Samhain/Halloween Night

As it turned out, I didn't get many trick-or-treaters at my house, I had two plus my grandkids, so I have tons of candy left over LOL.  I watched a scary movie, fell asleep on the couch, picked up my son from work, and did a reading before bed... but as it turned out, there was no bedtime for me that night.

My Grandkids...

Becca, Monarch Butterfly

 Kaden, Gorilla

Shyla, Witch

Reading

I drew my circle, called the Quarters, the Lady and her Lord, and my ancestors (passed loved ones, and my Celtic ancestors) before I began shuffling. I welcomed them and asked for their protection, wisdom, and the ability to receive and understand their messages to me, then proceeded with the shuffling and cutting of the cards; I drew the following:

(1) Me: Death (Change) I am experiencing Change in my life

(2) Crossing Me: Seven of Swords (Diplomacy) I will need help to deal with a situation

(3) Present: Page of Wands (Potential) There is a spark of light in the darkness... there is hope

(4) Root of the Matter: Four of Cups (R) (Discontent) I have been fighting depression

(5) Past Influence: Four of Wands (R) (Development) this urges me to not give up, things are still developing and will be ok

(6) Future Influence: Five of Swords (Defeat) This tells me I need to accept my limitations, and to assess the situation before moving forward.

(7) My Attitude/View: Four of Swords (Rest) I have been experiencing a reprieve from the depression and life has been pretty quiet... the calm before the storm, as I see it. (of course this was before the phone call) I just blogged about this very subject a few days ago!

(8) Other's View Regarding the Situation: Sacrifice I need to accept that all things change and something has to leave my life for something else to enter.

(9) My Hopes/Fears: Four of Discs (R) (Manifestation) my refusing to let go of the past and my fear of the future keep me from moving forward.

(10) Outcome:  Nine of Swords (R) (Suffering) If things stay on this path I will experience a mental breakdown/depression... a magnitude of loss... something is going to shake my world. This card says I may need help from a counselor/therapist to help me move through it, so it may be a doozy.

What I got from this reading is changes... something that will shake my world. The first thing that came to mind was Mom; she's had major health issues for 5 years now. Notice all the Fours; every suit represented by Fours. Fours represent Change. If you read all my recent posts concerning pulling Oracle Cards, they all relate to change. I'm about to experience a major turning point in my life and according to this Reading, it's going to cause me distress.

I kid you not, within five minutes of writing the cards down in my journal, I got a phone call from my sister telling me she just called 911 on Mom, so it was off to the Emergency Room for me, where I spent the night sitting with Mom. They intubated her; the diagnosis last night was Diabetic Keto Acidosis which caused respiratory failure, but no signs of a heart attack, and her lungs looked clear. 

After returning home at 5 A.M., I slept for most the day, then went back to the hospital to check on her. At some point today her heart enzymes increased so they did an echo cardiogram and x-ray, but we won't know the results until tomorrow. I didn't stay very long with her today because I'm exhausted; she's still intubated and appears to be resting peacefully, but she is sedated; her numbers looked pretty good when I left.

So... it begins.

Halloween... When did it Become Scary?

This morning I read a blog that got me thinking. “Voluptuous Goddess in Training” posted a question regarding Halloween/Samhain:  

When did it become scary and gruesome, 

and why? 

My reply to her post:  

"I absolutely love Halloween/Samhain! I grew up watching spooky movies, from the old back and whites to current... and I enjoy the suspense and the thrills & chills of a good spooky movie (or book). So for me, Halloween has always been fun, and in my adult years fun includes scary, so I have incorporated scary decorations to my Halloween/Samhain. I have no idea at what point in history did it become darker and Horror Movie Characters became popular... in the 80's?... at least that's when I remember seeing more horror-style costumes etc. I think it began happening as the horror movies became more and more popular, which makes sense. Hmm maybe I will do a cross-blog of the subject; you have me thinking! LOL"

After replying to her post, I decided I would do a cross-blog on the subject...

So let's back track... When I was growing up I wanted to be a princess or movie star for Halloween, until I was a teenager... then my costumes included Princess Leia of Star Wars, and face make up like Paul Stanley of KISS; as an adult my fave costume became a Witch; it’s the only time I can dress in full Witch garb and it’s totally accepted LOL, so that’s what I do; however I have been known to occasionally change it up; my past costumes have included a bloody car accident victim, a vampire, a hippy, a Sorceress, a black cat, and a housewife in a robe and slippers, complete with cold cream and rollers in my hair LOL

Most of us know the true history of Halloween, right? Halloween was adopted from the ancient Celts by the Catholic Church but before the Church existed, our ancestors knew it as Samhain (Sowen), a Sabbat to honor our ancestors who came before us, a time to reflect on life’s cycle, and a time to contact the spirit world because on Samhain, the veil between our world and the spirit realm becomes the thinnest, the perfect time to reach out to our loved ones that have passed before us. Samhain was not scary; it was a revered day.

