Gourd Wards Workshop with Linda & Hazel

**Gourd Wards** Folk Protection for Samhain & the Hallows Season Sunday, October 18 – 12:00 PM The Green Man • Burbank, CA $33 + $15 materials fee – **Register by 10/16 if you wish to purchase materials** $33 for Lecture only As the year turns toward its darker season, the threshold has long held special significance, the doorway between home and the world beyond, the boundary between the familiar and unknown, and in the folklore of the Hallows season, the meeting place between the living, the dead, and the Otherworld. Join Linda and Hazel for Gourd Wards, a lecture and hands-on workshop exploring the history, folklore, and practice of seasonal protection and ward making. We’ll begin by looking beyond the modern jack-o’-lantern to explore the traditions that came before it: Irish Samhain and Halloween folklore, carved turnip lanterns, frightening and apotropaic imagery, household and threshold protections, and the ways people used the materials available in their own landscapes to guard the home during liminal times of year. From there, we’ll broaden our exploration to look at regional folk traditions and protective practices, including Appalachian folkways and the importance of place, season, and locally available materials. We’ll also discuss the difference between historical folk practices and the ways modern witches have adapted and reimagined them. Then we’ll put those principles into practice.