http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/ Vis medicatrix naturae - LiveJournal.com Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:04:20 GMT LiveJournal / LiveJournal.com conduit_cat 541912 personal http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/76375419/541912 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/ 100 100 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/812202.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:04:20 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/812202.html Continued from November 7th at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve:<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709108.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709109.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709114.jpg" /><br /><br />In the brush or in sand, it's easier for Antonio to pull me backwards:<br /><a name="cutid2"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709122.jpg" /><br /><br />Not far from my tree were deer tracks, and a wide area of flattened brush where a herd must have laid down:<br /><a name="cutid3"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709125.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709126.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709127.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/812202.html nature pics public 0 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811977.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:10:59 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811977.html Continued from November 7th at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve:<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709101.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709102.jpg" /><br /><br />It's a thrill when I return to find my offering undisturbed (other than the lovely white fluff and web decorating it). This particular offering's been hanging from the branch for two years.<br /><a name="cutid2"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709103.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709104.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709105.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709106.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811977.html nature pics public 0 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811542.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:40:15 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811542.html Continued from November 7th at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve:<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709077.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_pdog.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_grackles.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709095.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709096.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709097.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811542.html nature pics bird pics animal pics public 0 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811345.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:58:55 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811345.html Continued from November 7th at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve:<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709063.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709065.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709067.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709075.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709073.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709076.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811345.html nature pics public 2 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811039.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:44:54 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811039.html Continued from November 7th at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve:<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709049.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709052.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709053.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709054.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709062.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/811039.html nature pics public 0 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810963.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:29:33 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810963.html Continued from November 7th at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve:<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709041.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709042.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709044.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709046.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709048.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810963.html nature pics public 2 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810587.html Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:45:52 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810587.html Continued from November 7th at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve:<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709032.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709034.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709036.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709038.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709040.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810587.html nature pics public 2 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810471.html Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:31:31 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810471.html Continued from November 7th at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve:<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709021.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709024.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709025.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709027.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709029.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709030.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709037.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810471.html nature pics public 0 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810199.html Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:14:24 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810199.html Continued from November 7th at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve:<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709013.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709014.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709016.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709018.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709019.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/810199.html nature pics public 2 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/809938.html Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:33:12 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/809938.html Continued from November 7th at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve:<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_kestrel.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_magpie1.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_magpie2.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_seagull1.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709059.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_duck1.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/809938.html bird pics public 1 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/809624.html Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:49:39 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/809624.html Continued from November 7th at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve:<br /><br />We came upon this red-tail further up the trail, near my tree area. <br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709089.jpg" /><br /><br />Mooned!<br /><a name="cutid2"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_redtail2.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_redtail3.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_redtail4.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_redtail5.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_redtail6.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/809624.html bird pics peaceful public 4 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/809255.html Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:49:40 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/809255.html Saturday, November 7th, the boys and I went to visit my tree at the Adams County Fairgrounds nature preserve. It was absurdly beautiful out, the golds, browns, and reds highlighted, and all a sunny 72 degrees.<br /><br />At the initial fork in the path we saw a large bird in a tree across the river:<br /><a name="cutid1"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_Nov709009.jpg" /><br /><br />Curious, Jay climbed the hill a little ways to glean a better view. 'twas a golden eagle, intently eying a bird on the ground!<br /><a name="cutid2"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_eagle1.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_eagle3.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_eagle4.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_eagle2.jpg" /><br /><br />After the eagle took off, the bird on the ground made off in the opposite direction. It was a red-tailed hawk (it's blurry in the pic)!