Happy Halloween!

[sistermagpie]

And happy birthday to shadowfax8!!! Sorry, that's Dr. Shadow to me.

Halloween is like a combination social/non-social holiday for me. Like my birthday, in a way, but moreso. I've gone to some great costume parties and eat candy in obscene amounts but when I think about it I mostly think about it as solitary. It's more the end of the year to me than New Year's Day is, so that's when I try to make resolutions think about what I did that year and what I want to do the next year. I do a big card spread with my Animal Oracle cards that spans the whole year and look back on the spread from the year before. Then I'll usually throw some other cards. I have a great Tarot Deck I love now from Vertigo so I'll probably do that. I watch my favorite scary movies and read gothic lit.

Then I usually do some kind of a little dumb feast where I think about people who have died, things like that. It's not like a big ceremony or anything but the time of year seems to make it appropriate, you know? I don't know that many dead people (something to be thankful for, really) so I also include people in my family I never knew but would like to have. I really really like this, though. It's part of why Halloween is my favorite holiday. ((Hugs Halloween))

The subways are apparently a mess because of a fire. Good to know. Also, I just spilled melted butter all over some folders I'll be needing for work. Go me.


I saw a sort of meme before that had a question about the scariest episode of a TV show you ever saw. Does anybody else remember that Halloween Little House on the Prairie where Laura becomes convinced Mr. Olsen chopped off Mrs. Olsen's head? She has these nightmares and there's one where she and her friend Carl are at the Olsen's and Mr. Olsen serves them something on a silver dish. When he takes the cover off it is, of course, Mrs. Olsen's head. But that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was just how Mr. Olsen LOOKED in that scene. Jesus! Kind of Phantom-of-the Opera-y with big teeth, stringy hair and sunken eyes? I saw that ep once when I was in high school and planned to laugh at it now that I was too old to be scared by such things and damn if it wasn't just as disturbing as ever. ::shudder:: Michael Landon, what were you thinking?? You nut, I love ya!

Comments

[maymorning.livejournal.com]

Your Samhain sounds pretty much like mine. I celebrate alone as I'm the only Pagan in the family. It's just a time to be quiet, talk with the Goddess, think of those I knew and loved who died and celebrate the new year.

So, happy new year! Hope you have a better one than the one that has just passed.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Happy new year to you too!!

[jewelsong.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you celebrate the way they do in Latin America - for the "Day of the Dead.' November 1 and 2, they go to their ancestors graves, have a meal, drink some wine and talk about the dead people. They also have skulls with candles in them, candy skeletons and so on. Very cool.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Day of the Dead sounds like an excellent time to be in Mexico. I especially love the sugar skull idea.

[ljash.livejournal.com]

... Vertigo has a tarot deck?

meep

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I love it! Dave McKean did the art for it.

[shadowfax8.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Princess! *wink*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*winks back*

[samaranth.livejournal.com]

The way you celebrate sounds closer to my understanding of where Halloween came from –the ties to the other world, to Death and the Dead. Interesting, interesting, interesting – I’m fascinated by the apparently thin walls between this and the other world. It would (will?) be good to talk about this further at some stage. Perhaps when you write your ghost post??

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, I hope I can write something coherent about ghosts. I think about them and have no clue what they mean in fiction. But it seems appropriate for a Halloween weekend to try to figure it out!