While I wait for the sun to crest the clouds at the horizon this dawning Halloween, I prepare to capture the images of the Great Pumpkin rising in the spectacular cloud created pumpkin patch in the sky and I ponder what's significant about today.
My aim is to share a few of these ponderances as I gather moments captured in digital imagery.
I have about five minutes till the show starts, so I'll just set this up now.
Hallowe'en
What does Hallowed mean to me? Always meant sacred. Since I could begin to read, the culture I lived in kept information that interested me as a fledgling reader child, in the 'occult' section. These days that also encompasses 'new age' and 'self help' and 'natural healing', but back then, it was tarred with a tainted brush, suggesting the mysterious, the evil, the chaos to me.
Sacred became a word that early on meant something deeply special to me, so the word hallowed, signifying sacredness, was also something that bode my paying attention to it. What fascinated me, as a German child transplanted to Canadian soil, at the age of 5, was that everyone would dress the children up and let them loose in the neighbourhood to be given candy at every house. When I was introduced to thinking about 'sacred' and its connection to 'Hallow' een... I found it odd that the two, costumed kids high on candy and deeply spiritual evolution and health were synonymous. I think that's when I became a phenomenologist.
Speaking of phenomenon's... here's the sunrise. Back in a few.
To simply say WOW! would be a gross understatement. That was a parade, a feast for the eyes and indeed, a breath taking phenomenon that really grounded me. The connection of the breaking dawn with the ponderings I'm doing of the word 'hallowed' doesn't escape me. I commemorate the experience and set the day by finishing a pair of rainbow slippers for the winter, for myself... the first in my upcoming collection of yule gifts I'll be making...
But first, I must finish my bloggeroony, and then I must share with you the imagery so that you too can get the full effect of how this morning was so sacred for me... and how sacred this day is... and how vulnerable I am as I open to greet the day.
Everything, oddly, is insisting that this be centred.
Fine.
Sunrise, the breaking of dawn, and the official arrival of the Great Pumpkin ... Halloween and its significance to me.
Keep in mind that today is also the 40th anniversary of the tragic last day at my childhood home as on Nov. 1, 1970, a very angry 14 year old girl shut a door behind her that she was to never open again. Also, to add to the layers of complexity of significance of the season, to me, last year at this time, my two closest of friends, separate of each other, unaware that the other had done the same thing, ended my friendships with them, based on status message misunderstandings on Facebook. 20 year friendships who watched and participated in the raising of my children, but, without giving me any opportunity to fight for my right to defend myself, cut me loose, which had a devastating affect on me.
Thankfully, Kali is my diety, now. Kali, the goddess of destruction is the archetype that I mainly emulate so I can identify with the chaos that one feels when old skin is rubbed off and the new skin underneath adjusts to the new sensations of exposure.
After a lifetime of klutziness and naming my daughter Grace, because I've never had any, the Hindu goddess of destruction, of chaos and rebirth was an obvious choice to use as a meditational focus and I've pondered my connection to her many times. Kali is my 'patron saint'.
In the past, I've celebrated Halloween in a variety of ways. One year I dressed as such a successfully bagged out bag lady, the party I had tickets to, the annual Alaskan Hell's Angel Halloween bash, wouldn't let me in until I had someone go get Happyjack, the Anchorage HA treasurer who I saved from freezing to death in a snowbank, to let me in. Ironically, a picture of me in that getup was pinned to the bulletin board in our local watering hole, 'The Trade Winds', for four years before I finally took it down and tucked it away before I moved.
There were a couple of Halloweens that I created Halloween Howl events for the Moonwit Collective members who were local, and their allies, and we would transform a local hall or available space for a spooky party of inviting those on the other side to party with us, a fabulous gifting, performance art, exquisite food and libations, all in interesting and beautiful costumes. I remember being Benazir Bhutto for one, the woman prime minister of Pakistan, who was assasinated just a little while ago!
This year, Halloween falls on a Sunday. Twice now, I've toyed with being dressed up and gone out on various errands wearing the assembly of clothing that makes me look decidedly witchy. Lots of skirts, lots of symbolism in my jewelry, mostly. I mean, I'm a witch every day. Why do I have to wear a pointy hat that itches to prove I'm one of the witches?
