Lucky Number Thirteen: A Love Letter to the Unruly

Some say Friday the 13th is cursed.
Bad luck. A day to stay home, avoid ladders, and maybe carry a protective crystal—just in case.

But that wasn’t always the story.

In many ancient cultures, both Friday and the number 13 were symbols of power.

Thirteen lunar cycles in a year—tied to nature, the divine feminine, and the rhythm of life.
And Friday? That was Freya’s day. Or Venus’s. Goddesses of love, beauty, and connection.

A day to gather. To reflect. To honour what mattered.

Over time, those associations—feminine power, natural cycles, gathering together—got rewritten. Too unruly. Too powerful. Too inconvenient.
So the story changed.

Friday became unlucky. Thirteen became suspicious.
And those once celebrated for living in rhythm with the earth?
They became witches. Or worse—women with opinions.

🤨

We’ve seen it before.
To women. To queer people. To Indigenous people. To anyone whose power makes the wrong people uncomfortable.

At Greenbriar, we’re not here for the version of the story that keeps us small.
We believe in choosing slow. In questioning easy.
And in reclaiming what was never broken in the first place.

Personally? I’ve always thought 13 was lucky.

Mat and I got married on February 13th, 2013.
Next year will mark 13 years.

Nothing bad happened that day.
(Unless you count the wedding photos fogging up from stepping into the thick Cuban air after an over-air-conditioned room. But that’s just texture.)

I don’t need perfect photos. I’ve got Mat.
And that’s more than lucky.

Which brings me to a very specific black cat…

One of Laura Drysdale’s newest mugs features a little black cat with a full-on sassy stare—like she knows Friday the 13th’s bad rap is nonsense.

Loki, our resident shop cat and chaos agent, would agree. She firmly believes black cats aren’t unlucky at all.
That rumour? Probably started by orange cats.
We haven’t confirmed that. But we haven’t ruled it out either.

The whole mug collection this time is a kind of quiet magic.
Each one has its own mood. A little wobble here. A swirl in the glaze there.
The kind of piece that makes you pause your scroll, sip something warm, and remember:

Not everything sacred has to be serious.

Maybe luck’s not about fate or fortune.

Maybe it’s found in the things that make you feel most like yourself.
Even on a Friday.
Even when life feels a little chaotic.
Even when you’re the sassy black cat in a room full of orange ones.