The Samhain season, for better or worse, seems to be early this year. We’re still weeks away from the three-day celebration of the New Year, the third Harvest and the Dead–but this pulling Moon looms over us tonight.

It brings the scent of rain on pavement, the glint of costume jewelry from bygone days, the smell of an Avon perfume long discontinued.

They are already here, the Beloved Dead that we honor. And, I suspect, it is merely our perception that they are ever anywhere else but right beside us.

So tonight I began crafting charms under this half-Moon. Charms of making and mischief, of friendship and of a life lived magically. They are Samhain charms, governed by the whispers of the Dead, beads strung on strong and delicate wire, magic-making under the Moon.