Jessie: Feeling lucky despite the weather!
In continuing our Wicked Celebration of the release of Sheila’s latest County Cork Mystery, An Early Wake, we’re talking about luck today, Irish or not.
From four leaf clovers to rabbit feet, lucky charms are everywhere. Some people believe wholeheartedly. Some people scoff and sneer. Others sit carefully perched in the middle of a fence. So Wickeds, do you have a lucky charm? A good luck ritual? A talisman? A totem? Or do you think such things are mere Dumbo’s Feathers and don’t feel the need of them?
Edith: For decades I carried a little Good-Luck-in-Driving charm in my purse. This omamori was given to me when I taught English in Japan. 
It seems to have gone missing, though, so I guess it’s good that I no longer commute to a job every day. I also learned in Japan never to leave chopsticks stuck into a bowl of food, because that is only done for dead people. You always lay chopsticks across the top of the bowl. I guess that’s the flip side of a lucky charm.
And even though my mother is no longer alive, I still avoid treading on cracks in the sidewalk, a habit I’ve had since childhood after learning this saying: “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” You just don’t want to tempt fate that way!
Liz: I’m a huge believer in crystals and gemstones, and have a collection of them. Each of them means something different and is believed to help boost those areas where you need the most help, from the physical to the emotional. I choose one stone per day based on 
how I’m feeling. I’ve also been carrying the lucky Irish turtle around lately – mostly because he’s cute!
Sherry: It’s not exactly a lucky charm, but my husband gave me a necklace right after our daughter was born twenty-two years ago. I wear it almost every day and especially on days when I’m feeling stressed. I’ve had a couple of near misses with losing it but so far (knock on wood — I’m not superstitious at all) someone has always found it.
Julie: I have a couple of talismen that bring me luck. Or, more accurately, give me a sense of peace when I see them or look at them. I don’t have any specific rituals regarding luck, mostly because if I lose the earring or the lucky shirt isn’t clean, I don’t want to go into a tailspin. BUT my theater life does feed into my civilian life. I never wish someone “good luck”, or if I do, I feel strange. “Break a leg” is my go to. I never say “Macbeth” in a theater. And if I could whistle, I would never do it back stage.
Barb: I had a hard time with this one. I have many comfort objects, things that are sentimental for me, displayed around my house. I have things I am rarely without, like my Levenger Junior notebook with my calendar, to do lists, notes, etc, a version of which I’ve had in my possession for a decade. But in terms of things specifically designed to be good luck, I don’t have any focused on my luck. I do have some focused on the luck of loved ones, probably because the less control I have, the more I’m willing to give over to luck.
Jessie: I don’t usually depend on luck. I am more of a preparedness sort of person. That being said, I do have an amethyst pendant I tend to wear any time I might want an ace in the hole. It is actually a dowsing pendulum on a chain and it provides the added function of being something to play with if I get stuck somewhere unexpectedly without a book or some knitting.
Readers how about you? Do you believe in the power of lucky charms?
I am with Barb–lots of comfort items and I have some meaningful/inspirational thingees on the window ledge in front of my writing desk. No particular talisman, however.
I do have an assortment of voodoo dolls. Not a lucky charm for me, but bad luck for the fools who cross me.
Ha! Good for you, Ramona.
I collect stones–pieces of places I’ve been and want to remember. No, I don’t travel with a hammer and whack off chips, because that would be wrong. But if a piece has fallen off, and I know it can’t be repaired, it’s mine. That’s why I have a small piece of Tintern Abbey, and a fragment of medieval sculpture from another English church. Bits of 18th century tombstones (the ones with a letter or two carved by someone who’s been gone more than two centuries). A pebble from Les Baux de Provence, because cozy writer Mary Stewart convinced me I should go there. A lump of white quartz from Australia, which I found embedded in strikingly red dirt. And no, they aren’t neatly assembled or displayed anywhere: mostly they’re tucked in one drawer or another, and every now and then I find one and say, oh, there you are.
I had a small stone from Australia a friend brought me, Sheila. No idea where it is now. Probably in a drawer!
