More of the season of Samhain and Halloween...here's the day it's celebrated!

 Happy Halloween or Samhain - whichever one you celebrate with however much interest you have!

Tijana Ludovik, "Samain"

These three appear to be superimposed over a store scene! Poor ole witches!

How about "How many cats does it take to fly a broomstick?"

Samuel L. Schmucker, postcard 1911

Yes this is serious stuff, after you take away the candy and costumes...this is a time of connecting to the ancestors. 

Painting by Alea Chapin. No, I've never danced "sky clad" as wiccans do. This is a joyous sharing of earth energy, without any of civilization's trappings. Back to how we were born! I've shared this painting several times on Facebook, and have yet to have my pages taken down. Apparently the AI guys don't recognize these women celebrating together as (nudes). We artists don't use the term "naked."

For our ritual this Sunday, our small group of goddess daughters honored our ancestors and did some singing for the old ways, the almost forgotten chants about nature, goddesses, renewal, abundance, etc. 

On a lighter note...

Lynn Bauer

It's cats of Halloween Time and a recent ritual

 The Earth is preparing for hibernation and so must we. The days of Samhain are the final stages of autumn, and we are moving into the darkest and coldest phase of the year. Lifeforce and sap is returning to the root and into our physical form. Around us we see the barren landscape. All the leaves have fallen, and the weather is cold.

The festival of Samhain falls on the wheel of the year halfway between Mabon and Yule, the Winter Solstice. The calendared date for the festival falls at the end of October and beginning of November. Many associate Samhain with calendared Halloween but the two are in fact different festivals. At this festival there is a recognition of – and the visible connectivity with – death, but it is framed within the trust and faith that through giving death to the old we transform and regenerate and give birth to something new. Samhain is a time for exploration of the MYSTIC and WITCH, internal self-discovery, facing our shadow and challenging body sensations and emotions, which we may have resisted or even feared looking directly at, whilst honouring and trusting our gut instinct.

It is in the dark that we connect to the cauldron of alchemy and metamorphosis. There is a need to descend deep into the underworld, our unconscious mind, and the belly of the earth to retrieve exiled parts and to integrate shadow aspects of self. During Samhain, the veils between the physical and spiritual are very thin. We can access the wisdom of our ancestors and genetic memory. In allowing the renewal of our cells and the releasing of stagnated emotions and energy, the liberation of our ancestral lines can take place. Surrendering into the cyclical nature of life-death-life, trusting and following it whilst allowing the darkness, supports the potency of shamanic journeying, meditation, lucid dreaming, astral travelling, and intuitive knowing.

We explore the landscape of our unconscious and cut the cords with the patriarchal narrative that darkness is evil or terrifying – liberating it and our powerful feelings, where we can discover such wisdom. The rational and logical are not part of this festival. This is the heroine’s journey of descent and at the end of it, at Spring Equinox, following the ascent, balance is restored.

At Samhain we receive Awen and discern. We listen and scry, engage in divination work, and connect to the inspired dreams and visions to be birthed during the light half of the following year. At this festival we release and compost, receive and incubate. It is also a great time of year to assess, review and fill the gaps – to learn, find teachers who inspire you. You are PREPARING.”

- Kay Louise Aldred, ‘Mentorship with Goddess: Growing Sacred Womanhood’ - Girl God Books

Painting by Jackie Morris

Inanna's Daughters (at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Swannanoa Valley) met outside on a nice warm Sunday afternoon yesterday.

We came together in circle to honor our ancestors and others who've died recently, to hold in our keening sorrows all those suffering and dying on our earth today, and to recognize that death is not final, but a transition as autumn is to our earth's seasons.

And then there have been all these posts of Halloween Cats!

Ropes Mansion, Salem MA built 1720

Today's quote:

The day I acquired the habit of consciously pronouncing the words “thank you”, I felt I had gained possession of a magic wand capable of transforming everything.

OMRAAM MIKHAËL AÏVANHOV

Andrew Wyeth

Getting ready for the holiday

What great imagination carvers of pumpkins have!!

