NB: The word “muggle” is used a lot in this post. Some people are not comfortable with this term. I love it, and will be using it to describe the mundane world. Why? Because the term “muggle” is awesome!

Sometimes we hide out in the open. Unless you know what to look for, you may never have guessed it about us. It’s not that we’re “in the closet”, we just don’t see how it’s your business. But the clues are there if you know where to look.

It might be a feather blutac’d to the wall of the cubical. It could be a crystal around our neck, or a tattoo that is covered beneath our clothes. We may be wearing a pentagram on the low hanging chain, or have a sigil drawn on a post-it note that is on display at our work station. If you’d like to believe that it’s just a scribble, then that is entirely up to you.

We may have a gris-gris bag or a totem bag amongst our possessions, or it could be a photo on the wall. We might even have our online lives separated into two Facebook accounts in case people within our professional world try to see what we did on the weekend.

I’ve never been completely in the broom closet, but people at my work know. It just takes one comment sometimes, and one will say to another, “Ooh Chiara could help with that.” It’s not something that I shout from the rooftop, but of the above I have all but one at my cubical at work. When you spend 10 hours of your day behind a desk (plus 2 hours a day commuting), it’s nice to have a personal space amongst the work paraphernalia. Of course, not everyone is able to do that.

Juggling the constraints of the muggle world with the magickal that most of us would love to live and embrace in a work-life balance is hard. Sometimes I feel myself being divided by “do I go do this magickal thing at the altar, or do I do this mundane muggle thing that I’ve been putting off?” Sometimes you need to choose the muggle option to meet the deadlines or to keep the cats happy.

In times like this it’s nice when an amazing organisation within the local Pagan community has organised a night to just dress up, and allow the muggle and magickal worlds to collide.

The Pagan Awareness Network (PAN Inc) hosted the Witches Ball again this year at the Bald Faced Stag Hotel, and it was such an amazing night! It’s one of those few occasions in the year where it’s more than just putting on your “Pagan attire”, but really giving you the opportunity to dress up, to dance, to catch up with people you may not have seen in a while and just really let your hair down to a great band.

Or in my case, an opportunity to clip it all back, put on a white long haired wig, glitter bomb an old pair of glasses and don a made-for-the-occasion crescent moon crown.

Excuse the stupid face I’m pulling, please!

My aim was to go as the Goddess Luna, but in the end I feel more like the Goddess in her form of “Mother” – I’m not quite a maiden, not yet a crone, but I’ve got some wicked natural grey hair coming through and am the proud mum of five furbabies, and caretaker of five more. Not to sound awful, but my girth certainly helps to make that full moon round body happening!

Congratulations to everyone who won prizes for their costumes on the night – they were all phenomenal! hy= (<- that was one of the cats. I’m just going to leave that there.) Thank-you to my Sisters for the Awen to make the look come alive, and again, a big thank-you to PAN Inc for putting on the ball once more!