HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Some prefer Christmas and some Easter, and some prefer holidays of even less public appeal, but in my heart, Halloween will always be the best holiday of them all. If someone told me I could only have one holiday a year, I would choose Halloween. Even though I am allergic to most candy, at no other time of year is it acceptable to dress weirdly and go from house to house harassing your neighbors for handouts.

I was eleven when I found out I was allergic to citric and malic acid and chocolate. Yes… I am allergic to chocolate. I am the inheritor of the genetic crapshoot. Ironically, I found out about these allergies at Christmas. My family thought I had a cold, a very bad cold. The school had a live tree that year, as did my family and my grandmother. It turns out one of my worst allergies is pine. Second, we had wool rugs. That’s another allergy that contributed to my congestion. Then, because oranges are good for you… my family kept feeding them to me along with copious amounts of juice. And finally, because they felt sorry for me, they also gave me lots of chocolate. Needless to say, I was very, very sick. I suppose it’s a good thing we didn’t have pets, or I might be dead. Though if the dustmites and feather pillows didn’t get me, I suppose I shouldn’t split hairs.

It’s entirely possibly that my sickly Christmases are the reason it is not my favorite holiday. I remember one Christmas we all got the flu. I think everyone in the family got up and threwup in the hallway leading to the bathroom. That was a bad one. But it has been my allergies which have truly set the limitations of my enjoyment of life, and so you would think that all the candy I ingested, before the reality of my allergies set in, would also set me against Halloween, but ironically the autumn is the best time of year for me. Everything is dying and so all that pollen that makes me so sick and tired and congested from July to September is gone, and I actually feel better. I suppose it helps that I’ve grown up a bit and my food allergies are no longer as bad as they were as a child. More body mass for the “poisons” to get lost in… I can have chocolate now, in moderation, without breaking out in hives. I can have a glass of orange juice or an apple now and again without consigning myself to the bathroom for the rest of the day. (The less said about that, the better!) I can live with my food allergies. None of them are deadly. It’s the allergens that affect my breathing that interrupt my life, and so Halloween and the autumn are the best time if year for me.

One of the best things about autumn is how the air feels and smells. Everything smells wonderful and tangy. Every season has its own set of smells, but autumn has a quiet, comfortable musk. Spring is the bitter sap of the world coming awake, and winter is sharp and metallic like blood. Summer smells like sweat and tears, but that may be the mucus talking. To each season, there is a reason… autumn is a lay you to rest kind of time. It lulls you to sleep in preparation for winter’s Big Sleep. Spring’s smells say wake up and summer says go out and be active, but autumn is about anticipation. It is an in between time. Not one thing or another.

This may be why autumn, and Halloween, is one of the times when the Otherworld is so close you can almost reach out and touch it. The only other time is Midsummer’s Eve, and that’s just one day without much leading up to it. With Halloween, you can watch the world change as if in anticipation of the holiday. Autumn encourages celebrants to don their own party colors and join in the pageantry. I don’t think there is any other time of year that so appeals to our creativity. Funny story about Midsummer’s Eve though. I decided when I was 14 that I didn’t like this world, and I was going to try to get into the fairy Otherworld. I said goodbye to my mother and sat in her bedroom doorway until well past midnight, but never got to go anywhere. Such disappointment…. but I never tried at Halloween. I suppose I’d rather go to the fairy Otherworld than the afterlife Otherworld, though mythology and folklore would have them be the same place.

What is your favorite Halloween memory?

My fondest memory of Halloween was one I spent with a friend. We went to a graveyard which had a thin ribbon of woodland between itself and a road. We sat in the trees and when a car would drive down the road, we’d scream and growl and shake the saplings and generally make a nuisance of ourselves. I don’t know that we ever scared any of the drivers, but it was fun pretending that we were ferocious.

Most of the traditional foods of Samhain have to do with its aspect as the last harvest of the year. This means that at this time, the animals are brought in from the fields and many of them are slaughtered to provide food for the winter. Beef, Pork, and poultry are traditional foods of Samhain.   I do not eat beef or pork anymore, but I will eat free range poultry when I can find it.

When I prepare a chicken, I go out to the garden and cut some fresh sage, thyme, and lemon balm. I also cut up a couple small onions or garlic and half a lemon. After cleaning the herbs, I’ll pull off a couple of the larger sage leaves to stick under the chicken’s skin. I clean the chicken, cutting away as much fat as I can from under the skin. This makes the skin crunchier and gets rid of excess fat and cholesterol. Then I stuff the chicken with some salt and pepper, the onions or garlic, the cut up lemon, and the herbs. I tuck the large sage leaves under the chicken skin and sprinkle salt and pepper over the whole bird and maybe some lemon pepper seasonings if I have it. I’ll bake it at 400 F, twenty minutes a pound. What can I say? I’m Pennsylvania Dutch. We cook things till they’re dead. heh

I also make gravy from the guts. First boil the guts and neck for a good long time. I usually go for an hour or so, just to make the broth nice and flavorful. If you have fresh herbs, you can steep them in the broth at the same time. Drain the broth and let it cool. If you have any pets, you can clean up the guts and neck meat for them once they cool. If not, you can wait till they cool, clean away anything inedible, and then grind them up in a blender to add back to the gravy. Next (I learned this on Good Eats with Alton Brown!), melt about 3 tbsp of butter on low heat and add 6 tbsp of flour. Keep cooking this until it looks (to me) a bit like applesauce. Add any dry herbs at this time if you did not add fresh herbs previously. You can continue to cook it for as long as you like, and the longer it cooks, the thicker it will make the gravy, but stir it as much as possible so it doesn’t get crunchy. See, I used to just shake some flour up in cold water and add this to the gravy to thicken it, but Alton Brown’s method really thickens the gravy, And there are no lumps. Plus, you don’t get that floury taste you sometimes get if you add too much flour to thicken. So once I’m ready, I’ll add a little bit of the broth at a time until I’ve added about half of it to the pan. You’ll be amazed at how much of the broth it absorbs! Then I dump the flour mixture into the gravy pot, turn it up to boil, and stir until it’s smooth. I make my gravy like this all the time now. It’s a little bit extra mess, but well worth it.

