. She studied the message and nodded, having gotten her answer. She told me what each suit meant. Hearts are for love and family, spades for health and death, diamonds for money and luck, and clubs for work. Any reversed cards were turned right-side up, as I recall. When the answer was clear, the cards were rewrapped and carefully put back into that dark drawer until they were needed again.
Scrying Methods
I taught myself tea leaf reading, though it is traditional in these parts. The technique involves using loose tea and using the dregs of it for divination purposes. Warm your teapot and make sure your tea water comes to a full boil. Choose the tea that suits your fancy and use a palmful for each cup in the pot. If you’ve warmed your pot by filling it with hot water, dump the water out and throw the loose leaves in. Pour boiling water onto the leaves and allow the tea to steep to the desired strength. Enjoy it with a friend by pouring the steeped tea through a strainer and into cups. At the end of the pot, bypass the strainer and pour the tea dregs into each cup. Sip away as much of the tea as possible and pour the wet dregs onto a saucer. Swirl it around a little and look at the patterns the dregs make in the saucer. You can use the symbols for reading playing cards as a guide. Do the tea leaves look like a heart? Love and family. You get the drift. There are common symbols for everyday things, but it’s best if you decide what those symbols mean to you. It looks like a tree—what do trees mean to you? Your love of nature or your need to be there more often perhaps?
Coffee grounds are done the same way. You can use a French press to brew your coffee, and be sure to leave a little coffee in the press so that it pours onto your saucer easily. Then scry those squiggles and see what your drink is telling you about your life and your future.
There is a small cast-iron frying pan that hangs on the pot rack with my other cookware. Too small for much except melting butter or frying up one egg. It’s well seasoned, of course, as any cast-iron cookware should be in an Appalachian kitchen. But I don’t use it for cooking. I put a cup of water in it, light a candle, and turn off the overhead light in the kitchen. Then I use it as a scrying mirror. People use scrying, as they do overlooking, for a variety of things, but mostly it’s a predictive tool. This is not traditional—as far as I know I invented it and yet I can see our foremothers gazing into a pan of water on the cookstove and peering into the future. There are many tools for scrying and many ways to do it, but I love my little cast-iron scrying pan.
On my way to a speaking and teaching engagement in upstate New York, I stopped overnight in a funky roadside motel. It was neither clean nor well furnished, but it was cheap. Next morning I checked out and the surly front desk clerk mentioned a current event that was puzzling to her. I shrugged and said I would get my cards out later and see what was going on. Her entire demeanor changed and she grinned at me. “You read tarot?”
Tarot rhymed with carrot but I nodded yes. She yelled for someone in the back room, who appeared in the doorway, as sullen as the clerk had been. “This lady here reads tarot!” Again, that change.
The second woman was, as they say, great with child. “Can you tell if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“She don’t have her cards.”
“Yeah, but can you tell?”
I put down my bag. “Have you done the wedding ring on a string?”
“No, we did a pencil and thread.”
I looked at her and she was carrying high, which usually means a girl in mountain lore. The woman was sad. She really wanted a boy because her husband didn’t have a son, only daughters.
I tell this story to introduce another reason that foretelling, or bodement (which is another traditional word for this), was traditionally employed—determining the sex of an unborn child. There are signs that are sometimes accurate. If pregnancy sickness happens in the morning, it’s likely a boy. If pregnancy sickness happens in the afternoon, it’s likely to be a girl. If the pregnancy brings the joy of heartburn, the baby will be born with a full head of hair.
Some of you are probably familiar with the idea of a baby born with a veil, or caul, over the face. It is a piece of amniotic sac that’s present on the face or head of a newborn child. A child born with this is thought to be born lucky and to have special abilities, including communing with the dead and second sight.
In a life bound by the strictures of birth, upbringing and religion, a mountain native was often eager to find out about the future to look forward to anticipating something wonderful or to prepare for a challenging event. There is an old mountain superstition about marriage that I have experienced. If someone sweeps under your feet while you are sitting down, you will never marry. I know for a fact that this isn’t a true thing because I stuck my feet out every time my mother swept where I was sitting reading. She dutifully swept underneath them—but I have been married now for thirty-three years.
