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Sailing the Big C
Suddenly, cancer is all around me. A friend in the hospital with brain cancer. And THREE of my co-workers, including one who is Stage 4 with a prognosis of 5-7 years. There are only nine of us, for the record. I mean, what the hell?? I don’t have any indicators, myself. But it feels as though death is closing in around me. This is the season of Hallows: the time when I contemplate mortality, do my observances for my Honored Dead, think about the hoped-for harvests that never came up and must now be turned back into the soil. It’s a powerful and evocative time, and between the spooky movies…
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Hallows: A Compendium
I’ve written a lot about this time of year, this holiday, which I call Hallows. I’ve been celebrating it for decades. And every year at this time, I think about mortality, the cycle of death/decomposition/recomposition, ancestors, memory. The past, the inevitable future. The Big Picture. Dressing up creepy, or goofy, or sexy. Giving permission to people to let their wild side out. I think about all of it. I’m doing that this year, too. Updating my death packet, as I do every October. Rituals, and gatherings, and the wonderful creepy vibe. Candy for little monsters. Taking the whole ride. I’m even taking a week off, from Halloween through the actual…
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Solemn, Meaningful, Fun, Creepy
Happy Hallows, everyone, and may your celebrations be all the things listed in the title! I’m off to go walk in the old rural cemetery…
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October
In the arc of the Pagan wheel of the year, October is the time leading up to Samhain or Hallows (the midpoint between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice). It is, of course, the time when we all go a little crazy with spooky décor and witchy aesthetic, leading up to Halloween night, although the actual midpoint is around Nov. 7. October is a time when we contemplate mortality and memory, remembering those who have died and our ancestors leading back into the mists of time. The skulls and bones and spider webs remind us that we are here only for a limited time, and will also one day…
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The Sacred Rite of Composting
Before we slide into the joyous, let-us-eat-now-for-tomorrow-we-freeze holidays of December, let us take one final, sincere look at the time of Hallows and the meaning of this season. This post relates to a previous piece, Death, the Creator. Go ahead, read that first. In my Wheel of the Year, the period between Hallows, the Sabbath of Death, and Yule, the annual “birth” of the Sun, is the time of composting and recomposition: metaphorically, it is when I recognize that after death, my body will be disassembled through the process of decomposition, and its component molecules will return to cycling through the vast and wonderful apparatus of Life. It is the…
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Hallows 2021
Welcome to the Witchiest Sabbath, everyone! It’s been another hell of a year, and it’s hard to get my mind around the fact that it is already Hallows season again. 2020 seemed to take forever, but 2021 has just flown by. As I write, torrential rain pours blessedly on the parched land of California. We’re in a drought and desperately need this, but it’s a Class 5 atmospheric river storm (only 10 have ever been recorded here) and there is widespread local flooding. Famine or feast, it seems. My partner Nemea and I are in pretty dire financial straits right now, but today, in a cozy little place with food…
