Halloween 2021

This year's Halloween was not exactly a fulfillment of all my spooky cross-quarter hopes, dreams, wishes and desires.   There was no costumed ritual with mist and fire; there was no mystic visions or portents from Tarot cards.  There were no masks blurring boundaries between self and not-self.  

Mark and I did hike up to the top of Spencer's Butte with Aoife and had a token snack at the top -- it wasn't a dawn salutation to the sun, and I spilled hot tea on myself -- but the slanting sunlight through the clouds and river fog was picturesque.

Then it was off to Trader Joe's for party supplies.  

I had hauled the decorations from out of the attic about a week before -- this involved a lot of stooping, a head flashlight, and smacking into at least one roof beam.  

I'm thinking we need to re-arrange our front room a bit because right now it's in a COVID configuration that is too cluttered for anything but frat-house decor (this is mostly my fault, as Mark is our resident Marie Kondo) .   I am grateful that the lava lamps are out for a while, and at least this year we got the Trick-o-Treating cats out long enough to enjoy them.  

While shopping, I forgot to get Mark some Toblerone and earned the epitaph of Bad Husband.  To atone, I set out to the local Rite Aide for some Toblerone (and Almond Roca), which almost always involves standing in a line for way longer than one would imagine or wish for.  

We did have a tea party of sorts, but for various reasons -- I prepped the food too late, I was the only one into it, nobody on the very small guest list showed up -- it was particularly anemic.  Mark made some yummy cheese dollars.  I brewed a carafe of tea over a tea candle, and made cucumber savories.   I cut an apple laterally to make slices with stars at their centers.  Then I binged on Almond Roca and poured the extra tea into a thermos to save for later so I wouldn't over-caffeinate on a school-night.   

The little mini-pumpkins we bought this year had thick, hard rinds; this made it hard to carve them --  and while they came out adequately, I ended up with a broken mellon-ball spoon (a useful tool for carving eyes) and sore hands.  Eventually, they were hung on stakes in front of the house.   

The Child opted to spend all of ten seconds carving the pumpkin I'd saved for him by whacking it with a hammer to give it two dented eyes and a crack for a mouth.  

I did manage to carve a pumpkin and managed to get a Witch-King of Agmar vibe from it, so there was that.  And the jack-o-lanterns and candles were quickened with flames ignited by the focused rays of October 31st.

By five o'clock all the candles were lit, all the little treat bags Mark had decorated were ready, and the Trick-or-Treaters had yet to show up.  I figured it was time to thrown on the black and purple cloak, strap on the RollerBlades and wrist-guards, and glide up and down the street a few times.  I surprised one neighbor as I veered around a corner, and after her startled "oh!" we wished each other a Happy Halloween.

Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre played in my head as I swooped around.

It was enough.

November Jack-O-Lantern Prophecy

November 1, I hung the tiny jack-o-lanterns from the tree out back.  I think I'd like to fill the tree with about three times as many pumpkins next year (although they would be tempting for the stupid squirrels and I'd have to practice just accepting that a few of the jack-o-lanturns would be mauled for seeds.  

But having a tree filled with glowing faces and illuminated with flickering candlelight would be worth it, I think.  I keep thinking that I'd like to have an outside Tarot reading table for Halloween night, but the logistics of getting folks into our yard are tricky.

Cicero was uncharacteristically cooperative with the camera, and I got a few good black-cats-and-pumpkin shots.  Mark was unimpressed because A) what's the big deal about Halloween and B) yet another cat photo on the Internet.  Oh well.   

Now it's been a week and The Child was wistfully wondering if he could take a baseball bat to the hanging jack-o-lanterns, one of which has had its face gnawed off by squirrels.  I told him no because A) it's post-Halloween and B) beating effigy heads is for the uncouth and ignorant.

Besides, I think there's a kind of prophesy at work -- the first jack-o-lantern to fall off the tree was the one with the jagged smile, and the one with the mauled hole for a face looked like a knight, and will frowny one be the last?  There must be a meaning in there.  

 

I'm guessing that if this were one hundred years ago, the last jack-o-lantern hanging would turn out to be my husband.  It sounds like researching crow counting rhymes and other folk oracles may be in order.

Halloween Musings

The Child and I want to take Halloween in different directions.  For him, it's still about getting tons of candy from the neighborhood and filling the house with zombies, skeletons, and bloody blades.  For me it's more about how masquerades change our perceptions.  Mark's not really into Halloween; he's more into Thanksgiving and Christmas.  

