Saturday, October 28, 2006
Samhain not Halloween
The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.
Samhain (Sow-en) marks one of the two great doorways of the Celtic year, for the Celts divided the year into two seasons: the light and the dark, at Beltane on May 1st and Samhain on November 1st. Some believe that Samhain was the more important festival, marking the beginning of a whole new cycle, just as the Celtic day began at night. For it was understood that in dark silence comes whisperings of new beginnings, the stirring of the seed below the ground. Whereas Beltane welcomes in the summer with joyous celebrations at dawn, the most magically potent time of this festival is November Eve, the night of October 31st, known today of course, as Halloween.
Samhain (Scots Gaelic: Samhuinn) literally means “summer's end.” In Scotland and Ireland, Halloween is known as Oíche Shamhna, while in Wales it is Nos Calan Gaeaf, the eve of the winter's calend, or first. With the rise of Christianity, Samhain was changed to Hallowmas, or All Saints' Day, to commemorate the souls of the blessed dead who had been canonized that year, so the night before became popularly known as Halloween, All Hallows Eve, or Hollantide. November 2nd became All Souls Day, when prayers were to be offered to the souls of all who the departed and those who were waiting in Purgatory for entry into Heaven. Throughout the centuries, pagan and Christian beliefs intertwine in a gallimaufry of celebrations from Oct 31st through November 5th, all of which appear both to challenge the ascendancy of the dark and to revel in its mystery.
In the country year, Samhain marked the first day of winter, when the herders led the cattle and sheep down from their summer hillside pastures to the shelter of stable and byre. The hay that would feed them during the winter must be stored in sturdy thatched ricks, tied down securely against storms. Those destined for the table were slaughtered, after being ritually devoted to the gods in pagan times. All the harvest must be gathered in -- barley, oats, wheat, turnips, and apples -- for come November, the faeries would blast every growing plant with their breath, blighting any nuts and berries remaining on the hedgerows. Peat and wood for winter fires were stacked high by the hearth. It was a joyous time of family reunion, when all members of the household worked together baking, salting meat, and making preserves for the winter feasts to come. The endless horizons of summer gave way to a warm, dim and often smoky room; the symphony of summer sounds was replaced by a counterpoint of voices, young and old, human and animal.
In early Ireland, people gathered at the ritual centers of the tribes, for Samhain was the principal calendar feast of the year. The greatest assembly was the 'Feast of Tara,' focusing on the royal seat of the High King as the heart of the sacred land, the point of conception for the new year. In every household throughout the country, hearth-fires were extinguished. All waited for the Druids to light the new fire of the year -- not at Tara, but at Tlachtga, a hill twelve miles to the north-west. It marked the burial-place of Tlachtga, daughter of the great druid Mogh Ruith, who may once have been a goddess in her own right in a former age.
At at all the turning points of the Celtic year, the gods drew near to Earth at Samhain, so many sacrifices and gifts were offered up in thanksgiving for the harvest. Personal prayers in the form of objects symbolizing the wishes of supplicants or ailments to be healed were cast into the fire, and at the end of the ceremonies, brands were lit from the great fire of Tara to re-kindle all the home fires of the tribe, as at Beltane. As they received the flame that marked this time of beginnings, people surely felt a sense of the kindling of new dreams, projects and hopes for the year to come.
The Samhain fires continued to blaze down the centuries. In the 1860s the Halloween bonfires were still so popular in Scotland that one traveler reported seeing thirty fires lighting up the hillsides all on one night, each surrounded by rings of dancing figures, a practice which continued up to the first World War. Young people and servants lit brands from the fire and ran around the fields and hedges of house and farm, while community leaders surrounded parish boundaries with a magic circle of light. Afterwards, ashes from the fires were sprinkled over the fields to protect them during the winter months -- and of course, they also improved the soil. The bonfire provided an island of light within the oncoming tide of winter darkness, keeping away cold, discomfort, and evil spirits long before electricity illumined our nights. When the last flame sank down, it was time to run as fast as you could for home, raising the cry, “The black sow without a tail take the hindmost!”
Even today, bonfires light up the skies in many parts of the British Isles and Ireland at this season, although in many areas of Britain their significance has been co-opted by Guy Fawkes Day, which falls on November 5th, and commemorates an unsuccessful attempt to blow up the English Houses of Parliament in the 17th century. In one Devonshire village, the extraordinary sight of both men and women running through the streets with blazing tar barrels on their backs can still be seen! Whatever the reason, there will probably always be a human need to make fires against the winter’s dark.
...
Divination at Halloween Samhain was a significant time for divination, perhaps even more so than May or Midsummer’s Eve, because this was the chief of the three Spirit Nights. Divination customs and games frequently featured apples and nuts from the recent harvest, and candles played an important part in adding atmosphere to the mysteries. In Scotland, a child born at Samhain was said to be gifted with an dà shealladh, “The Two Sights” commonly known as “second sight,” or clairvoyance.
Apple MagicAt the heart of the Celtic Otherworld grows an apple tree whose fruit has magical properties. Old sagas tell of heroes crossing the western sea to find this wondrous country, known in Ireland as Emhain Abhlach, (Evan Avlach) and in Britain, Avalon. At Samhain, the apple harvest is in, and old hearthside games, such as apple-bobbing, called apple-dookin’ in Scotland, reflect the journey across water to obtain the magic apple.
Dookin' for Apples Place a large tub, preferably wooden, on the floor, and half fill it with water. Tumble in plenty of apples, and have one person stir them around vigorously with a long wooden spoon or rod of hazel, ash or any other sacred tree.
Each player takes their turn kneeling on the floor, trying to capture the apples with their teeth as they go bobbing around. Each gets three tries before the next person has a go. Best to wear old clothes for this one, and have a roaring fire nearby so you can dry off while eating your prize!If you do manage to capture an apple, you might want to keep it for a divination ritual, such as this one:
The Apple and the MirrorBefore the stroke of midnight, sit in front of a mirror in a room lit only by one candle or the moon. Go into the silence, and ask a question. Cut the apple into nine pieces. With your back to the mirror, eat eight of the pieces, then throw the ninth over your left shoulder. Turn your head to look over the same shoulder, and you will see and in image or symbol in the mirror that will tell you your answer.
(When you look in the mirror, let your focus go "soft," and allow the patterns made by the moon or candlelight and shadows to suggest forms, symbols and other dreamlike images that speak to your intuition.)
Dreaming StonesGo to a boundary stream and with closed eyes, take from the water three stones between middle finger and thumb, saying these words as each is gathered:
I will lift the stoneAs Mary lifted it for her Son,For substance, virtue, and strength;May this stone be in my handTill I reach my journey’s end.
(Scots Gaelic)Togaidh mise chlach,Mar a thog Moire da Mac,Air bhrìgh, air bhuaidh, ‘s air neart;Gun robh a chlachsa am dhòrn,Gus an ruig mi mo cheann uidhe.
Carry them home carefully and place them under your pillow. That night, ask for a dream that will give you guidance or a solution to a problem, and the stones will bring it for you.
We here celebrate in a far different manner than most of U.S. Households...for us it's not a festival celebating sugar and silly costumes
just wanted to remind everyone why we do the things we do....
enjoy the holiday
Later....
Monday, October 23, 2006
Life Moves Fast
Dead Man Blogging?
At number 10 we have Ms. Lucy Liu....what is so special you ask? Have you seen her freckles? I dig freckles....and have you seen Kill Bill? and a 5'2" she fits my personal aesthetic....enough said
at number 5 is Elizabeth Hurley......Early in her career she did nothing for me, but as she got older that changed....her manner her bearing, her grace seemed to improve the older she got now in her 40's i think this woman is the quintessential picture of class and sophistication...and you have to love the accent.
And at number 1 is my wife Nicole....(Yea i know you think i'm trying to score brownie points or save my ass but i'm dead serious) This woman has changed my entire outlook on life, love, relationships, sex, family, and a host of other things. When i first met her i thought she had a great ass...but that was as far as it went...she was really bitchy! Not to mention i'm a bit on the republican side of the fence and she is way over on the left someplace...lol and as you can see from the pictures above I don't really like blondes....lol. Also she is a gemini so I never know who i'm going to come home to, or who will walk in the door sometimes...(seriously i'm not kidding which is both scary and exciting) She is one of the only women that i have ever met that can be classy, crass, demure, outrageous, soft spoken, in your face, inoocent, and sultry all at the same time, and still manage to bang her head! She is a lady on my arm, she can be a slut in the bedroom, she can be an innocent child....she is sexy in her undies, nothing at all, and an old T-shirt (she even has beautiful feet!). She is kind, giving to a fault...and makes me laugh even when i really don't want to. She indulges me in all things...sometimes too much...she has made me a father...(an experience that i both love and hate her for)...she is my best friend, my lover, my mother, and my wife......I love her.....and she has freckles did i mention i love freckles?.......and guys if you choose to believe it or not I wouldn't trade her for ANY of the women on this list!
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Guilty Pleasures
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Old Dog, New Tricks
Thursday, October 12, 2006
They Asked for More
1.