Samhain marks the beginning of the Celtic New Year and is known as the Witch’s New Year; the Earth slowly dies as Autumn temps drop and Winter approaches, the old year has passed, the harvest is gathered up, and the livestock were brought in from the fields. Traditionally Samhain is the day of Novemebr 1^st; celebration began on the Eve of October 31^st lasting through the following day.

So with that in mind, when did it become S C A R Y?  Around the eighteenth century when the Catholic Church came into being, they decided to use November 1^st as All Saints Day to counter act the Pagan day with a Church holiday, as Paganism was considered heresy…  a sin; it became associated with devil worship and of course it was considered as evil. To combat paganism and convert more people to the Church, All Saint’s Day was born and became the festival to honor any saints that did not have a festival of their own; the mass said on that day was called Allhallowmas, a mass for the hallowed (holy); the night before the mass became known as All Hallows Eve. 

All Saint’s Day was followed by All Soul’s Day (November 2^nd), a time to pray for the souls in purgatory. This was when trick-or-treating came into being… or thereabouts anyway. So, Halloween/Samhain first became scary when the Catholic Church was born because it was associated with evil spirits and the devil.

Trick-or-treating began on All Soul’s Day when the not so fortunate people would knock on their neighbor’s door begging and were given Soul Cakes, later this practice went from adults begging to children doing the begging; they went to different houses and were given food. When this holiday came to America, the treats became candy in the belief that giving candy would prevent trickery, and costumes were believed a protection against evil spirits... a disguise, so that the spirits and demons would not recognize them.

But where did jack-o-lanterns come from, you ask? Originally they were made from turnips as lanterns, traditionally in Ireland and Scotland, but later when they made their way to America around the early 1800’s, the settlers began using pumpkins as the vegetable lanterns, but these lanterns were not associated with Halloween until 1866, which eventually evolved into the carved jack-o-lanterns we all know and love around the year 1900.

There is an old Irish catholic tale regarding the jack-o-lantern, about a selfish man named Jack and his run in with the devil…

Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree's bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.

Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as "Jack of the Lantern," which  later evolved into "Jack-O-Lantern.”

So we established when Halloween first began associated with evil spirits and the devil, of course the spookiness of the holiday and the fear associated with it was right around the corner, right? Over the generations with all the preaching of evil and foulness, the fascination with fear and all the wickedness and the spookiness associated with it grew and imaginations ran wild; horror stories and eventually horror films were born and quickly became popular; it was only a matter of time before horror became a prevalent part of Halloween. After all, according to the Church, they are interconnected.

Halloween... When did it become scary, and WHY?  
... Just look at our past, it speaks for its self... 

Loud and Clear.

HAVE A BLESSED SAMHAIN

AND

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Decorating for Samhain/Halloween... Yay!

The fun has begun! I started decorating for Samhain/Halloween tonight. I'm really please with my bookshelf, and I'm still working on the fireplace, but this is how everything is looking so far...

My bookshelf, doesn't it look awesome?

I've got a collection of potions, eyeballs in a jar, 

bugs in a candy dish, mice in a jar,

skulls, skeleton limbs, and just the 2 jack-o-lanterns.

Here's a close up of the eyeballs, potion, and bugs in a jar.

Here's a close up of the skulls, limbs, and a black jack-o-lantern.

Man Eating Rat

(rubber rat and skeleton limb... looks like he's munching away LOL)

 The bookshelf again... different view

Hand painted pumpkin flower arrangement... made by me :)

This is Spider Corner; it's got misc. spiders and a spooky picture.

The spooky picture

My fireplace so far

A witch hat votiff on the mantle

A jack-o-lantern votiff on the mantle

I apologize if the photos are blurry but I have the shakes and I was using my cell phone LOL I plan on doing spider webs on my porch but I have to keep the outside decorations to a bare minimum due to the neighborhood I'm in... not the greatest, but it's not the worst either. 

I sure hope I have alot of trick-or-treaters this year; we rarely got any in my old neighborhood. We do have more kids around here, but the streets are really dark, so we shall see what happens.