New Year Resolutions...
New Year Resolutions are always a bit... flexible ... around here, because we celebrate several calendars. Samhain is the best known in pagany circles. For me Halloween is my favourite holiday - costumes and spookies and treating the trickers. OH, and the decorating. I love me some Halloween decor. But Samhain, as well as being the turn of the year in a Celtic context, is also an ancestor feast, so overall our celebrations are more Day of the Dead than Day of Candy (though I somehow always buy far more than I can reasonably give away), and decor reflects that. Skulls and spiders, pumpkins and gravestones and other harvest things.
Last night was a delight; our street is full of youngsters and the oldsters get in the spirit, too - many of the parents taking their kids down the block were dressed up. If I hadn't forgotten to recharge my camera, I'd have some pix, but sadly, not this year. I dressed in my spider dress and tattered, flowy black cloak, and gave out candy from my book of spells (which is hollow and cackled maniacally when opened. kids love it, and I do too).
Being a Sunday, and very cold, things quietly down early this year. Not a single visitor past 8pm. So it was time for feasting (pork roast and spiced fruit, scalloped potatoes, mead and apple cider and pumpkin pies) and time spent with good company. For me, that's the real heart of this holiday, friends and family, and celebrating the present while we remember and honour the past. Both feasting table and ancestor shrine were alight, and this time of year poppies bedeck my lapel and shrine alike.
But its also about looking to the future, which begins with a long cold winter, being fearful but holding hope and knowing warmth and light lie beyond the dark and the cold. So for me it's also a time of reflection and resolution. No hard-line resolutions, though, just movement in good directions. I plan to carve out more time for quiet and calm, regain some spiritual focus. And to help nourish my spirit, do some of those creative projects that have been on the back burner for too, too long.
And write. Every day. I'm starting here, but this won't be my only outlet, and I'm taking it one day at a time. The year has turned, and is moving forward. And so should I.
Last night was a delight; our street is full of youngsters and the oldsters get in the spirit, too - many of the parents taking their kids down the block were dressed up. If I hadn't forgotten to recharge my camera, I'd have some pix, but sadly, not this year. I dressed in my spider dress and tattered, flowy black cloak, and gave out candy from my book of spells (which is hollow and cackled maniacally when opened. kids love it, and I do too).
Being a Sunday, and very cold, things quietly down early this year. Not a single visitor past 8pm. So it was time for feasting (pork roast and spiced fruit, scalloped potatoes, mead and apple cider and pumpkin pies) and time spent with good company. For me, that's the real heart of this holiday, friends and family, and celebrating the present while we remember and honour the past. Both feasting table and ancestor shrine were alight, and this time of year poppies bedeck my lapel and shrine alike.
But its also about looking to the future, which begins with a long cold winter, being fearful but holding hope and knowing warmth and light lie beyond the dark and the cold. So for me it's also a time of reflection and resolution. No hard-line resolutions, though, just movement in good directions. I plan to carve out more time for quiet and calm, regain some spiritual focus. And to help nourish my spirit, do some of those creative projects that have been on the back burner for too, too long.
And write. Every day. I'm starting here, but this won't be my only outlet, and I'm taking it one day at a time. The year has turned, and is moving forward. And so should I.