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Post by Shannon on Nov 2, 2010 13:45:31 GMT -5
As some of you know, I'm developing a deeper understanding of heathenry and it's mythology. Halloween/Winternights (heathen)/Samhain is, in heathenry for one, the start of the Wild Hunt. (Though I don;t believe the days were as fixed as we take them to be now.) I never paid much attention to this, as I thought it was specifically Celtic lore (I was wrong), but this year I can definitely feel it in the air. Arizona has been cooler than normal lately, and today the wind is pretty strong. I can sense something in the air, and have also had a few heebie-jeebies. J was complaining of something scratching at his window last night. It was the draft scraping the blinds on the sill...but I'm not convinced that the Gods aren't in the winds. The other night, before Halloween, I went out to the car in the dark and a bird started screeching in the tree right above me and flapping around. It was spooky. This is my first year exploring the stories, so I don't have any concrete opinions on what the hunt signifies on a deeper level, but would love to hear some of your thoughts.
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Post by Denethor on Nov 6, 2010 2:23:32 GMT -5
I admit I haven't had much of the spooky feeling this year. Maybe it's because most of my spiritual stuff has been along other lines. I spent this year's Samhain doing Lodge work, because it was a Lodge day that happened to be a fairly busy one.
Ceremonialists aren't all Pagans - not by a long shot - so for a lot of them Samhain is just Halloween, with its minor "celebration" of handing out candy to neighborhood kids and dressing their own, if any, in costume. We're not all Christians either (I certainly ain't), but our tendency to practice indoors, our discussions of "enlightenment" (a term which is merely more politically correct than "salvation", I expect, for some of our members), and our interests in things like hall-style ritual, medieval alchemy, and "ascended masters"...and, erm, angels...attract plenty of people of Christian background. Hence our holidays are kind of a mishmash. We like Yule, though it often looks like a retooled Christmas celebrated four days earlier (usually including the ancient secret occult ritual known as the Great Big PARTY!!!). We set up new years' celebrations to match other equinoxes or solstices (depends on the group which one). The cross-quarters, by contrast, being more Pagan/Heathen specific than the solstice/equinox celebrations, are somewhat neglected, and Christian holidays other than Christmas don't tend to appear either. (Easter moves around too much to really coincide with our spring celebrations). My particular group seems to be mostly divided between former Christians and former agnostics, with a few from other religions, which is not atypical.
Midsummer we are often closed to save money on air-conditioning the building, but that is specific to our Lodge and the local physical climate.
Upshot for purposes of this thread is I spent Samhain/winternights being very quiet, other than the spiritual but non-Samhain-y Lodge things on the day itself; and I only had one costumed event this year, for which I did "steampunk" rather than a monster or occult-inspired outfit. (I did not allow myself to be drafted into anything involving turkey feathers for the supposed angels & demons "theme" - which didn't take off for the guy who wanted it anyway. Too much religion I think). I didn't even get in a reading or any talk to the ancestors type moments. Nothing either traditional or of the spooky mood. That's ok with me I suppose; I guess I've just been too busy.
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