Halloween is essentially a time of year when I am readdressing the events of the past year. Looking at my successes, at what I could have done differently, and then looking to the future with a developing plan of what I want to accomplish, how and when, for the coming year.
My Salish Elder, Auntie Ellen taught me that it is important to set aside time to think about 'the thought before the thought'. This is time that you set aside to think about when you want to plan and what you want to plan. So, my Octobers are pretty much where I turn more inward, incubate myself, stay home a lot, knit and ponder the things that I find addressable, all these things considered.
This year, I spent a lot of time in triage mode, pulling together all my energies and my daughter's energies as allies, into keeping my partner Ron from losing his groundedness as life challenged him on his every level of existence. Keeping the home happy, keeping us all on a fairly even keel has taken its toll on me. Add to that that there is more month than money with me not making enough to cover my expenses and we have been dealing with far too much stress.
So I am vowing on this Hallowed E'en sunrise that this year, I tend more to keeping my own self more evenly keeled and grounded. This year, I will tend to my knees, to my holistic health. I will get massages and chiropractic treatments and I will take time for myself in new ways that pamper me as well. I recognize how important it is that I, in my empty nest transitioning, tend to the needs that I've long neglected for myself. Mammograms, ultrasounds, dental work and exercise that bears my weight are all on the list of this vow to myself. Juicing with organic fruit and vegetables for both Ron and I as well.
Friday, as I was considering all this, I accompanied my partner to the cardiologist. This is the specialist who decides the path of treatment for Ron's heart. I learned a lot I'm not able to share here but it was chilling at any rate. The end is the beginning sometimes. The snake eating its tail is an image that comes to me a lot these days.
The symbol of the eternal return was evident to me, this year as I meditated on my year end reflections. Ouroborous.
I'm big on symbolism. The snake comes up a lot, regeneration, rebirth, the wheel of life is all contained within its powerful imagery.
Kali and the snake. Ron and his heart. Chaos and order. So much to think about.
As the sun broke over the top of the clouds, the parade that covered the horizon from left to right looked like bumbling bears and elephants, all decorated with gilt costumery. They rose and fell, as the sun's blinding rays shifted, reflected and shadowed across that airy landscape and then the Great Pumpkin was warm on my kaftan as I stood on the deck in the exceedingly cool air, its thin cotton allowing every breeze to waft through. Seagulls and crows regaled with the starlings, their morning song greeting this day, while I stood with camera to my eye, capturing every special element of my view...
Today, special rainbow slippers while Ron is at church. And a bit more thinking is in order. My job is coming to an end where I've been the past two years and I have several diverse directions I can go in. There are roles as companion for the elderly, as an assistant to someone working in the Melaleuca health suppliment field, and I have a request from someone who is in the private jet business who is going to be needing an assistant as of December, all interesting directions for me to think about.
I am also pondering going back to school for a counselling degree. More and more, I hear folks encouraging me and now that I have a BA, I'm thinking that perhaps that's the direction I need to go to, maybe I DID miss my calling. Menstrual counselling is something I've done for decades, maybe its time to find out more about the mind and how to help folks sort out shattered lives.
But this coming year, I vow this Halloween morning as the sun now basks through my living room sliding glass doors and my cat splays wantonly in full winter fluff on her pillows enjoying its warmth, I am tending to me first. My mind, my body, my spirit, will all get equal time as I strive to evolve into someone authentic, intentional, conscious'er than I am, and be healthier to boot.
Like the wheel of life, the spirals in a lotus blossom, or the chicksnhens on my balcony in the dawn sunshine's illuminating reveal, I am coming around.
Tonite, all the little ghouls and boys will be trick or treating. There's a bonfire down at the big parking lot behind our shopping centre and lots of activity on the streets below.
Halloween is here. What does it mean to you?
Today, on the day when it is believed that the veil is thinnest between the netherworld and ours, I like to like to light a candle, share a sacred meal with a loved one, and pay attention to the indications around me that my loved one has deigned to come join me.