Last Samhain Peggy Moore gave a ceremony for our church, as she explained... 

"Samhain is one of the Celtic Holy Days, the end of the ancient calendar year and the day to Honor the Ancestors. Long ago, when our ancestors experienced their lives intricately woven with Earth's cycles, they saw certain times of the year as gateways or magical thresholds between the visible and invisible worlds. For those who acknowledge Celtic Spirituality, the lighting of the Samhain Fire ushers in the Dark Time of the Wheel of the Year and a time of introspection." 

 
We celebrated Samhain by calling in the guardians of the elements of Fire, Earth, Air and Water. We gave thanks to our ancestors who created the way for us and join our footsteps with all those who hold the Earth as sacred and all life as holy. 
 
We created an Ancestor Altar, of small items and/or pictures of our ancestors.

This year I have a small altar at home with the ancestors photos on it, and some pretty things I think they would like. To be more diligent, I could add some of their favorite foods, colors, clothing etc.

Today's quote:

Claude Monet, said: "I am following Nature without being able to grasp her. I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."

by Dorothy Laptrop, 1922 (Here's the skinny witch!)

Dia de los Muertos altars have photos of ancestors who are being honored, as well as things that they might have liked. Marigold flowers are often put on the altars. In Mexico, the tradition was to decorate the graves of ancestors also for this remembrance.

If I were being remembered, there would be chocolate on my altar, and some pretty flowers, and maybe some art and pottery which I'd made. I can hope for such. 

However, this is not another cultural appropriation. We are remembering our ancestors in our ways...and most of us don't have skulls on our altars.

I'm remembering my sister, Mary, this year, and am sharing her photo when the goddess Daughters of Inanna meet on Sunday (today) afternoon. I'll share photos where we aren't involved in ceremony, to respect the times we focus on our spirituality.

It may look like a jumble to you, but it's my altar for this Samhain.

I hope you have a few moments to think of your ancestors, or those who have gone before. Our thoughts help us bring their memories alive, and can heal any broken places in our relationships, yes, even with those who have gone before. We carry half that relationship in our lives, and if we heal that, then our lives are that much lighter whenever we think of them again.

Taking a walk

You've seen Lake Tomahawk before, which is my favorite walking place. But we finally have some color to share for Autumn has finally arrived in Black Mountain NC!  My current header shows some of the people who visit and walk around the lake.

Sharing this with the Sepia Saturday folks as well as an ancestor who was accused of witchcraft!

 

Building the dam which created Lake Tomahawk by CCC workers in 1936-7. I blogged about the dam as it currently stands HERE.  This week we begin a new month...so here's to the bridge between October and November!

I'll have more photos of this walk around the lake to share sometime later this week!

Though we mainly drove on the Blue Ridge Parkway, here are my cousins, Cindy, John and Chris at an overlook where the sign is missing!

Today's quote:

Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet. -Vietnamese proverb

Turn around and go back...

That was yesterday's lesson. I was supposed to have teeth cleaned in Asheville at 12:30. But at 12:02 I had a bathroom urge...so I left a few minutes late. Then by the time I got to the first exit on I-40, traffic was stopped on the interstate. So I though of getting off and going into town by the US 70 way...slower usually. But the exit cars weren't moving either. 

Rather than trying to rush through traffic to get there maybe 10 minutes late, (at the earliest they would still let me in today) I called and rescheduled my appointment, end of Nov. So now I turned around to come home. (I know they say we will be charged for visits if it's not cancelled at least 24 hours earlier, so I hope I don't have to pay for this visit I never had!)

Going back home, as I speeded up to get on the interstate at 70 mph, the truck behind me speeded even more and pulled over so he was blocking my merging. So I braked, what choice did I have. Then he apparently noticed me, and slowed to let me in. He continued to go as fast as he could (I'm assuming a big red pickup with a handicap plate is male). I was glad that I got off the interstate at the next exit.

Stopped to get gas and thought a car wash was a good idea. Nope, the lanes to the car wash were closed. A second turn around...

