Scrying Times

On October 31st, many around the world will be celebrating Halloween, but if you’re a Pagan in the Southern Hemisphere, you may be celebrating Beltane instead.

Both Halloween and Beltane are seasonal festivals. Halloween is a harvest festival signifying the beginning of winter, while Beltane is a spring celebration and heralds the coming summer. I’m usually partial to celebrating Halloween in April and October, but this year I am really feeling the Beltane spirit. 

My home state of Victorian is coming out of a very long, dark winter. It wasn’t our weather, but the global pandemic. Victoria experienced a deadly second wave but after a series of restrictions, lockdowns and an overnight curfew, we managed to beat the virus down to manageable levels. We are now opening up in sensible stages and celebrating our victories. Our joyous return to the world of light and life is the essence of Beltane. As always, my Beltane festivities will include a touch of Halloween.

At Beltane, like Halloween, the veil between the worlds is thin. Communication with the spirit world is easier on these nights. 

One way of connecting wth the spirit realm is through the ancient art of divination. There are many forms of divination, but scrying is one of the most popular for Halloween. Scrying is the art of looking into a reflective surface for messages. There is no consensus or restriction on what these reflective surfaces should be. Gazing into water, mirrors, glass, crystals, stones, clouds, smoke and fire are common forms of scrying. Staring into black surfaces, darkness or the night sky are also perfect ways to scry on Halloween in particular. 

This Beltane/Halloween falls on a Full Moon in Taurus. The luminescent Full Moon is a great scrying tool and one that I love. As a child I would often gaze at the Full Moon, delighting in its beauty and seeing images reflected on its silvery surface. I am looking forward to doing some serious moon gazing this weekend. 🙂

For my Beltane recipe I have chosen a bowl of soup. Not only is it a soulful bowl of comfort and contentment, it’s also a great scrying tool. A bowl filled with water is a classic divination vessel but replacing the water with a flavoursome soup is a tasty tweak I could’t resist. For an added divination twist I’ve used alphabet pasta. Not only can you scry for images in the soup but you can look for messages scribed in pasta!

Alphabet Soup For The Scrying Soul

Ingredients
1 cup chicken stock*
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup alphabet pasta
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon chopped chives

Instructions
Bring the chicken stock and water to a boil.
Add the pasta and cook following the instructions on the packet.
Remove pasta from the heat and stir in the butter.
Pour into a bowl or bowls and top with cheese and chives.

*for a vegetarian version replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock