I hope you are all enjoying the Autumnal drama and spookiness. Last weekend my mother and I visited a historical cemetery. We crunched around in yellowed leaves over graves from the Victorian era sipping hot cider. There were massive ravens milling about in a bored sort of way. It was very windy. Wish I had some photographs, but it seems a bit rude to snap photos in graveyards. Speaking of graveyard etiquette, I found this odd newspaper article!
Now we find ourselves approaching the dark half of the year during which sun god of the light half of the year dies leaving the darker half and, thus, the moon goddess. It is a time of libation and offering, psychic and spiritual awareness, passion and sexuality, ritual and ceremony as the physical world retreats into a deep slumber. Beginning tomorrow night on Samhain, the veil between the living and the dead grows thin and fluid.
"Speaking from a personal perspective, I consider it vital to realize, particularly in terms of ritual knowledge, that the experience of evoking the shades of one's lineal and local magickal ancestors provides a very real sense of living community. It bestows the sense of belonding to a magickal community in which both living and dead participate. This empowers the perpetuation of rememberance and maintains a direct understanding of one's personal and communal spiritual heredity. This is one just about the present linking the past but it is about the dead and living engaging in the persent as one."
-A. Chumbley
It is traditonal on Samhain night to leave a plate of food outside the home for the souls of the dead. A candle placed in the window guides them to the lands of eternal summer, and burying apples in the hard-packed earth "feeds" the passed ones on their long journey. For food, beets, turnips, apples, corn, nuts, gingerbread, cidar, mulled wines, and pumpkin dishes are traditional, as are meats.
-S. Cunningham
Although it is a time of darker days and thoughts of death, I find it inspiring and spiritual! This is a time when we find ourselves cozy and close with our loved ones.
Here are some things that have me excited this Autumn:
-Abuelita Mexican Hot Chocolate is simply the best. You melt the solid chocolate in soy, rice, or regular milk, and then pour it into the blender and mix for a minute or so. The result is foamy, spicy, and darkly delicious. Not syrupy sweet like American hot chocolate....much more complex and deadly.
-A Soul cake is a small round cake which is traditionally made for All Soul's Day to celebrate the dead. The cakes, often simply referred to as souls, were given out to soulers (mainly consisting of children and the poor) who would go from door to door on Hallowmas singing and saying prayers for the dead. Each cake eaten would represent a soul being freed from Purgatory. The practice of giving and eating soul cakes is often seen as the origin of modern Trick or Treating
-Here is a very macabre news story that my old Folklore professor told us about....it has always haunted me.
-The Fin de Siecle is an amazing blog full of Victorian art and oddities. Right now, they are doing spooky and morbid art. (Be careful, there are some gorey one's of Jack the Ripper's victims)
-The Hoodoo Shop Blog has some amazing altar photographs up at the moment:
-Also, The Witch of Forest Grove is a well rounded source of information on herbs, rituals, and history. She recently wrote a great post about building ancestral shrines and altars:
Ancestral Shrines and Altars: Most cultures , ancient and modern, that worship the ancestors maintain shrines or altars at all times. The home shrine or altar is where the ancestors are told of all that happens in one's life-all our joys and sorrows. Offerings are given, as the dead are believed to still require the nourishment they receive from our libations and burnt food offerings. It is also at altars and shrines that the ancestors are petitioned for aid or advice. Whenever something is asked of or received from the spirits of the dead, something must be given in return. This may be anything from libations, burnt food offerings, or certain incenses whose fumes are as food to spirits.
The Ancestor Shrine: The ancestral shrine can be anything from a small shelf to a full tabletop with photos and belongings of dead loved ones, various candles, a bell, water, flowers, and an offertory dish for libations or unsalted foods. The altar cloth should be white for worship and offerings and the candles white or blue. This is a devotional space to pay respects to one’s ancestors—especially those of your family. I recommended a shrine for those who do not wish to delve deeply into spirit work, but still want to regularly honour their ancestors.
She also creates beautiful and symbolic artwork
-I adore the intimacy of this archival home video from 1939!
-Can't get enough of this Timber Timbre performance on NPR
-Don't know where I found this, but...
-Finally, here is one of Tim Burton's first films. It is a stop-motion version of his poem Vincent narrated by the one and only Vincent Price.
Whatever you may do to celebrate tomorrow night, may it be spooky and fun.
madeleine
I feel like children in private religious schools are expected to be much more "well behaved" than in some public schools. We had to walk in two neat lines of boys and girls anywhere we went, attend mass every wednesday, be clean and wear crisp uniforms, write with pens in cursive in every class, and stand when we spoke in class. It was obviously highly oppressive. I wandered through that school by msyelf so many times while I went there, especilly at night during PTA meetings when I could sneak away. I always felt so certain that it was haunted and I was intrigued with the religious statues of Our Lady of LaSalette~ and even more intrigued with the odd stories about her appearing to young children and such. I remember when I was little there was still that thing were church's doors were open all the time and you could go there to pray whenever you wanted. My mom took my brother and I there at night a few times. I remember it being really dark save for this one red candle burning. 
I have had a weird love/hate/obsession with the Kieran and Macaulay Culkin for a very long time. I recently saw Party Monster for the first time...