I then went to my neighborhood discount grocery store, Hopeys. I found some produce (at about twice last year's prices) and some coffee which I ground myself.  The cookie aisle had baking things like flour and such...no cookies. Then checked out and when I took my things out of the cart, there was the Romain-worth-gold sitting in the bottom of the cart. It hadn't been checked out. As an honest customer, I took it back inside and paid for it at $4.50 for 3 hearts of Romaine. Third turn around and go back and yes, I've got the message by now!

That's my lesson for today. Enjoying the trees which are just peaking now. And sun is making them really glisten. 

But I didn't pull over to take photos. I really was worried by now about safety!

It was warm enough to have windows open for about an hour.

---------------------------

And another thing...

I definitely live in a conservative country area

I base this opinion upon what these girls wore to the Prom this year at my local High School.

Such beauties...all wearing long dresses it seems. (Perhaps the girls in short dresses were put in the back?) But as far as I can tell, these 16-17 year olds look very demure.

This is my granddaughter and her friends dressed for their Homecoming Prom. They are all Juniors this year in a big Ohio high school.  This crouching pose, with accentuated derrière, was popular with them (while moms and dads took the photos!)

I'm glad nobody had the same color dress...they must have coordinated in shopping for them. But the hair styles are so - limited. At least a few of the girls in North Carolina did different things with their locks!

As my son, father of the prettiest girl said, "I bet your prom dress was bigger than a handkerchief," He was talking over the phone with his octogenarian mom! For my senior prom I finally had a strapless dress with plenty of stays and major amounts of cloth! And the fun was having a huge bow that draped down from the bust to the skirt, which was medium long. I didn't have much to hold up a strapless dress when I was 16, but the dress held itself up!

Difficult to discern, a cat on the porch with a turning head, and hanging bats also.

Today's quote:

Change can enter our lives silently, and this change can be just as important as change we have worked hard for.

Time for Samhain celebrating!

 

Early colors next to the parking lot at the apartment.

Taken Oct 14, 2023

Samhain as it's celebrated around the world wherever there's a bit of the old agricultural year folding up it's tools, putting them carefully in the shed (oil on the metal blades I wonder?) Time for gathering together with friends and family to enjoy the many wonderful fall crops. And time for those with skills to put away canned goods to see you through the winter until spring crops come through with some more food. Freezers help the modern persons related to squirrels. We humans gather for thanks-giving, first in October in Canada, then more than a month later in the US.

It's a time of bounty.

But before thanks is given, and after the crops have all been harvested, there's a time of rituals of rest and remembrance. It's carried by some cultures as a day to remember the ancestors, Dia de los Muertos, or All souls Day.

Samhain also represents the new year to old cultures. Not only recognition of those who have gone before us, but telling stories, looking to the winter hours of darkness that will provide dreams, more story telling, and somewhat tightening of the belts. In the old agricultural families daily there won't be as much physical labor being done, but rather craftsmanship can come to the fore. Wood working, fabric weaving, knitting of woolen things to wear in the cold weather, making pottery even.

And did I mention the fires? Sitting in circle around a fire has become a bit more common in our times with fire circles in many a back yard. So we know how wonderful it feels to stare into the embers, smell that smoke that sometimes blows in your direction, and share with each other whatever is important at that time. Or just have silence.

Another interesting thing about Samhain is that it's a time for new intentions to be declared. Letting go of what was worked with for the last 13 moons...and considering thoughtfully what a person wants to go towards!

Sometimes writing it down is a good idea. And then hiding it away until next Samhain, when it can be brought out and weighed...did that continue to be important, or did you let it go.

For me, I can just look back at last year's blogs, and remember what was happening at that time.

 

Here's a fun witches dance, my favorite! Thanks for the link Suzanne!

Have a jolly laugh!!

Duane Bryers painted many different seasonal pictures of this lovely impish lady, known as Hilda, and usually very scantily clad.

My question about him, is he related to the ice cream Bryers?

Today's quote: (which had nothing to do with the illustration)

Choosing to have joy is not naively thinking everything will be easy. It is courageously believing that there is still hope, even when things get hard.

MORGAN HARPER NICHOLS