But wait! We’re not done. Don’t throw ANYTHING away. I usually buy a larger bird than we need so that I can make soup. I hope you have a really large pot. I have a three gallon pot, but I’m asking for a five gallon for Yule. After you cut off the bits of chicken you’ll be eating at dinner, pull out the herbs and other ingredients you used to stuff the bird, and throw them in your pot. This will help the carcass cool faster. After dinner, dump any left over gravy in the pot as well, unless you want to save some for sandwiches. Next pick over the bird until you have separated all the edible bits of meat from it and torn what you intend to use for the soup into bite size pieces. Leave those on a plate. Take only the larger bones from the carcass and dump those in the pot. This will make it easier to separate them out later. Nothing’s worse than feeding someone soup and having them find a bone in it. Add enough water to cover everything and set on the stove to boil.

While that’s going on, cut up some carrots, celery, another onion, and potatoes. I prefer onions to garlic in the soup, but you may prefer garlic. If you’re using potatoes in good condition, you can leave the skins on for extra vitamins. The veggies usually take about an hour to prepare. After straining out the bones and herbs from the soup broth, I add the veggies to the pot, cover, and boil for about a half hour. The potatoes don’t have to be cooked through because I won’t be eating it that night, and they’ll continue to soften as the soup cooks. After adding the chicken and more water to bring the level up to about an inch under the rim of the pot, I check the taste of the soup and add salt and pepper if needed. I might also add some lemon juice to give it a bit of extra oomph. Not too much though. I can’t say how much because I judge from the taste, not from a measurement. Only when the soup is very nearly done do I add the noodles and corn. Now my Grammy used to make her own pot pie noodles for the soup, but I generally just go out and buy some nice Pennsylvania Dutch egg noodles which come in a variety of sizes. Two or three large handfuls is usually enough. I also add a bag of frozen corn. This recipe usually makes about nine to ten single serving containers of soup. The way my relatives go through it though, it usually doesn’t even last a week.

My mother makes a baked “stuffing” that people rave over. It’s not an overly complicated recipe, but does take time to prepare. It consists mainly of potatoes, celery, and onions. She cuts up enough potatoes to fill up that 3 gallon pot of mine and boils them till they are soft. Meanwhile, she melts a stick of butter in a very large pan on medium heat. She dices a large onion and about five large celery stalks. Once the butter is melted, she’ll add the veggies to the butter and saute until they are soft. Some people will buy cubed bread or buy a loaf and let it get stale, but my mom uses a fresh loaf of Italian bread and cubes it herself. Once the veggies are soft, she adds the bread to pan and cooks them until they’ve browned a bit. Meanwhile, she drains the potatoes if they are done and turns them into mashed potatoes. You can add milk, butter, or sour cream to the potatoes as you mash them to make them smoother, and each ingredient makes them taste a little different. Personally, I prefer the sour cream, but my mother’s boyfriend prefers butter. When the mashed potatoes are done, my mother mixes the bread mixture into the potatoes in an over safe bowl. Then she bakes it until it browns a bit on the top. Now, my mother does not add any herbs to this, but you can be more creative if you like. There are many herbs and foods traditional to this time of year including allspice, apple, garlic, mushrooms, nuts of all kinds, rosemary, rue, sage, and tarragon. Go wild!

I’ll usually make my famous baked macaroni and cheese. It’s not specifically traditional to this time of year, but it’s something my family loves. I use a pound of extra sharp cheddar cheese (I find the store brand stuff is consistently the sharpest), about half a stick of munster, and most of a small package of velveta. Cook up enough macaroni noodles to fill a large oven safe bowl. Strain and pour a layer of noodles into the bowl. Completely cover the noodles with a layer of cheddar, about five or so pieces of munster, and four or five pieces of velveta. Pour another layer of noodles and repeat. There’s usually not enough room in the bowl to make another layer unless you’re using a really deep bowl. My mother likes to bake this for about a half hour, but I prefer an hour. Depending upon how long you want to cook it, add milk accordingly. When I bake it, I put enough milk in it that it’s a little less than half way to the top. When I prepare it and my mother makes it (because I am at work or something), I put in about half that. The more milk you put in it, and the longer you cook it, the more the milk will curdle and permeate the noodles with cheesy goodness. No matter how long you cook it, about midway before it’s done, stir it once. Bake it at 375 to 400 F, and keep it in until it has a nice crunchy crust. My grandma adds breadcrumbs to the top, but we’ve all come to the conclusion that she’s crazy. Seriously, she’s the only bad cook in the family.

Next is something I’m not sure is available everywhere and that’s dried corn. If you’ve ever had canned creamed corn, that’s something like dried corn. The only major difference is, dried corn is not canned. Or, well, you can buy it in a tin, but it’s preserved through drying, so you basically have to reconstitute it. But that means, no nasty preservatives. So, first off, for every cup of dried corn use two cups water. Put this on a burner and bring to a boil, then cover for about an hour. Bring back up to a boil and add about a tablespoons of sugar (or I prefer honey), two tablespoons of butter, and salt and pepper. Add one cup of milk or evaporated milk, and cook for another five minutes. If at the end of the meal there is anything left, it can be added to the soup or you can use it to make corn bread casserole . It’s not actually a casserole. I think of it more like a dessert.

For the casserole, you’ll need about two cups of the cooked dried corn (or two cans of creamed corn), two eggs, sour cream, oil, sugar, and one box of corn muffin mix. Mix the corn, eggs, one cup of sour cream, a half cup of oil, and a third cup of sugar. Add the muffin mix and a dash of salt. Bake in a large greased pan for about an hour at 350 F. Yummy. I got this recipe from a lady I used to work with.

Once settlers came to America from Europe, gourds, particularly pumpkin, became another traditional food of the season. Now I am not overly fond of pumpkin pie, (I much prefer the seeds) so I did a little experimenting. I am not one for canned anything (except peas for some reason), so I make my pumpkin puree from scratch. It’s not too hard; it’s just a little time consuming. Preheat your oven to 200 F, and wash your pumpkin thoroughly. Next take your pumpkin and slice him right down the middle lengthwise. Then cut those pieces again. Scrape out all the guts with a spoon and put them in a bowl if you want to keep the seeds. Make sure there are no stringy guts still attached to the pumpkin’s flesh, then cut the quarters into pieces about the length and width of two fingers. Lay them, skin side down, on a foil lined cookie tray. Bake the pieces for about an hour, then turn the oven up to 300 F and cook for another hour. Test the flesh with a fork and if they are tender, take them out and let them cool. At this time, you can turn the oven off. Pick the pumpkin pieces up with the foil and set them aside. Put a new piece of foil on the tray and pour your cleaned pumpkin seeds onto it. There should be no pumpkin pulp left on them. Salt to your tastes and set in cooling oven.

Now the pumpkin puree can be used just like you would use any pumpkin puree from a can, but it’s got no additives. That’s what I love about making things from scratch. I’m the only one adding anything to it. Just scrape the pulp from the skin and puree in a blender. Like I said before, I’m not a big fan of pumpkin, but I’ve made pumpkin roll with the puree, and recently I made a cranberry-hazelnut pumpkin pie which I actually liked pretty well. I’ll probably adjust the cranberry-hazelnut to pumpkin custard ratio when I make it again, but it was pretty good.

First, the crust… two cups flour, a teaspoon of salt, about one-fourth teaspoon of allspice, and three-fourths cup of shortening. Some people use lard, but I can’t. It makes me sick. So vegetable shortening it is. Mix that all up with your hands until you get a oatmeal like mixture, then add about a tablespoon of Cold water at a time and mix well with a fork until the dough can be formed into a ball. Put this in the fridge for fifteen minutes or more to firm up. I have this really cool pie crust “bag” that I can throw the dough in to roll so that it makes less mess and gives me an even thickness. It’s bit of a pain to clean, but I can’t believe how much easier it is to make pie crust with it.

Next you’ll need a cup of cranberries (I prefer to use fresh), a half cup hazelnuts, a fourth cup brown sugar, and a teaspoon vanilla. Clean your cranberries and throw away anything squishy or with soft spots. Cranberries should be hard. Dump your cranberries and hazelnuts into a blender or foodprocessor and grind them up to a coarse meal. Add the brown sugar and vanilla, then spread this mixture over the bottom of the pie crust. Next time I make this recipe, I’ll probably double this part.

If you have a favorite pumpkin custard recipe, you can prepare it and pour it into the pie crust at this time and bake the pie at 425 F for fifteen minutes, then reduce to 350 F and bake for another forty to fifty minutes. The spices I use in mine are a heaping teaspoon of cinnamon, a teaspoon of ginger, and a fourth teaspoon of cloves. For those who have never made a pumpkin pie before, take a large bowl and beat three eggs lightly. Stir in one and three-fourth cups of pumpkin puree, a half cup sugar, a half teaspoon of salt, and your spices. Mix well, then slowly add a cup of evaporated milk.

Chances are, you’ll have left over dough and if you adjust the cranberry-hazelnut mixture like I plan to next time, you’ll have a bit of pumpkin custard left too. You can make a couple small-personal pumpkin pies without the cranberry mixture for those who are fussy, or you can bake the excess pumpkin custard in a separate bowl without crust and turn the excess crust into “batons.” Batons are basically left over crust which is spiced and baked for about fifteen minutes. You can roll it in sugar and the same spices you used to make the pumpkin custard. Add them to the tray with the pie and take them out before you turn it up.

Another pie I like to make is a cranberry-pear pie. For Halloween, I sometimes call this my bloody-pear pie. You can use the same crust as above. Take an entire bag of cranberries (cleaning and discarding the bad ones), about one cup of sugar and a half cup of water and boil until all the cranberries pop. Put this in the fridge to cool. I prefer Bosc pears, but you can use any kind of pear (or apple) that you like. I like to stew the pears in brown sugar before dumping them into the pie, so I skin and core them, then slice them up and add them to a pan with a teaspoon of butter and about a fourth cup of brown sugar, cooking them until they are soft. Pour the cranberries into the pie crust once they are cool, and pour the pears on top. Combine one cup sugar, three tablespoons of sugar, a fourth teaspoon of nutmeg, a fourth cup of crushed almonds or hazelnuts, and six tablespoons of butter. Mix thoroughly until the whole mixture turns into crumbles, then sprinkle over the pie. Since the pie is basically cooked already, all you really need to do is cook the crumbles. This takes about fifteen to twenty minutes at 375 F. Remove from the oven when the crumbles are slightly browned.

