Divination: Divining Over Spilled Ink - A Samhain Reflection on Messages and Ancestors

By Melanie Paquette

As the wheel turns and we approach Samhain, we find ourselves at the threshold of the unseen, where the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest.

In this liminal time, messages flow more freely—if only we stop to listen. It’s my favourite time of year. I love the feeling in the air, the colour of the leaves, the sound of the wind, the way the sky looks at twilight – everything is more magical at Samhain. But, it’s also my birthday, so maybe I’m biased.

I write a divination article every month, and I’ve been looking forward to writing this one for some time now. Since I know I’ll be writing something every month, I typically have some kind of plan in mind, because that’s sensible, right? Of course, 90% of the time, something happens and the plan goes out the window, but that doesn’t stop me from planning. This month, I was planning to do something with runes. I’ve been studying them for almost a year now. I find the runes deeply connected to ancestral wisdom, and I figured Samhain would be the perfect time to bring that forward. Nothing was going to mess with that plan.

I should know better.

It started with a trip to my parents for Thanksgiving. Every trip to my parents house ends with me coming home with a few treasures. Among the treasures this time was a small cabinet that my grandfather made. It’s been 21 years since he passed, and yet it equally feels like no time has passed at all. Things made by grandfather’s hands are precious to me. They hold stories, energy, and connections to him. I can feel his presence when I touch the wood, and hear the sound of his voice, as though he’s with me, telling me how and why he crafted this piece. So when my mother asked if I wanted this little cabinet, obviously I said yes.

To fully understand this story, it’s important to know that I am very skilled at fitting large numbers of things into my house.

It’s a family trait I believe. So, whenever I bring a new piece of furniture into the house, even a small one like this little cabinet, it kicks off a bit of a Tetris game of rearranging furniture to fit everything in. I figured I could fit this cabinet into my bedroom and it would be the perfect thing to hold my most sacred objects. So I set about shifting things around to fit this cabinet where I wanted it. I had to move a couple of plants, a night stand, two coffee tables, an armchair, and a tea wagon. It sounds like a lot of stuff, but it truly wasn’t a huge undertaking – I have a pretty big bedroom and I was only shifting things around a little. 

I accomplished my goal of getting the cabinet where I wanted it, moved my precious objects onto it, and was putting the final piece of furniture – the tea wagon – back into place when I heard a loud crack and turned around to see that a bottle of blue ink (leftover from years gone by when I was trying to be super witchy and decided I would write grimoires by hand with dip pens and bottled ink and then immediately decided that was way too much work and went back to using ballpoint pens and computers) had fallen down and spilled its entire contents onto my hardwood floor.

The bottle hadn’t broken in the fall, and I know the lid was screwed on tightly, and yet, and there was my floor, covered in blue ink, with the lid sitting on the floor as if it had been twisted off by unseen hands.

In that moment, I did what any normal human would do. I said “oh shit!” and ran into the bathroom to get paper towels and thought really hard about the right way to clean ink off a hardwood floor without staining it and plotting how I would either paint a design on the floor or acquire a rug to cover the stain that I was pretty sure I’d end up with. I used probably half a roll of paper towels, the whole time feeling guilty about using so much paper towel and wondering why I hadn’t thought to also get gloves since my hands were now the colour of a smurf. It turns out that blotting blue ink with dry paper towels followed by the quick application of wet paper towels is enough to avoid ruining a hardwood floor.

Crisis averted, I stuck all the paper towels into the garbage and started washing my smurf hands when I said to myself “Wait, what just happened here?” 

I’m not someone who thinks there’s deep meaning in every ordinary human experience. Sometimes spilled ink is just spilled ink. And sometimes, especially at Samhain, a time when the ordinary becomes a portal to the extraordinary, spilled ink is a message waiting just beneath the surface – a whisper, a nudge from the ancestors and the Otherworld, asking us to notice what had been set into motion. In divination, spills and accidents are not just chaos – they are moments of flow – when something unseen or forgotten is released or revealed.

Like the ink, ancestral messages don’t always arrive in neat, predictable ways. Sometimes, like the ink spill, those messages are unexpected, even messy, but they hold deeper meaning if we take the time to pause and listen.

Ink, after all, is a medium of communication. The colour blue, in particular, is associated with the throat chakra, the centre of truth, wisdom, and expression. Ink is the bridge between thought and the written word, between feeling and expression. It records the stories of those who came before us, and preserves the stories for those who will come after. And when it spills, it flows freely, like emotions, memories, or messages waiting to be heard.

Here’s a little divination ritual for you this Samhain to help listen to the messages under the surface. You’ll need a bowl or cauldron of water, a candle of your choosing, and a journal and pen. Light the candle, relax, and spend a few minutes focusing on your breath. When you feel ready, look into the bowl of water. Stir it with your finger. With soft eyes, watch the flow of the water as you stir. Feel into the things you’ve kept sealed tight, the emotions, stories, and memories waiting to be freed. Reflect on the unseen currents in your life. What is flowing through you, just beneath the surface, waiting to spill out? What wisdom or guidance has your lineage carried that may be ready to reveal itself? Journal whatever reveals itself.

In the days that follow your ritual, I invite you to pay attention to the small disruptions in your life, and remember that not all messages arrive in expected ways. Sometimes those annoyances are meant to get your attention.  The things that spill, the objects that fall, the unexpected moments—they may be carrying whispers from the other side. Just as ink holds the power to record our stories, these moments hold the power to connect us to those who came before, guiding us through the darkness of this time toward the light of understanding.

By the way, I retrieved all of the paper towels from the garbage and laid them out to dry. I figure a message like that needs to be preserved, so I’ll figure out a way to do that.

Melanie hosts workshops and offers Tarot readings. Check out her offerings on our website.