In our rented room
Your form explicit
your legs
Were my world
I
found
A measure of content
In your arms
For a while
together
Under cool cotton sheets
Entwined
Me
within you
Once upon a time
Petite queen
Now disenchanted
Our union
Marred and broken
I lay here
By myself
Consorting with
My demons
And wanting to die
Thanatos
Has no time for me
So I write
And survive
The suicide Notes
No one
will find
In shadow
I fear being alone
Heaven
I now know
Is not for me
Scared Little Boy
On the inside
Afraid to ask
For
Forgiveness
Wondering
Where you are
And if your
Finally
Happy?
2.
Ravens wings and stranger things
Haunt
The dark corners of my mind
Macabre mists
Infest neurons
Cluttering Them with
Sinister insidious unease
Cathartic terrors
Traverse
Neural net pathways
Excavating
Ponderous foreboding dreams
Meant to Remain
Safely locked away
With heavy iron chains and padlocks
Wild streams
Of violent midnight
Leak from my pen
Like glittering streams of ebon
Forming opiate oceans
Of monstrous drivel
With which to
Fill
This worm eaten page
Formulas
Black and forbidden
Ancient
Guarded
Secrets
I remember
How
By the light of candles
And the relentless
Dripping of wax
In a place
Devoted
To strange searching
A fresh
Morbid malignancy
Seeped into
My cerebellum
A strange phantom
Guides my hand
Spectral fragments
And letters form
A turn of the key
And you
Were
Born
3.
What was once
Will never be again
Fate is fickle
As she is
Female
Changing her heart
And mind
Minute to minute
As they are all
Inclined to do
The bane
Of my existence
Though
I love them dearly
I am part of
A generation
Raised by women
Father
Always absent
Problem
No solution
Can the Answer
be Found
In the arms of
another
Woman?
Only half
One
Incomplete
Without the other
Twice
I have tried
Twice
I have
Failed
Life is simple
The answer
Forty-two
But
What
Was
The question?
paranoid maybe but i suppose you can never be to safe?
Later...
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Recent Submission
Only in the shadowed recessed
Alcoves of my brain
Do I begin to understand
The arcane logic
Of the alpha numerical poly-peptide
Sequences
Of both life and death
Because of the coins you chose
To press into the ferry mans’
Outstretched bony grasp
A holy war now rages
In the v-twin adrenalin charged Temple
of my heart
Armies of anger and sorrow
Surge unchecked
Waging war
Across the battlefield
Of my scarred grey twisted soul
Fallen soldiers
Comprised of blood and tears
Mingle together
And embrace
As they free themselves
On silver and ebon wings
From their brutal prison
Of carbon and h20
God?
There is no such thing
For me
You have removed me from
His healing light
And left me in this hell
Constructed just for me
The one you promised
To love, honor, cherish, and obey
Just as the night must die
To give birth to the dawn
A part of me
Died with you
Giving birth to hatred
Most divine
A hatred you nurtured
At your breast
A hatred you placed
Into the cavity of my chest
Where its evil cancerous growth
Eats away at me
Day by day
With the contents of a bottle
You left me alone
In a cold and clinical place
To identify
Your earthly remains
Because
your mother
Refused to bear witness
To your cold and lifeless blue form
It is only now
After having served my sentence
Of loneliness in shadow
That I can return
To that morning
Surrounded by stainless steel
White sheets and formaldehyde
And truly
Kiss you goodbye
Only now
Can I walk
Down that long corridor
Of concrete
And pass through
Those heavy doors
Of leaded glass
Out into the sun
better safe than sorry
Later...