So! Happy holidays and happy eating!

So…. I decided to take the plunge and be a Xanga Lifetime member. Really I am trying to make a New Year’s resolution to write more, and since online, outside of the many community boards I belong to, I write the most at Xanga, it seemed like a good choice. I haven’t noticed a big difference with this lifetime membership yet, but it’s only been a few minutes. heh I’ll probably explore my new limitations over the next few days. I’ve also been going through and revamping/editing my angelfire site where I used to post my Circle of the Bodhisattva Newsletter. Maybe I’ll start that back up again. If anyone here likes to write on Pagan/religious subjects, in a few months I might be willing to take submissions.

So some of you may be wondering, Hey! What’s up with this New Year’s resolution business… New Year’s isn’t until January. Well, Halloween, or Samhain, is the Pagan “New Year.” Halloween is one of the most important Sabbats of the Wheel of the Year. It is called Samhain (pronounced SOW-in in Irish, SOW-een in Wales, SAV-en in Scotland) and Sauin in Manx. It means summer’s end, and it is often pronounced phonetically as ”SAM-haine” in non Gaelic speaking countries. It is the last of the three harvest festivals, often referred to as the “Last Harvest.” Though some groups do not celebrate the coming of the new year until Yule, Samhain is usually considered the end of the old year in almost all Celtic based traditions. Halloween is also known as Fleadh nan Mairbh, All Hallows Eve, Hallowtide, Harvest Home, Hallowmass, Hallows, The Day of the Dead, All Soul’s Night, All Saints’ Day, Third Harvest, Samana, Old Hallowmas, Vigil of Saman, Shadowfest (Strega), and Samhuinn, Dyedy (“Ancestors” Slavic), and Vetrarkvöld (Scandinavia).

The Historic Halloween

As with most Celtic holidays, Samhain begins at sundown. This night is called Oíche Shamhna in Irish, Oidhche Shamhna in Scots Gaelic, and Oie Houney in Manx, and it is the primary focus of the celebration. It is a time of fairs and festivals. Some witches may celebrate two Samhains (October 31st and the nearest Full Moon), while older customs had the festival extending for three days. The old date for Samhain was when the sun enters 15 degrees Scorpio, but the Catholic Church made this date Martinmas.

While individual remembrance and communion with the dead might be sought by people at any time during the year, there is no other time when such a deep communal connection could be forged than during the Samhain season. The rituals of Samhain involve a more intense union with the dead in the time-honored fashion of all communal bonding, with feasting. As a harvest festival, there are few times of the year when we can enjoy such bounty as nature provides now. Sharing a solemn meal, “in the sight of gods and mortals,” placed mutual responsibilities on all participants. By inviting the dead to such a feast, the living were reminded to honor their ancestors, while the dead were encouraged to take a hand in the well-being of their living kin. In this way, celebration of Samhain is a kind of ancestor worship.

Most Samhain customs fall into two broad patterns. The dead, present as invisible entities, entered through open doors and windows to partake of the festivities. A certain amount of food might be set aside exclusively for the dead. In some cases, a specific type of food, usually some kind of cake, was made solely for them. There was also the practice of the Dumb Supper, where places were set for those who had departed. It was called a “dumb” supper because no one was to speak throughout the entire meal. In others customs, a portion of the same food that the living would eat was put aside. The most classic example of this pattern is the boued an Anaon (“food of the hosts of the dead”) custom in Brittany. The Anaon (a word related to Annwn, the Welsh Otherworld) are the gathered hosts of ancestral spirits. They are usually portrayed as hungry for sustenance from the world of the living. A large amount of food was set aside for their sole use and had to remain untouched by all human agencies for the entire feast. Eating the food of the dead, even if one was desperately hungry, was a terrible blasphemy. Anyone who did so was condemned to become a hungry ghost after death, barred from sharing the Samhain feast for all time. This aspect of the dead is very similar to the Hungry Ghost festival of China.

The other pattern of this Samhain custom encouraged the recycling of the offered food into the community. This may be seen most in the Welsh cennad y meirw, “embassy of the dead” custom. While the wealthier members of the community put together lavish Samhain feasts for their households, the cenhadon (the poor) took on the collective identity of the community’s dead by going from door to door in disguise. At each house they were given a portion of the food that had been set aside for the dead. Refusing them food for any reason was sinful and retaliation in the form of destruction of property was acceptable and encouraged. This may be the true origin of the “trick” aspect of our modern Halloween, though the reasoning has been lost. In any event it was a way to encourage the time honored traditions of community and charity.

Also at this time, the flocks were brought in from the fields to live in sheds until spring. Some animals were slaughtered and preserved to provide food for winter, and the last of the crops was gathered from the fields. Any crops left on the field after this time were taboo. Bonfires (bone-fires) were built, and bones from the feasting were thrown in the fire as offerings for healthy and plentiful livestock in the New Year. All hearth fires were extinguished and relit from the village bonfire, and later the ashes were spread over the fields to protect and bless the land. The hearthfires would burn continuously until Beltaine unless calamity struck, in which case the hearth fires would be extinguished and relit from “need-fire,” a similar magical practice that was engaged as the name implies, when needed.