Some folks say during Halloween, the veil between the worlds is thin and the inhabitants therein can visit between the worlds -- when the Grey Folk and the Dead and the Ancestors and the Numinous Ones visit.  For one of my friends, it's about looking into the shadow parts of oneself in order to deal with them more effectively.  For me Halloween is a time to be someone you're not.  To find surprises that jog you into a new awareness or understanding of yourself.  

Like Christmas, Halloween has gotten commercialized and the focus has shifted from the True Meaning of Halloween to Getting Loot.  The aspect of trick-or-treating that has been lost is that it is a gifting custom from the days of mumming.  Essentially the trick-or-treaters are gifting houses with the effort they put into their outfits.  They're essentially saying, "I am an embodiment of your fears, your anxieties, your wishes; I am the reaper, I am the forces of conflict unresolved, I am the dead you need closure with, I am the hero or heroine of your personal story."  Starhawk used to write, "Where there's fear, there's power," and the ritual of trick-or-treating is exchanging the gift of power of addressing inner fears with the gift of food... well, OK, candy.

This is going to be the first Halloween where I don't have RollerBlades, so I wont be able to glide along the streets underneath bare tree branchs and moonlight.  I still haven't replaced my old RollerBlades since they fatigued apart after the encouner with the giant leaf pile.  Mmmm. Gliding in the moonlight, trailing leaves behind, a silent shadow in the street.

This year I carved a Janus-faced pumpkin.  The pumpkin had a flat side, probably where it had grown against the ground.  That side had a divot, which made a great place for a nose.  I gave it a frowning grimcace and crescent eyes.   The other side of the face was more rounded; I give it a toothy smile and triangular eyes.   Mark is away at an East Coast Wedding, and The Child was disinclined to carve anything, so it was just me and the cats.  The afternoon was clear, and carving in the sunlight on the deck felt like a late Summer job rather than an Autumnal one.  Later I carved the mini-pumpkins with the intent of hanging them from some kind of tree.  But between one thing and another, I ended up suspending them from a stick between two rods.  They were still spooky.

November Frost

 We've had morning temperatures in the twenties, so the grass, deck, trees and roads have been frosted.  When I looked out this morning, I saw the gazing globe's frost had melted on the sunny side.






 Smokey decided he wanted to be in the picture.  (Photos of reflected cat butt deleted.)







 Images like this make me think of science fiction stories set on worlds that have become tidally locked with the local star so that one side is always hot, and the other is cold.  Someone once called worlds like this "riboon worlds" because there would be only a narrow ribbon of surface with habitable temperatures.





 Oh, yeah.  A pumpkin moon.







 The shots that I took from above came out looking like Saturn.

This is Halloween !

I was so singing, "Making Christmas" last night during the photo session when I took this shot.

Designs on Halloween

Here's a shot of the "meta-pumpkin" I carved last night. I should have stopped there because in a late-night fatigue-carving fest, I made the following mistakes: forgetting that pumpkin flesh is not cardboard, being surprised by the thickness of this pumpkin, and making the designs a little too big.




This was the original design. Mark accused me of making another klansman-style ghost; I thought ghosts were supposed to have pointy heads. Using circle sections probably didn't help. I tried a retro look with a Scooby-Doo phantom as a model. Um, no pictures of the finished product (nothing to see, here; move along...)





Scary kitty! I got the head a little -- er -- "off". Mark says this one looks like a Cubist style cat. I like it; I just need to put the head back onto the body. If we'd had another pumpkin and more time, I would have tried to carve this design.



I got a little compulsive on this one. I never could get the legs to come out right.




Yep. I used a compass to make this bat, too. (Background on loan by an artist-friend going through his Pollock stage.)




And... all our Halloween preparations have been lit by the comforting green glow of our Lava Lamp!

More Pumpkin Ghost

Boo! (Again!)

Just to make sure everyone knows. This is a ghost popping up out of a grave with a cross marker on it. I am not making a political or racial statement. It's just a ghost!

Pumpkin Ghost

Boo!

Corn Maze Photos

We went to a local farm with some friends to run around in a corn maze. Afterward we visited the pumpkin patch. It's a local tradition we've been doing for about a decade.











