Can I just says - SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Happy October!  It is that time of year that makes me sing and dance.

Google Images

As you may have heard I've teamed up with an amazing bunch of people for the month of October.  You'll find some amazing recipes, blogs, crafts and yes even giveaways over at the Samhain Siren's blog.  I highly recommend heading over there and checking it out! 

Keep a sharp eye out.  I'll be joining those extremely talented folks with a couple giveaway's of my own from BaubleSmith. 

A little over 7 months ago a hurricane came thought and flooded a large portion of Eastern North Carolina.  My little corner of the world was included in the area.  We were luckier than most in that we only lost our vardo and our ability to vend for the next year.  Heartbreaking as it is so many people were in a much more harsh situation than we were/are in.  The water in the river is still very high and at this point we still have water on our property.  But at least we can stay on our property. Some cannot even return to their homes.

When our business sailed down the river, hubby and I discussed the best way to move forward and we thought about changing direction in our business and trying to become more mainstream vs. our direct Pagan/Witchy direction.  We revamped the website and I started marketing.  We have found that no matter how hard I try, I tend to sprinkle magic in here and there. Examples include - Hubby wants to make bath salts, I go off on a tangent about how wonderful that is and how we should do ritual bath soaks with ones for Samhain, Yule .... you get the picture.

Photo Credit - BaubleSmith

Next he wants to make resin bracelets.  My eyes glaze over as I start recommending pentacles and ravens and you see where I'm going.

Photo Credit - BaubleSmith

As we tried to make our more mainstream, the magic found its way in. As we rebuild from this devastation and it could be up to 3 years before the buyouts are completed by the state, We sit here trying to understand where we're going and what we're going to be doing while we wait for the uncertainty that is dealing with governmental agencies. All we can do is keep the magic flowing and direct our energies towards making life at this place better while we are here.

I'm beginning to pick up my clay again.  I may have some new items showing up in the shop soon. I've created some goddess pieces that I can't wait to share with you.  I have also added some candles back to the shop. These were always wonderful additions and I know that they will continue to help bring light to those who need it.

Photo Credit - BaubleSmith

So today, I'm waiting.  I'm watching. I'm spelling. Directing the forces of nature and the powers of the elements to guide this process to an end. I hear three years but, I long for 3 weeks.

So mote it be.

This week I want to use my blog to call attention to something I recently learned about.  A member of the Pagan community has decided that Yule belongs to her. Yes, you heard me kids. The owner of Sage Goddess, has filed a federal Trademark request to make YULE her trademark. She is also already sending cease and desist letters to other vendors who use the word Yule in their product names.

Here's a screenshot from Tradmarkia.com.  It appears that she is filing for this under the Cosmetics and Cleaning Products category, which I believe would include body wash, bath salts and scrubs or cleansing/ritual products. I know many of us have products in that category.

Screen-cap from trademarkia.com

So what exactly is a trademark?

A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark^[1] is a recognizable sign, design, or expression which identifies products or services of a particular source from those of others,^[2][3] although trademarks used to identify services are usually called service marks.^[4][5] The trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity. A trademark may be located on a package, a label, a voucher, or on the product itself. For the sake of corporate identity, trademarks are often displayed on company buildings.  -Wikipedia

I found Sage Goddess, Inc on the web and a contact form.  I did leave her a message asking her to reconcider her application.  You can find her contact form here.  If she doesn't reconsider, we do have other options.  You can write an email to this link to oppose her hijacking our holiday.  Also, here's a link to a petition created by Charissa Iskiwitch for consumers who oppose it and this link for seller's who oppose it.

Remember to be considerate and professional when reaching out to these pages.  We want to be sure that we are heard and shouting usually results in the volume being turned down so speak clearly, eloquently and professionally.


We also need to consider that there is precedent here.  Meaning that other Pagan holidays have been Trademarked prior to this one. A quick search on the Trademark index found six entries for a trademark on Samhain.

Screenshot - TESS

I have to say I did sign the petitions.  I am writing the blog to call attention to this cause but after my participation in the discussions on Social Media Sites, I'm pretty sure that it is a moot point. Other holidays have been trademarked and nothing was done.  What makes Yule different?

I asked Charissa for a statement as she is the one spearheading this campaign to oppose the trademark of the word Yule.  She had this to say:

As consumers Yule is a standard search word we use to find scented product such as perfume, candles, room sprays, waters, colognes and incense.  Trademarking a word as widely used as this will limit those searches to the product of one company.  It will allow one company to force hundreds, if not thousands of small businesses to take that word out of their product names. 

I do not currently have any products in my business line using the word Yule.  For me personally, because I have not put any money into developing and marketing such a product I can easily choose a different name if I decided to offer a holiday scented product.  However, many small businesses run on a shoestring budget.  They have invested in listing fees, labels, printed marketing material and internet advertising.  It will cost them a significant amount of money and time to make those changes to their product line.  I believe that puts undue hardship on our business community.

My only goal in this is to protect our business community from trademarking generic descriptive words.  As businesses, we should be working together rather than competing.

However this is decided it is certain that people are becoming more willing to get involved in things that they feel violate their rights.  Does the community have a case here?  Will this trademark application be granted?  I'll continue to follow this story.  Feel free to leave your thoughts.