The period from Samhain to Yule, the “time which is no time,” is very magickal and at the same time very dangerous. The veil between worlds is thinnest at this time. None should walk alone at night while the dead return to visit their kin and the doors to the Faery Realm open. The ghosts of all persons who were destined to die in the coming year were said to walk through the graveyard at midnight on Samhain. Going about in costume was an ancient practice designed to ward off spirits bent on causing mischief. Villagers would dress as ghosts to escort the dead to the city limits and deter the angry or evil ghosts from doing any damage by appearing to be one of them. People dressed in white, wore disguises made of straw, or dressed as the opposite gender. Many thought ghosts possessed an evil nature as a rule and so for protection, jack-o-lanterns with hideous candle-lit faces were originally carved out of turnips and carried as lanterns to scare away the malevolent spirits. Later pumpkins were used when Celtic settlers reached America.

Samhain is also the beginning of the cider season, and apples, a favorite food of the dead, are traditionally buried for their consumption. To honor spiritual visitors and gain their favor for the coming year, a Fleadh nan Mairbh (feast of the dead) is laid out. Many folks leave milk and cakes (Bannocks) outside their door on Samhain. In Belgium, small white cakes or cookies were prepared as Cakes for the Dead. A cake was eaten for each person gone, with the belief that the more cakes you ate, the more the dead would bless you.

In addition to communion with the dead, divination of the future was a common practiced as people focused on the coming year. Certain traditions, such as bobbing for apples, roasting nuts in the fire, and baking cakes which contained tokens of luck, were actually ancient methods of telling fortunes. Stones were marked with names and thrown into the bonfires. In the morning, these stones were retrieved and the stone’s condition foretold the person’s fortune. New Year resolutions are a common practice on Samhain.

Modern Halloween

When the Romans invaded Britain, they brought with them many of their festivals and customs. One of these was the festival know as Pomona Day, named for Pomona, the goddess of fruits and gardens. Also celebrated around the 1st of November, the Celtic Samhain festival and the Roman Pomona Day eventually combined to form the basis of our modern Halloween.

In 800 AD, the Roman Catholic All Hallow’s Day was switched from May to November 1st to coincide with the Celtic Samhain in an effort to convert the Pagan masses. The eve of All Hallow’s Day became All Hallow’s Even and slowly evolved into the familiar word Hallowe’en. Mexico observes a Day of the Dead on this day, as do other world cultures. Our modern celebration includes all of these influences, Pomona Day’s apples, nuts, and harvest, the Festival of Samhain honoring the dead and otherworld, and skeletons and skulls from All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day.

As thousands of Irish and Scottish immigrants flowed into America, the Hallowe’en practice of Trick or treat evolved. Beginning sometime around the 1840s, the old tradition of going door to door asking for donations of money or food for the New Year’s feast was carried over to the US from the British Isles. Traditionally, curses were heaped upon those who did not give generously; while those gave from their hearts were blessed. During the 1920′s, Hallowe’en antics became a way of letting off steam for the poor living in crowded conditions. Eventually however, innocent acts of vandalism, such as soaping windows, gave way to violent, cruel acts. Organizations like the Boy Scouts, in an attempt to pacify the holiday, encouraged good children to visit shops and homes asking for treats to prevent criminal acts. These “beggar’s nights” became very popular and evolved into what America calls Halloween. From these varied origins, the term “trick or treat” was derived, though this greeting was not commonly used until the 1930′s. As early as1910 however, American manufacturers were making or importing products just for the holiday.

Samhain Associations

Plants : Broom, Calendula, Catnip, Deadly Nightshade, Hemlock, Mandrake, Mugwort, Mullein, Mushrooms, Nettle, all Nuts, Oak, Passionflower, Pine, Straw, Ginseng, Wormwood

Foods of Samhain : Allspice, Beef, Almond, Apple, Bay, Calendula, Garlic, Gourds, Hazelnut, Mulled Wines, Mushrooms, Nettle, Nuts, Pine, Pumpkin, Pork, Poultry, Rosemary, Rue, Sage, Turnips, Sunflower, Tarragon

Incense of Samhain : Heliotrope, Mint, Nutmeg

Gems and Stones : All black stones, Amber, Brass, Clear and Smoky Quartz, Diamond, Garnet, Gold, Granite, Hematite, Iron, and Steel, Marble, Pyrite, Ruby, Sandstone

Colors of Samhain : Black, Orange, White, Silver, Gold

What is the most creative Halloween costume you’ve ever seen or worn yourself?

Halloween is the most wonderful time of year. I trick or treated until I was 16. I’d probably still be trick or treating now if I could get away with it. At 33, some people still seem to think I can pass for 17, but that’s still too old to be trick or treating.

Still, I like to dress glam when I can for whatever reason, even if I’m not very glam in everyday life. I prefer jeans and a t-shirt, and no makeup. That’s how I usually dress. If I do anything special, it’s usually with my hair which I enjoy playing with. I’ve got a lot of it, so I can do a variety of things. If my job wasn’t anti-unnatural colors (and I wasn’t a supervisor), I’d probably have green hair.

I hate store bought costumes though. I love to be original and either put them together or even sew them myself. In the past few years, I have been a Crow-girl a la Charles de Lint. I was the spirit of autumn, and I was a Spider fairy (which I thought up before the costume became popular). I even made a wand. This year I was a water nixie. If the picture turns out, I’ll probably post it at some point. Unfortunately, they usually don’t. Something about my complexion or the lighting always conspires to make me look… deceased. And since that’s not what I’m usually going for, it kind of ruins the effect. I’m like a natural Goth. Just add dark clothes.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

Do you think religion should be taught in schools? Why or why not?