Weather
In a land of subsistence farming, knowing the weather is vital to surviving. Predicting the extent of winter weather gives an idea of how much preparation is needed—wood for heating, hunting, preserving food, and the like. In the fall of the year, and starting as early as August, we count how many mornings begin in fog. Some folks keep a jar of beans, adding a bean for every misty morning. At the end of August, you count the beans and know how many snows there may be in the coming winter season.
The appearance of woolly worms is always a cause for strict attention. They are the caterpillar for the Isabella tiger moth (Pyrrharctia isabella) and are usually reddish-brown in the middle and black on either end. The width of the black bands indicates the extent and severity of winter weather. More black means a harsher winter. These little critters seem to be everywhere in the fall of the year as they poke around for a safe place to overwinter. There are thirteen body segments on these fine fellers and thirteen weeks of winter. Hard-core woolly worm experts figure the weather accordingly, band by band and week by week. They are such an important part of mountain folklore that the town of Banner Elk, North Carolina, holds an annual Woolly Worm Festival each October. The festival chooses a best in show. The festival features vendors, juried artists, rides, live music, and a woolly worm race. There are similar festivals in Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
Persimmons are rich and delicious fruits that seem to ripen all at once in the fall. They are used in cakes and puddings, and the seeds are cut open to reveal the weather for the coming winter. The kernel inside the body of the seed reveals itself in one of three ways. If it looks like a straight line, it predicts a harsh wind that will cut like a knife. If the kernel resembles a line with a cluster of smaller lines at one end, it is called a “fork” and foretells a mild winter. A line with a small blob at one end is referred to as a “spoon” or “shovel.” You’d be right to imagine that means a year with a lot of snow to shovel.
There are other sights and sounds that draw our attention to weather changes. When there is a rainbowlike ring around the moon, it foretells a change in weather—cold rain or even snow within three days. When leaves turn upside down—especially the leaves of poplar and maple trees—it means rain is coming. If the mountain laurel leaves are curled tight, the temperature is below 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Honeybees won’t leave their cozy hive-home if the temperature is below 50 degrees. As the twilight temperatures fall in the autumn, you may hear the cheerful buzz of jarflies (a regional name for cicadas). Once you hear a jarfly, it’s about six weeks until the first frost. Writing spiders (Argiope aurantia) are everywhere in the fall. They are large and handsome and weave zigzags into their webs. Folklore has it that if a writing spider writes your name into her web, you’re a goner. But you have to tell her your name first, so you can avoid that particular doom by keeping your mouth shut and not going around introducing yourself to big yellow spiders.
Simple Signs and Omens
What we’re discussing here are rightly called signs and omens, and people throughout the region have the ability to read both. Signs and omens are two different things though they are often lumped together. A sign is a natural and observed occurrence that gives the observer insight into current and future events. We’ve just looked at several of those, from woolly worms to persimmon seeds. An omen is usually predictive of something dire and dangerous, a warning of a future event. An omen is something naturally occurring and observed, but unusual and noteworthy. The spider writing your name in her web is an omen. Curling maple leaves are a sign. A wild bird flying into your home is an omen—another death one. When oak leaves are the size of a squirrel’s ear, it is a sign that it’s time to plant the corn.
It is common in many cultures to ask for a sign when an important decision needs to be made. Most folks will pray over it and wait to be told, which is another version of asking for a sign. Sometimes all we want is a yes or a no. When people use a pendulum, the technique is similar and it is not a subtle art. When you are asking for a sign, you may choose to be specific. If you know the land around you and the creatures that inhabit it with you, you can decide for yourself what sign constitutes an affirmative answer to your question and what sign constitutes a negative one. Here in North Carolina the official state bird is the cardinal, which is easy to spot. Say I’m looking for a sign about whether I should take a job that has been offered to me. There are pros and cons to both options. The job is equally tempting and concerning and I can’t quite decide. So I ask the powers that be for a sign. If the answer is yes, I will see a crow. If the answer is no, I’ll see a cardinal, effectively showing me the color of a stop sign. Then I wait for my sign. I may also give the powers a deadline, like three days. Or simply whichever one I see first.
The funny thing is that by asking for a sign, the answer to your question usually becomes clear as you wait for the sign. Most people I have talked to keep puzzling it out and sometimes—when that black bird shows up first—they’ve already decided which sign they want to see. Whether it is an answer from above or the currency to buy a little more thinking time, it can be a helpful trick for making a decision.