UPDATE

An article on The Wild Hunt indicated the the request for the trademark had been rescinded.  

From the article:

Screenshot from The Wild Hunt

 

Blessings
Sosanna

Loren of Primitive Witchery shared a meme earlier this month and I just saw it last night so I'm blaming Facebook for my late start on this Photo Challenge.


So the basics are you share a picture for each day of October based on the chart below. Tag your photo or post with the hashtag #innerwitchoctober

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

Loren of Primitive Witchery shared a meme earlier this month and I just saw it last night so I'm blaming Facebook for my late start on this Photo Challenge.


So the basics are you share a picture for each day of October based on the chart below. Tag your photo or post with the hashtag #innerwitchoctober

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

So over the last month I've been working to get my blog the way I want it to look.  I know that in order to keep your readership up you need to engage your audience.  There are several ways to do this.  The hottest idea right now is related posts.

Screenshot - Confessions of a Modern Witch

This is where your readers can see other stories that relate to the one they just read.  This is great for getting folks to see how much you blog about a particular subject.  What seems like a simple element to add to your blog; this one really gave me a fit. It made me decide to jot down a few tips on tagging that might help others deal with this better.

1. Tagging is important.
     Tags help you put your content in buckets.  While Twitter would have us believe that it is just a way to draw attention to a particular word, in blogging this is how your content is categorized.  It may be cute to have 500 tags, but it isn't really good for your blog.  Try to limit your tag use to very specific areas you intend to blog about.

2. Singular and Plural.
     Tag is not the same as Tags.  Remember that if you blog about jars it will create a separate tag when you want to talk about one jar.  Something small but just limited your (s) will more than likely cut your tag list down in size.

3. Spelling.   SPELLING
    For general purposes we know as bloggers (web writers) that spelling is important, however if you think someone is important enough to make it a tag; you should probably be extra careful in setting up your tags so that you don't come back three years later and find out that you have tagged five stories with samhian instead of samhain.

4. Hashtags
    Again I blame Twitter here for making us believe that all tags should be prefaced with the pound sign or hashtag.  While it is used in several social media applications, Blogger is not one of them.  I spent 12 hours yesterday recreating all of my hashtags since this blog started over 5 years ago to "fix" my hashtag mistake.

5. Hashtags are categories
    While this seems super simple one thing to keep in mind when creating hashtags is that these are intended for your audience to find your content.  These are like keywords but also more like a label. Think about an old school library card catalog.  Your blog is a card catalog and the tags are the index cards that a reader can use to find your posts (books).  While it might be a great idea to create tags for Christianity, Wicca and Islam it may also make sense to create a fourth tag for religion.  This will help your related posts relate more readily.


While these things will not solve all your issues, I have found through experience that creating and managing an effective tag cloud will help keep your content a bit more streamlined and allow your readers to find what you're trying to say a bit easier.

Hope it helps!

Happy Blogging

We hear this spoken usually after someone who was not a nice person dies.  I read a blog post recently that had the following quote:

"You should have got your criticism in when they were still alive, and preferably, while they still had some power. We don’t speak ill of the dead because it’s not just distasteful: it’s cowardly."  -Source

With the coming of Samhain many groups on social media are having discussions around ancestor altars and who should or should not be included on them.  My altar has an assortment of photos, trinkets and possessions of those who have moved on.  This is a very spiritual time for me, when I call upon those who have moved on to send energy and knowledge in exchange for my respecting and willingness to learn.  

There are those who are intentionally left off the altar.  I do not want their energy or their knowledge.  I knew them too well in physical world.  They caused too much pain here in this life to be honored in anyway in their passing.  

When starting your ritual altar on don't feel that you have to do anything like one book or one person says.  This is a personal space for you to honor those who have moved on from this life.  It is a time for you to do work that is important to you.  Don't feel like you have to add people or include energy that you're not comfortable with.

In my discussions, I found that some think they have to include a certain person for fear of them creating havoc in their home because they have "disrespected the dead".  Personally I believe that not all dead are worthy of respect.  Not every one who has crossed over is someone that should be honored no different than if they were here in the physical realm.  If you have unruly dead making mischief in your house you need to take control of the situation and move them out, not give in and place them in higher regard.  

Death is a transition to the next part of the energy exchange.  It can be sad but it should be looked at as a natural part of life.  Working with the dead is about listening and learning.  We should listen twice as much as we speak in order to learn as much as we can. We should also learn that our time on this planet is limited.  If we want to have others not speak ill of us after we move on, then maybe we should be a little more considerate of others while we have that opportunity.  Not the other way around.

I'd love to see what altars you create or what rituals you do working with the dead this week.  Feel free to post here or find me on social media at Tsu or Facebook.

Today I wanted to schedule a post to share my final Saturday Craft-tacular with the Samhain's Siren project.  This week I decided to do a little bit *older* craft, in that I wouldn't recommend this for younger children.  This is a great introductory craft to get started into the art of Pyrography.

Remember that not only will this post show you detailed photos and instructions but you also get a chance to win the finished product.  Head over to the Samhain's Sirens blog and enter to win!

Each entry also gives you an entry into the grand prize!

Now on to the blog!

Blessings

Sosanna

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