Yes, I do. Why?

Because there can be no respect without understanding.

All religions, not just Christian ones, should be taught in schools. Every religion, right down to the dead ones, should be taught in every level of school, from elementary school on. Let children share their beliefs with one another and learn to get along before they’ve grown into their parents’ bigotry. In elementary school, let children bring their religions to school like show’n'tell. In Middle School, let them announce and celebrate the holidays specific to their religions. In High School, let them study a specific religion every year.

In short, let them learn to accept that which is different by showing them the similarities inherent in addressing the divine.

If people are worried about their children adopting a different religion, let them teach them about their family religion at home. Or is it too much to ask parents to spend a little time teaching their kids any family traditions and history that might help that child discover something of who they are? I think one of the reasons people have become so destructive in the past century is because we don’t raise our own children any more, and we don’t impart to them any sense of personal history. There’s really not much of a personal investiture in religion these days, and kids see that. So let parents who care, teach their children about their religion on a regular basis, instead of maybe once a week. And then let the schools broaden the child’s understanding of religion and the world through a world religions class. If the parents don’t like it, let them provide the foundation for their child’s spiritual life early on, and then it won’t be a problem if they learn about the ways of other people.

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Do you think technology breeds isolation?

As I sit here with a horrible head cold posting words which might otherwise go unsaid, I would have to say that, no, technology does quite the opposite. From the wheel, fire, and books to automobiles, home appliances, phones, and the internet, technology tends to centralize us, not separate us. From the very first innovation, technology has allowed us to go forward and form tribes from families and nations from tribes. Technology allows us to travel to far off places to visit friends or simply learn about a new cultures. It allows us to communicate over large distances, whether for our own entertainment or to receive advance information about impending bad weather or other troubles. Even the innovations of refrigerators and ovens have served to bring people together in a place where they know food can be found. Even the smallest innovation of our cavemen forbearers, fire, served to bring us together to share rather than remain apart to eat our meals alone.

Technology is the cement that holds us together. Without it, we would live day to day, never knowing what tomorrow might bring or where our next meal might come from. Technology provides order to an otherwise chaotic existence. In many ways, technology gives us more time to concentrate on improving ourselves. Though it’s true that many people use this extra time for entertainment instead, the fact still remains that our forbearers had little time to spend outside of their day to day chores. And their forbearers had a completely hand to mouth life style. 

So we are all better off with technology than without, despite the irresponsible use of the technology to fight wars and create disease. (Even that brings us together, though not in a good way…) Technology may not bring us together bodily, but a meeting of the minds is just as important, if not more so.

And as it now seems that I am losing my train of thought, I’ll end my post here.
   

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I have a headache today. Probably because I was feeling all mopey yesterday and ate some chocolate ice cream. Which at the very least, at this time of year, I should not have done. First off, I’m allergic to chocolate but I love the stuff. But also, we still haven’t gotten frost yet to kill off all those nasty little allergens in the air and now I have a sinus headache. Figures… I ripped apart my whole room on my vacation to clean and didn’t even get the sniffles from the dust, but I eat a bit of chocolate ice cream and the next day I feel like it went right into my sinuses instead of my thighs like a normal verboten treat should.

I’ve been going to the gym, and I’ve lost ten pounds so far. That’s kind of cool and makes up for the ice cream a bit, though today I’ve been sucking down lots of cokes for the caffeine to try to kill my headache so that’s not so good. Not to mention the four tylenol I’ve taken since I got up this morning. I should just buy stock in various anodynes and make back my investment for every bottle I buy. I won’t even get to go to the gym this week unless I go down on my day off. I probably will.

I have to apologize for my whining about my family. I really do try not to. I do love them. Whenever I get whiny like that, I start to feel like I’m being just like them, especially my siblings. They both have issues and have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression and my brother’s supposedly got Asperger’s syndrome as well. My mother is always depressed (which I know because I’m an empath even when she doesn’t bring it up about once a week), and I just get so sick of all their whining and so I hate to do it myself. (But sometimes I have to do it just to get it out and stop dwelling on it.) I think that some people use these diagnoses as an excuse to complain and also be lazy. Chances are, I’m also suffering from one or more of these “disorders,” but I don’t want to be like my family or let society tell me there’s something wrong with me. Society, in my opinion, is partially to blame for these things. They’ve done studies with rats that show that overpopulation creates mental disorders. We may be herd animals, but when the herd gets too large it must splinter or feed on itself. Guess which our society is doing… I don’t want to have to take drugs in order to fit into the world like my brother or sit on my butt and bemoan my ineffectuality like my mother. I know that my mental health probably does get in my way a little bit because I am a terrible procrastinator and I also have self-esteem issues… I love to write as can be seen from my extensive posts, but you think I could be bothered to submit anything anywhere? No… I make excuses. Foremost that most places do not want to accept the long pieces I write, which is true but still an excuse. I find I am incapable of writing short stories and no one really wants long stuff unless you’re already someone. I’m probably going to end up like H P Lovecraft, posthumously famous.