There are so many homely signs that are read daily, as casually as you would wipe off the kitchen counter. You have only to mention that your hand itches and the omen is read: right hand itches means you will soon meet a stranger. If your left hand itches, you will get some money. If your nose itches, someone is coming to visit. If your feet itch, you will walk on new land and see sights you haven’t seen before. The announcement of an impending visit is always pleasant to consider, especially in the centuries of bad roads and general isolation. If a knife is dropped on the floor, a man will visit. If a spoon, your guest will be a woman. A fork falling to the floor meant a visit from a family.
The best way to discover what was useful and used in your family begins with you listening to those old family stories and then talking to your older relatives. Best if you don’t use words like witch or magic, but ask about those old superstitions that people used to believe. You can also ask for more details in those familiar stories and see what else is remembered of those oft-repeated family myths.
It isn’t traditional, but I live by a maxim I call “one, two, three, brick wall,” and it has saved me some anxiety over the years. I offer it here for you to consider in your own work. When faced with a problem, I’ll think about the possibilities and then will do the simplest thing, which mostly works. But if it doesn’t, I kick it up a notch and check the moon phase and sign and try again. If that is still ineffective, I’ll pull out all the stops: sun, moon, what’s retrograde, herbs, a fancy robe, and a bunch of candles. I’ll give it everything I’ve got. Now if that doesn’t work, if I hit a brick wall with my hard head, I know that whatever it is simply isn’t my job to do. You see, we often want to help a person or fix a situation in whatever way we can. But sometimes an event occurs or a person is in crisis and they really need to work through it or learn a valuable life lesson. No magical system is foolproof, and no magic worker perfectly adept at all times in all ways. It’s good for us to know that we are not the most powerful force in the universe. It keeps us appropriately humble and allows us to try again.
Working with the Moon
By inclination and experience, I am a farmer, a gardener. When I’m touring around teaching and speaking, the soils of these places I wander are of great interest to me. Is it dark and loamy? Sandy? Heavy clay? The native soil here tends to be thin except along river bottom land. It must be heavily amended and built up to make most crops possible. The steep slopes were cleared for crops and the angle of the hills made it difficult to keep the soil in place.
Throughout the mountains, there are stacked stone walls, and the old-timers say that the white settlers made them for two obvious reasons: to remove the stones before and as they plowed the land and to prevent some of the inevitable erosion. These sturdy walls often mark the location of an old homestead, when the house itself is long gone and even the chimney has fallen to rubble.
The garden of my childhood was a sloping piece of good land, situated uphill from the small orchard. I still dream of the homeplace, as I hear many people do. The garden was at the northwest end of the property and the sun was good. There was a freshwater creek that ran down one side and a fold in the ground on the opposite side that we were forbidden to enter. Evidently, my father and some of his friends had decided years before to dynamite the little ravine in search of water. It hadn’t worked—and the details were somewhat shady, including the exact location where the charge had been laid. Somehow the dynamite, caps and all, had simply been left where they were. This was something of a theme in my family, this leaving things undone. Most didn’t include dynamite, however, and I suspect alcohol was involved.
Daddy called it the Ballard Rock Farm because we could never get all the stones removed from that pretty garden spot. Every year, either when the garden was plowed or when it was harrowed, we hauled rocks from the field to the outside edges of the planting area.
We love to attribute unusual things to “ancient” cultures, but much that we find in the landscape (and in thrift and antique stores) belongs only as far back as our grandparents’ generation. These constructed stone walls have the same ancient feel, but a chat with longtime landowners or tenants usually reveals something closer to the present but just as fascinating.
We would all benefit from a better connection to our native soils, no matter what they are. And paying attention to what is over our heads—the moon and the constellations—holds an important place in the folklore of the area too.
It seems that social media has a little hissy fit every time there’s a full moon. Heaven forbid there are two in the same calendar month. We have had supermoons and Blood Moons and every month someone posts all the “Native American” names for that particular moon. Those are sometimes self-explanatory, like the Cold Moon of December and the Buck Moon in July. Others are more mysterious but are tied to a landmark occurrence in the natural world, one we may have forgotten or never knew, like the Pink Moon of April and November’s Beaver Moon.
