Hi, friends!
Happy Tuesday!
A few nights ago, PumpkinSpies commented about being sent home with a St Anthony medal from her very Catholic step mother.
Which made me wonder if instructions were also provided for how to effectively use that medal?
Tonight’s themes are superstitions and rituals that you grew up with or still see in your life.
I’ll start with two I am familiar with, thanks to ye olde Catholicism. If you are trying to sell your house, you bury a statue of St. Joseph face down near the “for sale” sign. It is supposed to help your house be sold faster since he’s a patron saint of carpenters and homebuyers.
Regarding that St. Anthony medal, we were always taught if you lost something you had to pray to St. Anthony to help you find it (medal optional, but clearly helps). The specific prayer was “Tony, Tony, come around. Something’s lost that must be found.” followed by saying three Glory Be prayers.
I’ve had generalized levels of superstition since I was about 13 or so, on the level of, “If this thing does/doesn’t happen, then that thing will/won’t happen.”
I mean, I know now that’s a logical fallacy, of course, and probably at least a low-grade symptom of OCD. But I should’ve wised up when I didn’t win the goddamn regional spelling bee after all.
ETA: Wait, PumpkinSpies is married. . . ?
Maybe I don’t remember who gave it? Maybe it was a stepmother? Sorry let me go check.
Edited to add, sorry was a step mother, I was way wrong and edited the post!
How did you get “married” from the story?
Nvm, something was changed before I got here, I guess?
Throws salt over shoulder and crosses fingers
My mom was probably the most superstitious person in my family.
She had a number of them including she freaked out over shaking your spoon while eating.
We’re dogsitting a very ritualistic dog who seems to have developed very strong patterns of behavior.
I have to disembowel a Republican on the 3rd Saturday of each month before an election as a sacrifice to our lord Xenu. It’s not been 100% great so far & kind of messy but my parents did not raise a quitter so….
I like all the woowoo stuff; I also have a fondness for Quan Yin.
Seriously, what doesn’t Quan Yin have to do? She’s a busy goddess!
I teach my advanced qi gong students an exercise called “Child Prays to Quan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy”. It ain’t easy.
I just expect everything to go to shit.
I am on board with all superstitions. If you have any good ones, I’m always looking to add a few to my repertoire.
When I was a kid, I had those generalized causality ones mentioned by @perdido.
Additionally, there were parts of my elementary and middle schools where I very studiously avoided stepping on cracks — I kinda “gamified” the floor tiles, not out of superstition, but kind of as a means of generating habits that would calm my mind? I also did this with sidewalks.
Over a decade of CCD (Catholic night school) and I never learned what a “Glory Be prayer” is. Probably another reason why my stepmom doesn’t like me (though she’d never admit it).
As ‘stitious as I get is “not putting that out into the universe.” So, I don’t like saying something that I don’t want to happen, lest I invite it. Even though I don’t even believe in a higher power, I somehow worry about jinxing myself/humanity.
you know…weeks late to the party…me dad had one
never accept the third light
spot.aim.fire
war fucks people up man
and smokers die at a night
not sure it counts as superstition tho