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Body Modification
Why do it? Good question.....Body modification (or body alteration) is defined as the permanent or semi-permanent deliberate altering of the human body for non-medical reasons, such as spiritual, various social (markings), BDSM "edgeplay" or aesthetic. It can range from the socially acceptable decoration (e.g., pierced ears in many societies), to the overtly religiously mandated (e.g., circumcision in a number of cultures) to corporal punishment, to provocative statement by the rebellious (e.g., tongue splitting). Some even become physically addicted to the adrenaline/endorphin release associated with a painful procedure in a way analogous to that experienced by those who self harm. Some people experience an abstract but distinct compulsion to modify their body that appears to have no underlying or external reason. Some futurists believe that eventually humans will pursue body modification with more advanced technological means, such as permanently implanted devices to enhance mental and physical capabilities, thereby becoming cyborgs. For the substantial number of people with heart pacemakers and brain implants such as cochlear implants and electrical brain stimulators for Parkinson's disease, this is already a reality. (Imagine a world where we can have ipods/MP3 players hard wired and implanted directly into our brains) i.e. William Gibson
So why did i do it? I'm not sure i have been toying with the idea for years...i guess i'm at a point in my life where i have done everything the way i am supposed to and it hasn't gotten me anywhere...i.e. cut my hair to get a job etc. Did I do it to be cool? my son asked me this question, and well that opens up another question what is cool...Body modification has become a common place event these days....in fact while i was standing around shooting the breeze with one of the artists, three women one a nurse, one a waitress, the other a housewife...all having various piercings done were in line in front of me......so my definition of cool would be to not have it done simply because everyone else IS having it done so no I didn't do it to be cool...besides how cool can a 37 year old bald father truly be ? lol.....so again why did i do it? I suppose it boiled down to freedom...i made the chice to do it any nobody can tell me what i can or can't do with my body. My ears have been pierced for roughly 20 years now and i did it then because i knew it would piss off my father (Ex-Navy). and i simply liked the way it looked. I currently have 6 tattoos each of them inked just after a major life event.....the publishing of my first comic, my divorce, my 30th birthday etc. So I suppose the answer is i did it because i wanted to! why does anyone do anything? Something to think about. I think everyone should get at least one tattoo or at least one piercing.
Just my two cents
Later...
Saturday, October 07, 2006
For my Buddy Scott K.
DEATH BY LOVECRAFT
I was told his housekeeper found him sitting upright in his favorite chair, the expression on his face frozen in a state of obvious abject transfiguring fear, his fist clutched around an amulet made from some unknown black highly polished red stained mineral matter. The coroner listed the cause of death as shock derived from electrical discharge. I being a student of the occult and esoteric was the only one who accepted the truth for what it was. Next to him on the side table nervously scrawled with a finger in his spilled wine was a single word: Nyarlathotep.
this is a post in response to Matt Dinniman's Flash Fiction contest:
http://shiveredsky.blogspot.com/2006/10/1st-annual-flash-fiction-contest-prizes.html
enjoy
Later...
Friday, October 06, 2006
Coolest Wife on the Planet!
Ah shut up! I know its mushy but i don't care.... and no I'm not in the doghouse
Later....
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Only from My Cold Dead Fingers
As a gun enthusiast, I often fume that the anti-gun crowd is forever thinking that firearms themselves are somehow responsible for terrible tragedies, as if a thing of forged steel and finely machined parts could contain some indwelling power and mind of its own. New or stronger laws are not the answer........we need to enforce the laws that are already on the books.....in regards to the recent events (i.e. school shootings which deeply sadden, sicken me as well as piss me off) stronger gun laws could not have prevented any of these shootings, because these people had no criminal background and had not been treated for any psychological problems, and even if they had.....guns can be bought anywhere for the right price....why punish me or any law abiding gun owner for something somebody else did or does? You can make all the changes you want to existing laws or even make new ones, but you can never stop a random act of violence by someone intent on taking his own life, or the lives of others. These disturbed people are going to find a way to commit these deeds.... if its with a screwdriver, a hairdryer, a hammer, a virus, or a car. Pointing the finger at guns is just stupid and lazy. I find it very ironic and funny that left wing nutcases like Rosie Fat-Ass O'Donnel that are so against guns....she has attacked everyone you can imagine (Did you see her ambush Tom Selleck on her show?) and has marched on Washington in support of her so called cause.... and yet her bodyguards carry.....yep you guessed it guns!......case of do as i say not do as i do.....it just shows the attitude of these people...
Later...
Sunday, October 01, 2006
New Lease on Life
I know it s been a while so sue me life gets in the way of things all the time....(I have been working on a Novel) and......My son Tyler has been begging me for over two years now for a bow this week i decided he was old enough. But I need to back up.....I was cruising down the road on my way to work the other day and the "Cats in the Cradle" came on the radio...suddenly i had to pull over a cry a little bit (seriously) My son had made the comment a few days before that everybody was just too busy to play with him. His older sister was out with friends I was working in the snake room and updating a website and his mother was at work......Suddenly my childhood came flashing back....my Father was in the Navy and always gone when he was home he was sleeping or busy ...we don't have the greatest relationship now and i didn't want us to be the same way.....so i dusted off and old hand me down Fred Bear Bow cleaned it up and bought him a new one and we have spent the last two days plinking arrows in the yard......I never knew 100.00 bucks could be so rewarding...... I don't think I have ever seen him so happy, or me either for that matter its funny how small things can change your perspective.....Life moves very fast don't stand still for too long.....
Later...