What I should really do is self-publish. I work in a bookstore after all. I’m dead certain my general manager would accept anything I got published, whether the big distributors carried it or not. I’m torn by money issues and too many ideas. Fiction or nonfiction? Horror, scifi, or fantasy…. magick, metaphysical, herbal, or divinations? You tell me… I tried posting a “short” story of some 8000+ words in a protected post here but no one was interested and eventually I erased it. My mother has me completely paranoid about someone stealing my work. She constantly berated me about my webcomic… that I wasn’t getting paid to do it and someone could steal it, blah blah blah… and I haven’t updated that since I got promoted to supervisor at work. I justify that by saying I haven’t got the time, and that I was never a very good artist, and only one person ever seemed to care online… I could make the time if I didn’t continually talk myself out of it.

I am just tired of being no one. If I could get a little recognition for my skills… a little money to do the things I want, then maybe I could be more proactive… more interested in accomplishing something. I bet a lot of people think that way though… a little money and I can do this, this, and that. A little money and everything would be much better than it is now. Money is only a distraction from the fact that my current mode of living is unhealthy and that I am as much responsible for that as society and my family is. I can’t change the world, but I can change myself and by setting a good example hopefully give others the impetus to change as well. Anytime I criticize my family, it turns into a fight. They don’t want to recognize that there’s anything wrong with the way they act or interact with others. I have to stop blaming them for being ignorant of me. They don’t even really know me so their criticisms of me are flawed from the start.

Every year at this time I take off about a week from work to do some intensive cleaning at home and prepare for our annual yardsale. I hardly ever take a real vacation, that is, going away somewhere. This year was the exception. In August, I went with my family to Chincoteague. I probably won’t do that again. My allergies were just abysmal. And I don’t get along with my family much in close quarters.

I lie… at the beginning of October, I took off a weekend and dragged my mother to the Landis Valley Harvest festival. I thought she’d like it because they collect and sell heirloom seeds, and she loves to garden. Mostly she just made me feel guilty about making her go to an event she had no interest in. I paid for her to get in, bought her and my nephew lunch, and she actually owed me about $20 which she decided she could keep for gas money. Fair enough…I guess. Any time I try to convince her to come with me on a trip though, it turns into a guilt trip…. She was still whining on our way back until I reminded her how little money she actually spent.

It would probably be better if I just did not participate in any family outings any more. If I go somewhere they want to go, they get sullen because I don’t enjoy myself as much as they do. Half the time they won’t even stop for meals, even though they know I get low blood sugar and migraines. If they go somewhere with me, or rather if my mother comes somewhere with me, all she can do is make me feel guilty for dragging her somewhere she didn’t want to be and spending money she doesn’t have. I’m really rather tired of being treated like a burden or a child to be humored. I really thought she’d enjoy the harvest festival, but no such luck apparently.

So every year I take off from work for about a week, mainly for our annual yardsale. This year I only took about half a week because of work issues, but I still got most everything done I set out to do. We have the yardsale at the same time as the Walnutport Canal festival which occurs every year pretty much on our doorstep. It brings in a lot of people without us having to advertise. In fact, there are a lot of people who know we have a yardsale every year. We’re practically another festival event. I display my crafts and old books I no longer want, among other things. My mother sells some antiques and some junk. And we have a family friend who comes in and sets up in our yard as well.

My mother didn’t do so well selling her stuff as she has in the past. She only made about $25, but I keep track of all the different tills in a notebook and this year she had me split out any children’s stuff that she was selling. That money was for my nephew. So technically, he made $27, which brings her total up to $52, more than anyone else did. Still she saw fit to complain about how little she made this year, as if it was my fault. I don’t think she’s even aware of how much resentment she heaps on me. I must have missed writing something down, because at the end, the till was $4 over. I gave it to her, and then everything was okay or at least better because she had more money.

My family makes me so tired.

My mother’s boyfriend is studying to be a trucker. He paid $5000 (which came from my mother) to take a course at the community college so he can get out of roofing. This is why they’ve been so short on money, and whining about it, lately. My mom keeps making comments when we go food shopping or about Christmas presents… as if I’ve asked her for anything. I told her there’s nothing I really want this year, and the things I have named in passing have been really cheap… a new large pot for cooking soup? Hardly an expensive gift idea. And I buy most of my own groceries. Technically with the arrangement we have, I pay the mortgage and they’re supposed to pay everything else. Even so, I usually buy most of my own groceries. I only ask her to buy things that everyone else uses as well. She acts like I don’t contribute at all.

Next year, they’re hoping to sell the house and move elsewhere. Though probably not too far as my mother doesn’t want to leave the area until her mother has passed on. Since my grandmother is in excellent health and women in my family live into their 90s, we may be here for another decade at least. I really don’t think we’ll be moving any time soon, since my family always makes these grandiose plans that never fall through.

I love my family, I really do, but maybe it would be better if I didn’t move with them.

I don’t think they appreciate me. It’s really frustrating to be surrounded by people who make snide comments about me to my face as if I’m taking something from them. We’re supposed to be a family and share. They work hard but seem to feel I don’t. They really have no idea how hard I work at my job, but they know some nights I don’t even get home until midnight or after. That never stops them from waking me up before the sun’s up. They pay their bills, but my contributions are as nothing. I’m the only child who has never asked them for money, got in trouble with the police, or even made many demands upon their time outside of the occasional invite on a trip. Which I’m thinking I should just not do any more because half the time they decide not to go at the last minute and then I’ve taken off from work for nothing since I end up not going either. I stay in my room for the most part and clean up my messes outside my room as I make them, but according to them, I should be cleaning the rest of the house too, even if I never even sit in the living room more than a few minutes in a month because my mother’s boyfriend is camped out on the sofa more often than not.