It is well-known that farmers and gardeners use the phase and sign of the moon to determine when to do any number of chores. A simple version to remember is that above-ground crops are planted as the moon is waxing to full—in the “light” of the moon. Above-ground crops are the plants that produce their fruit on the branches above the level of the soil. Below-ground crops—like potatoes, carrots, and turnips—are planted in the “dark” of the moon or in the time when the moon is waning to dark and new.
But people do all sorts of things by the phase of the moon, not only planting. You would check on the signs when cutting hair and laying shingles, for brewing, and for starting a diet. Almost every aspect of country life began with a consultation about where the signs were in order to determine exactly when a task should be done. When I was growing up, my dad was pretty simple in his moon following. He followed the rules written above about the light and dark of the moon and that was about it. It seemed to work and it works for me.
Let’s break it down. The moon phase is where the moon is in its cycle. The sign is the astrological sign, because it was believed that different astrological signs ruled different parts of the human body. Here’s the traditional breakdown:
Aries: Head
Taurus: Neck
Gemini: Arms
Cancer: Chest
Leo: Heart
Virgo: Stomach
Libra: Bowels (called “reins”)
Scorpio: Groin (called “secrets”)
Sagittarius: Thighs
Capricorn: Knees
Aquarius: Legs
Pisces: Feet
There is an old woodcut-style print called the Man of the Signs that illustrates this. It can be found in any good almanac.
All of this palaver about the moon and the signs also plays an important role in folk healing and folk magic. It can be reduced to “blessing in the light of the moon” and “banes in the dark of the moon.” But we are going to unpack that with a bit more intention.
The light of the moon is the time between new moon and full moon. In addition to planting above-ground crops, this energy is good for setting intentions, for blessing babies and newlywed couples. If you consider the workings of an old-fashioned windup pocket watch, this is the energy of the unwinding. Outgoing, vibrant, assertive.
The dark of the moon is the time between full moon and new moon. It’s a good time to plant those onions, and the energy is also good for setting boundaries and putting a stop to things that need to be stopped, the activity I refer to as banework. Returning to the image of that dented pocket watch, this is the energy of winding up and going inward. Tightening, receptive.
There is a difference of opinion about the concept of dark moon. When I was coming up, we were taught that dark moon occurs on the nights immediately preceding the appearance of the new moon in the sky. I know some people who consider dark moon and new moon to be the same, but that is not my practice. I use dark moon for the work of extreme healings, the strongest baneworks. It is the lunar time-out-of-time and is the pocket watch neither wound nor unwound.
Some Witchery: Unseen Residents
This is a basic house cleansing with added attention paid to any unseen residents. I ask the homeowner to open all doors and windows, if possible. I leave an offering outside for the land spirits and then spend a few minutes of quiet time, explaining to any resident spirit folk that it is time for her to go on home to her family. If I know her name, I address her by name. I usually do this silently and finish by announcing aloud, “Time to do the house.”
I walk through the house, starting at the front door. I carry a pot of sweet smoke, using my open hand to waft it into all the corners. I do every room—front to back, basement to attic. This can take a while if it’s a big house, so leave yourself plenty of time to do a thorough job.
I pass through the house a second time, this time ringing a large bell. I used to use my great-grandmother’s dinner bell, but I bought a small cowbell a few years ago and that sets up a racket, which is a good thing. Often I’ll ask the owners to step outside because the effects of the ringing can be unpleasant. In fact, if you do this very often, you may want to use ear protection yourself. I keep little green ear plugs in my little black bag.
I do a third and final pass through in which I dab a drop of oil on the door jams, windowsills, fireplace, sinks—all the openings into (and out of) the house that I can reach. I do this one slowly too, and I begin again at the front door by placing my hand on the side of the open door and saying firmly, “Bless this house and all who enter here.”
When I have finished all the dressing-and-blessing work, I go to stand at the back door and wish the departing spirit a loving farewell and a safe journey home. Let me stress that this can take a couple of hours to do properly—and you don’t want to do a lick-and-a-promise job here. You can also invite the homeowner to stand with you for the final farewell part. That can be surprisingly touching, and involving your client will help them establish their claim to be the only resident.