Do you have any rituals or superstitions?
I only write every two years after finding a white feather.
Today’s Question by the reader : Grace
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whenever I am sad,the white feather appears magically,it always encourage me,and remind me that I am not alone…….especially when I cry hard in critical moments,I find support and comfort in those lovely little white feathers~~
its so nice to know that you also took it as a sign~~
Maybe it means I NEED to write more as well……I am still gathering the courage now~~~God blessed!
Is it possible to have superstitions from past lives. A sense of knowing, but confusing present with past?*
Have you ever wondered whose feather is that or who drops that feather from her wings for you?You don’t think it’s a bird do you? hahaha
i believe that every one on this earth has some kind of superstition, we grew up on our parents and grand parents belief and we knew that we shouldnt do this or that cuz it brings good or bad luck,,,,,
but with the years (at least in my case) i learned to be a bit more logic, and i found my ways to stop those kind of a few manners,,, and i could still suevived….
so yes – y not, if it helps us to feel better and safer,,,,
let the superstitions exist!!!!
I have feather pillows. I find a white feather at least once a week. Most of the time it’s sticking me in the head. Paulo you should stay with me for awhile so you can wirte more often. :)
what if you do not find the white feather withing the two years?
or you go and look for it at places that you are certain you will find it? or is it that you find it without looking for it at unexpected places?
just curious…
Wow. Is that the sign? After two years do you wait for the feather, or does the feather happen to appear after two years? What comes first…the chicken or the egg? smile
The Life is full of rituals, but we got so used to them that we don’t see the magic anymore. The things you do every morning when you wake up, the way you make tea or coffee, when you choose what to wear today …
For SAVITA VEGA
Taking the trash out on Christmas Eve is(was) a custom here in Slovakia, and I believe in all Slavic lands. Young girls would take the trash out and then listen for a dog barking, that would show her from which side of the village her future husband would be.
On New Years Eve however, it was believed that taking trash out, or even dusting or using a broom was bad luck, for with the dust will also leave your guests and friends.
Do you all remember Falkor?
Luckdragon, a marvelous, white feather/fur creature in “The Neverending Story” (written by Michael Ende). Creature of air and fire.
I have always imagined that I am… no, no, no (!!!), not Bastian Balthazar Bux flying over the restored Fantasia atop Falcor but… I am Luckdragon’s feather! White little feather falling down very very slowly… Sometimes even through dust.
No way.Nice.
I have found white feathers so many times in my life,I knew then that someone was watching over me and perhaps I let slip away so many occasions too.But I’m coming to my senses and I’ve finally started to put that so huge imagination of mine into application and I’m quite surprised and pleased.Of course,you and so many people I carry in my heart and another special person are inspiring me so much.I’m grateful.Then,I know there are invisible white feathers everywhere i step in those days and I hope it will carry on.
And I will pass on that sunshine to the ones who really need it.
Someone told me that finding a white feather is like receiving a message from the angels… i like to think of it this way now also ;o)
Why is that?Who knows,has a speciall meaning,the white feather?
I take the trash out before midnight on New Year’s Eve. I don’t know where I picked up this idea, but I’ve been doing it for years, and to me it is absolutely imperative (this is why I would deem it a “superstition” and not merely a “custom”): I may not always go out on New Year’s, I may not even always pop the top on a bottle of champagne, I might even go to bed at eleven o’clock, but whatever I do and wherever I am, I always go around the house before midnight on New Years Eve and remove every scrap of trash from all the rubbish bins and take it outside. At home, it goes into the large yard bin out back. In an apartment, this always meant tossing it down the public trash chute. If I am in a hotel room, this may mean neatly bagging it up and placing it outside the door of my room until someone can come to collect it. When I am at home on New Year’s Eve, I may even take all the rubbish bins out back, into the yard, and scrub them out with the water hose, then turn them on end to dry until the next morning. Any rubbish that is created between that point and the moment the clock strikes midnight, has to be taken directly outside, so as to insure that not one scrap of trash is left in the house at the moment the new year dawns. If I happen to have guests over, they too all get involved and usually seem to find great fun in it. Sometimes the women even go through their purses in search of used tissues, odd bits of scrap paper with old phone numbers and such; the men scavenge through their coat pockets to be sure they are free of gum wrappers and fuzzballs and whatever other bits of rubbish may be lurking in there, unknown. The idea, basically, is just to get rid of the old, to make room for the new, to cleanse oneself of any remnant of the unused and unwanted in order to invite the flow of new and positive energy.
And despite how it sounds from this one example, otherwise, I am not a superstitious person at all: I read Tarot cards, but I never “cleanse” them between each reading by passing them over a candle flame or a crystal, as many people do. I trust the cards, or rather the source of their messages, and I don’t feel these physical rituals on my part or necessary for them to function correctly. I always walk under ladders – in fact, I make it a point to do so every time I get the chance. I never eat black eyed peas and ham hocks on New Year’s Day as is the custom in these parts, even though this causes my grandmother to go into a fit of frenzied concern for my wellbeing in the coming year.
The one other thing that I can think of that I am superstitious about is closing a knife that was opened by someone else and/or handing an open knife back and forth between persons, blade-point first. Many men around here, most in fact, carry some sort of pocket knife. This isn’t because they like to fight with them – although they do sometimes – it is simply because, in such a rural setting, on farms and ranches, pocket knives are not only a highly useful but absolutely essential tool to have handy at all times. The thing I remember being taught about pocket knives since i was a small child is 1. never hand an open knife to anyone, blade-point first, and 2. never, ever close a knife that someone else has opened, even if they have handed it to you to use. hand it back to them, still open, and let them close it themselves. The logic behind the first rule seems rather self-evident, an remnant of the Wild West days: if you hand a knife to someone, blade-point first, it could be just a trick. You might well stab them with it just as they reach out to take it from your hand. For this reason, most people won’t even reach out for a knife that is being handed to them in this manner. They will just stand there and stare at you as though you have given them a hugh cause for offense. The second custom is not so easy to understand – at least I’ve never been able to figure it out – so, to me, it is really more of a superstition than a custom: never close a knife that has been opened by someone else. I don’t know the reason for this cultural edict, but I always follow it. If someone hands me an open knife to use, I hand it back to them open – I never close it.
As for that white feather, though I’m still keeping my eyes open for it, I haven’t found mine yet. I do find feather, all the time; in fact, I have a whole collection of bird feathers I found, which includes everything from a peacock’s plume to the tailfeather of a blue McCaw, from a Cardinal’s feather to one from a woodpecker. But there are very few white feathers among these, and those that i do find, strike me in no way as particularly significant or relevant to my writing. I think my feather is not a feather at all. it be something else. I think perhaps it is a Ball railroad pocketwatch from around the year 1935 that was once buried in the ground at the site of an old sawmill town, unearthed by a logger who happened to find it in the rut made by a skidder when the site that was once that town was clearcut by a modern-day multinational timber company.
http://www.pockethorology.org/Railroad/Fig_2.jpg
What about entering with the right foot, somewhere for the first time?
What about number .. 13, the fatal number, but the ..lucky number for material things too?
What do you say about not …telling our plans, because the evergy scatters around instead of fulling it?
What about evil ..eye?
I think the ethereal world is interwoven with the material world.
So for the next book, dear Paulo Coelho, we will have to look forward to 2010!
Love,
Thelma
And every two years i’m looking forward to reading a new book :) and then to write you about the sensations it stirred in me. i noticed the fact that you write every two years but i have never known about the white feather, the symbol of the writer, of free-minded spirit and light heart…