I am just tired and discouraged. They make me feel guilty about what little I ask of them. I shouldn’t feel ashamed of trying to be a family. And they wonder why I stay in my room so much… I’m just trying to stay out of their way and not get b****** at.

I’ve been saving up my money. I initially told them that when we move, I’d have some money to contribute for the down payment, but lately I think I should save it for as long as I can and then buy my own place. They think that I spend too much time in my room now, if we stopped living together, they’d see me (and hear from me) even less. I’m not being malicious. I’m just trying to give them what they seem to want. Every time I try to bring these issues up, my mother tries to make me feel like I’m either crazy or selfish, and while I may be partial to the first by society’s standards, I know I’m not the latter. I just want them to love me as much as I love them, but if they won’t, it would probably be better if I wasn’t here. This is the kind of crap that made me consider suicide in highschool. My sister actually tried to kill herself in highschool by taking a bottle of aspirin…. but no one knows how close I came, not that I think they’d care. More likely than not, they’d just act like I was being overly dramatic or trying to steal a page from my sister’s book. Either way, my sister has always been the favorite because she almost died of pneumonia when she was a baby, and my brother is second favorite because he’s the only boy, and my nephew is the new favorite because he’s the baby. And so I’m nothing because I’m eldest and never almost died (unless you count the three times I almost did or the times they don’t know about when I seriously considered ending my life) and never made a fuss because the others needed my mother more than I seemingly did. But I did need her and I still do and it’s not fair the way they treat me. I mean, neglect is a form of abuse too, and I was definitely neglected as a child. And when I try/tried to be part of the family they make me feel like I should go back to my room or just away.

And I could probably go on like this for a good while longer, but I think I’m going to just stop here and go to the store before I leave for work. At least I finally have a good job where I don’t mind being. If it wasn’t a half hour away and gas wasn’t so dear, I’d probably spend more time there. Every other job I ever had made me feel even worse than my family does, but working at Borders, I’d rather be there even if it is hard work and I don’t get home till midnight or later. At least they appreciate me there. The people I work with are a better family than the one to which I was born.

Is the idea of marriage too outdated for the 21st century?

I don’t know that it is outdated, but in the same breath, I don’t think it is for everyone. I’m asexual, so I don’t foresee myself ever marrying. If I did marry, my partner would obviously have to be asexual too. Asexuals can have feelings of love, but we just don’t have any desire for sex. In that event, marriage becomes an economic partnership. In these days, unless you have a good paying job, or two, survival on your own is close to impossible. I still live with my parents and I don’t foresee that I will ever move out. I pretty much pay the mortgage every month; they pay the utilities.

I think for some people, marriage is still viable. People still fall in love and say they want to spend the rest of their lives together. I think that’s lovely. I think anyone who wishes to be married, should be. There shouldn’t be any limitations on marriage based on sex. If people love one another, they should be permitted to declare that to the world with great ceremony and celebration.

In all honestly, I think the institution of marriage should be revamped, but not altogether done away with. If anything, I think it should be expanded. Marriage should represent any partnership with a foundation in love, and not necessarily physical love. Marriage should be expanded to include all one’s kith and kin. Marriage is and should continue to be the foundation of family, but who we choose to include to our families should be entirely up to us (not the government). Everyone should have the right to take into their family, the friends who are closest to their hearts. People might assume that with the institution of marriage, sex is implied, but why? I don’t think it needs to be. 

I think that if the idea of marriage is to survive, it should change. Any two people can get together and produce a baby. That’s not marriage. Marriage is about declaring your love and your intention to form a family to the world. If marriage is to survive, the concept of family will have to grow.   

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Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t care about celebrities in the least. Half the time I couldn’t even say who was who in a movie. I know some people look for their favorite actors in movies, but I look for genres in movies, not actors. In fact, if I recognize some actors in the movies I want to see, sometimes I won’t be so enthusiastic any more. Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, and Will Smith immediately spring to mind. I don’t know what people see in them, but I wish they would stop getting lead roles in movies. It really destroys the whole thing for me.

That’s not to say other actors do not interest me. Vincent Price may be dead, but I collect his movies. He was a talented man. Sandra Bullock is funny as heck, and so are Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. I also like Vin Diesel for some reason. I really haven’t figured that one out. And Orlando Bloom… I have a lot of respect for him. That’s not to say I follow the careers of these people, not their personal lives or their movies. If they happen to be in something I’m considering seeing however, I give it just little bit more consideration.

But I still don’t understand why there are magazines, tv shows, and entire television networks dedicated to the professional and personal lives of “stars.” I couldn’t care less who is sleeping with who, who is pregnant, or is in rehab, who’s movie is coming out soon…. Like I said, I care more about the subject of the movie, than the people in it. I do care if they’ll do it justice with their acting, but beyond that, I like older movies because the acting was just so much higher quality than can be found today. Movies today rely more on special effects than actual acting. Musicians rely more on computer remixing than their voices or skills.

I am just not impressed with the skills of most celebrities. It seems to me the accolades they receive are largely unwarranted. I do not care about them beyond what I would feel for anyone. Mostly from what I’ve seen of their personal lives, they’re not the kind of people with whom I’d want to associate. That’s not saying much, since there are more people who I would choose not to associate with than there are people that I respect, but you’d think people who live so much in the public eye would make some effort to be respectable. Though I suppose if we can’t expect that from our politicians, I don’t see how feasible that would be for our entertainers.
   

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