I don’t really have any lucky objects. I did avoid the cracks in the sidewalk for years, however, after my mom gave me a hard time about stepping on them when I was a kid. I finally broke myself of that habit.
I still find myself a bit suspicious of some of those childhood suspicions like walking under a ladder, breaking a mirror, etc!
No one particular charm, though there are some peace necklaces I wear when things in the world or my life seem particularly unsettled. After I started sharing the CDs for Frog and Friends, friends started giving me frogs, so now they are everywhere in my home, and my myo-fascial release therapist said frogs are a good totem. I realized that I got my first ceramic frog waaaay back in 1968, so I was sending “frogs welcome here” signals for a looooong time. No wonder Prince felt comfortable making his winter home here in my house . . .
I like the sounds of your peace necklace! My aunt collected frogs too.
My favorite looks like a book, with Peace inside in many languages, made by Raelinda Woad . . . https://www.facebook.com/raelinda.woad?fref=ts
My favorite peace necklace, made by storyteller Raelinda Woad, has “peace” in many languages . . . and I keep hoping it will work. Peace is a long time coming.
http://www.littlegorgeousthings.com/stje1.html
Thank you so much for sharing the website! I love the peace necklaces!
I happen to be wearing my “good luck” charm today. It’s a sterling silver baby shoe with my name and birthdate engraved on the bottom. My grandfather, whose name was Queenie, wore it on a chain on his watch fob until he died. After he died I asked my grandmother if I could have it, and she kindly had it removed from his watch fob and gave it to me. I wear it on a silver chain, especially on days when I might need a bit of extra luck, or just a “pick me up.”
What a treasure, Linda!
I love these posts and letters. I have my “lucky” items. Mostly I feel more peaceful. I do have to smile about the cracks issue. When I was young, I was very careful to avoid the cracks in the sidewalk. Today, I live in the San Francisco Bay area, and I challenge anyone to find a sidewalk that doesn’t have a crack in it. Earthquake country you know.
Very funny, Lil! I love San Francisco – we lived in L.A. and Monterey so I know what you mean about the cracks!
I have a Herkimer diamond (a particular kind of quartz crystal) that my husband and son found for me when they cracked a rock, then had it made into a necklace. I always feel great when I wear it, and I do tend to fiddle with it a lot, so I guess it’s sort of a totem or comfort object for me. I do have a ritual, though, which I think I shared here before. When I need to bring something new into my life (and I guess you could call it luck), I clean out drawers or closets, give away or throw away stuff, or tackle some task I’ve been procrastinating on. I can report that this actually worked for me just today. This morning I dropped off some clothes at our local donation center and put a book on the library free-pickings shelf, as well as went to the post office and mailed out a big package to my mom (all things I’d been putting off, blaming it on the snow or whatever else was handy). Well, as “luck” would have it, my husband and I went out to lunch for his birthday, and we happened to meet up with a couple of acquaintances. Turns out that one of these women knows the EXACT person I need to talk to (literally, the top person in the U.S.) to get expert, technical information for the proposal I’m working on. Call it luck, call it serendipity, call it a form of feng shui, it works like a, well, charm!
That is amazing, Susannah!
Reblogged this on F4l ~ FLECK and commented:
Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya? 😉
The old man’s dad took a hike across North Africa and then Italy, back in the mid-forties, if you get my drift. He never said much about it, until he ran out of money and he had to get all his paperwork in order to go to the VA Hospital. It killed him, because it felt too much like begging, and the math in his head never factored in the freedoms he bought for us back when he had his life in front of him. He could never offset what he took against what he gave. That’s how they were built back then.
When he was in the hospital, we talked, let me tell you that. When it was all almost over, he had me go to his attic and grab a few things. He spent a lot of time writing notes for me to pass on. He gave me a shot glass and a cigarette case, and the words that went with those are for me only.
They sit on a shelf over my computer. I’d love to say they give me inspiration, but they just give me reason to stop, and think about all the things people can do when they have to.
It’s been 4 years, and I never have had a shot out of that glass. I haven’t earned it.
Mine’s a MU cat that I bought in a gift shop in Fort Kent Maine. He sits on the platform under my reading light. I don’t think I can write without him.