Last year we discovered that the pumpkins in the field were put there by farm hands. I suppose this makes some sense given that the nights usually drop below freezing and the pumpkins would get mushy. But the transport of the pumpkins from the fields to a warehouse and back into the fields doesn't have the same romantic appeal.













In the past we've gone later in the month. This year we went earlier and had better weather. There's lots of farm animals there, too. I like to photograph the horses (and carts) and this year we had to be a little more careful not to spook them (we were in a place the horses weren't expecting us).

Halloween Edition of The Fearful Parent

Another Halloween is fast approaching.

I'm working on this year's pumpkin. I'm carving out a medusa head based on some the cameos I saw at the MET. I think the snakes are going to be the hardest.

The only problem is that The Child has fallen asleep, so I can't use the power jigsaw. He seemed OK with it earlier, but I put it down for some sharp knives and while I was carving out the little feathers of the wings on the left side of medusa's head, he passed out.

Trick or treaters should be appearing at our house in about four hours...

While I was carving, I had all sorts of Fearful Parent articles going through my head. Arthur's on the floor so he can see what I'm doing. Naturally, when I first separated the top of the pumpkin's head a few seeds fell out onto the newspaper. I picked up the seeds. Later, Arthur started to try to eat the newspapers on the floor. The article came unbidden to my head


Pumpkins can be a festive treat for baby's first halloween, but they can be deadly, as Susan of Chicago, Illinois found out. "I'd given little Dakoda-Shanti her own little knife to carve with. We'd always carved jack-o-lanterns when we were kids. I turned my back for just a second, and Dakoda-Shanti was out the door, with the knife." Susan's voice quavers. "She got into a police standoff holding up a Fisher-Price Depot."

We spoke with Dr. Sheridan Johnson, of the Safe Holidays Institute. "We all remember the fun of holidays past. But holidays these days are a lot more dangerous. Take pumpkins. Baby sees the pumpkins and will try to eat them. Most parents use the "bigger than baby's fist rule" and don't realize that it doesn't apply to pumpkins. Sam and May of Minneapolis, Minnesota discovered Dr. Johnson's warning too late.

"We thought, '[the pumpkin is] bigger than Leonardo's fist,'" recalls Sam.

"But Leonardo was just starting to teeth," adds May. "We were both in the kitchen when we heard a noise."

Sam continues. "I thought it was some early trick-or-treaters, so I went to the front door. But..."

"It was Leonardo. He'd gotten his little mouth around the stem of the pumpkin and the whole top of the pumpkin was lodged in his windpipe."

They called 911 and EMT's managed to dislodge the pumpkin from the infant's throat just in time.

Experts warn not only of physical hazards, but also of the psychological damage of Halloween pumpkins.

"We see this sort of thing all the time," says child therapist and pediatric physiological expert, Dr. Margaret Castle-Jones. "We call it, 'Post-Pumpkin-Stress.' PPS all starts out innocently, and 94% of the parents of sufferers of PPS we interview are completely unaware of the early trauma they've unwittingly submitted their children to."

Dr. Castle-Jones leans in. "The young child is taken by her parents to a pumpkin patch. They choose a pumpkin. Then the child sees how the pumpkin is cut up. A face is carved on the pumpkin; it can be a smiling face, it can be a frowning face -- it doesn't matter, the pumpkin has no choice about its emotional expression. After one special night, the pumpkin disappears; maybe it ends up in the garbage or a compost heap. During this whole time, the child is internalizing the pumpkin process. She might worry that someone will come to take her away; or will have her emotional expressions limited or dictated. Birthdays or other special celebrations can trigger PPS related anxiety that the child will disappear the next day. If the parents have been calling her 'pumpkin' as a nickname it can compound the damage fivefold."

Dr. Castle-Jones points to a graph on her wall. "We're experiencing the legacy of PPS as a culture; teenagers today are reacting to infant PPS by piercing ears, noses, chins, brows, lips and even eyes in an attempt to regain some of that perceived control they lost in their early developmental years."

We asked Dr. Castle-Jones what parents can do. "I'd recommend avoiding pumpkins during halloween altogether. However, if your family tradition is strong, a fallback strategy would be to purchase a plastic pumpkin that already has a smiling face (see SideBar for Plastic Pumpkin comparisons).

....oops. Look's like Little Pumpkin The Child is waking up. Time to fire up the jigsaw.