<br /><a name="cutid3"></a><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/Nature%20preserve%20November%207th%202009/T_redtail1.jpg" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/809255.html bird pics impressed public 12 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/808729.html Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:23:29 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/808729.html <u><i>El Dia De Los Muertos</i> by Siouxsie & the Banshees</u><br /><br />It's all soul's day<br />I hear you say<br />It's all soul's day<br />And you've come to pray<br />For the lost ones<br />The unadorned ones here today<br /><br />El Dia de Los Muertos<br />El Dia de Los Muertos<br />Bailamos, bailamos<br />El santo y yo<br /><br />Kiss the bride<br />Dance with me<br />Come rattle these bones<br />Come and shake my tree<br />Embrace me--irreverently<br />Now in marigolds<br />Shower me<br /><br />There is more time than life<br />One never dies twice<br />There is more time than life<br />One never dies twice<br /><br />Wearing wet suits sewn in the underworlds<br />Death comes shining<br />In a thousand bright colours<br />And music out of this world<br />Serenades to a bony twirl<br /><br />Me lleva el diablo<br />La muerte va de viaje<br />Esta es musica del otro mundo<br /><br />Buenos noches y adios<br />Hasta luego mis amigos<br />See you in heaven<br />See you in hell<br />All will be level all will be well<br /><br />Bailamos, bailamos<br />El santo y yo<br /><br />Me lleva el diablo<br />la muerte va de viaje<br />Esta es musica del otro mundo<br /><hr></hr><br /><u>Day of the Dead history</u><br />Indigenous people wouldn't let 'Day of the Dead' die<br /><i>by Carlos Miller<br />The Arizona Republic</i><br /> <br />More than 500 years ago, when the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now Mexico, they encountered natives practicing a ritual that seemed to mock death. <br />It was a ritual the indigenous people had been practicing at least 3,000 years. A ritual the Spaniards would try unsuccessfully to eradicate. <br />A ritual known today as Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. <br />The ritual is celebrated in Mexico and certain parts of the United States, including the Valley. <br />Celebrations are held each year in Mesa, Chandler, Guadalupe and at Arizona State University. Although the ritual has since been merged with Catholic theology, it still maintains the basic principles of the Aztec ritual, such as the use of skulls. <br />Today, people don wooden skull masks called calacas and dance in honor of their deceased relatives. The wooden skulls are also placed on altars that are dedicated to the dead. Sugar skulls, made with the names of the dead person on the forehead, are eaten by a relative or friend, according to Mary J. Adrade, who has written three books on the ritual. <br />The Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations kept skulls as trophies and displayed them during the ritual. The skulls were used to symbolize death and rebirth. <br />The skulls were used to honor the dead, whom the Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations believed came back to visit during the monthlong ritual. <br />Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake. <br />"The pre-Hispanic people honored duality as being dynamic," said Christina Gonzalez, senior lecturer on Hispanic issues at Arizona State University. "They didn't separate death from pain, wealth from poverty like they did in Western cultures." <br />However, the Spaniards considered the ritual to be sacrilegious. They perceived the indigenous people to be barbaric and pagan. <br />In their attempts to convert them to Catholicism, the Spaniards tried to kill the ritual. <br />But like the old Aztec spirits, the ritual refused to die. <br />To make the ritual more Christian, the Spaniards moved it so it coincided with All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day (Nov. 1 and 2), which is when it is celebrated today. <br />Previously it fell on the ninth month of the Aztec Solar Calendar, approximately the beginning of August, and was celebrated for the entire month. Festivities were presided over by the goddess Mictecacihuatl. The goddess, known as "Lady of the Dead," was believed to have died at birth, Andrade said. <br />Today, Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico and in certain parts of the United States and Central America. <br />"It's celebrated different depending on where you go," Gonzalez said. <br />In rural Mexico, people visit the cemetery where their loved ones are buried. They decorate gravesites with marigold flowers and candles. They bring toys for dead children and bottles of tequila to adults. They sit on picnic blankets next to gravesites and eat the favorite food of their loved ones. <br />In Guadalupe, the ritual is celebrated much like it is in rural Mexico. <br />"Here the people spend the day in the cemetery," said Esther Cota, the parish secretary at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. "The graves are decorated real pretty by the people." <br />In Mesa, the ritual has evolved to include other cultures, said Zarco Guerrero, a Mesa artist. <br />"Last year, we had Native Americans and African-Americans doing their own dances," he said. "They all want the opportunity to honor their dead." <br />In the United States and in Mexico's larger cities, families build altars in their homes, dedicating them to the dead. They surround these altars with flowers, food and pictures of the deceased. They light candles and place them next to the altar. <br />"We honor them by transforming the room into an altar," Guerrero said. "We offer incense, flowers. We play their favorite music, make their favorite food." <br />At Guerrero's house, the altar is not only dedicated to friends and family members who have died, but to others as well. <br />"We pay homage to the Mexicans killed in auto accidents while being smuggled across the border," he said. "And more recently, we've been honoring the memories of those killed in Columbine." http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/808729.html articles cheerful public 0 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/808624.html Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:14:29 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/808624.html <img src="http://pics.livejournal.com/conduit_cat/pic/000354d5" alt="Happy Howloween!" /> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/808624.html happy public 5 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/808366.html Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:02:40 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/808366.html As the moonlight cut through the slit between the ugly burlap curtains, Harvey knew his time as Harvey Brundle, the man, was short. He was beyond panic at this stage. Years had come and gone since his first inexplicable change. Who can say what precipitated that initial transformation, save for the full moon. The honest-to-God full moon as written in the calendar. No European pagan "<i>three days of the full moon</i>" shit. That would've been too much to bear. <br />Could the moon truly be the sole culprit? It seemed unlikely. Harvey was well aware of the effect of the full moon's behavior on man and beast--the spike in crime and violent behavior, and so on. In itself that didn't seem to account for his curious condition. No more than the dirty burlap curtains, if indeed they actually were made from burlap. He paused mid-pace to run his fingers through the curtains. It was heavy and scratchy enough to be genuine burlap. <br />Harvey chuckled without mirth. He was trying to distract himself without being aware of it. At first. Heh, like burlap was infinitely fascinating.<br /><br />It first happened when he was twelve, just a gangly kid, full of comic book dreams and a passion for pets. Harvey's favorite had been a brilliant yellow parakeet. He knew better than to admit his fascination with Yellowbelly, as he named the bird, because the neighborhood boys viewed anything less than big, borderline vicious animals as pets only pussies or fags would have. In fact, he knew better than to mention his bird to anyone. Only his parents knew, and they were animal lovers too. He was happy at home, and could easily enough shrug off the unease of school and unavoidable interaction with his peers within his house's walls.<br />That sense of comfort, of safety, at home proved Harvey's downfall. Just a week before school's start, he was playing hide and go seek with Yellowbelly in the backyard with its thankfully high privacy fence. Though his wings weren't clipped, Yellowbelly never flew off. He seemed, somehow, to <i>know</i> better than to be seen, to draw attention to himself--or, far worse, attention to the fact that Harvey played with, let alone owned, a little bird.<br />The full moon grew luminous as the late afternoon shadows stretched. Harvey's mother called for him from the back door, announcing dinner time. He whistled for Yellowbelly who flew in a loop-de-loop, the show-off. Unfortunately for all, the bird arced too high and was quickly spotted by Harvey's notoriously nasty neighbor, Craig "Splatz" Markowitz. Splatz seemed to go out of his way to make Harvey's life hell. In school Splatz tripped Harvey at every opportunity, swept everything--books, pencils, homework--off Harvey's desk when they shared classes, and threatened others with physical duress should they dare to sit with Harvey or play with him at recess.<br />Spotting Yellowbelly was good as finding gold to Splatz. The bully had been practicing for weeks with his BB gun. He had a poster of John Wayne tacked to a tree in his mostly dirt yard, and the face, chest, and crotch were rife with holes. This, surprisingly, would be his first living target.<br />Splatz shot twice, the second hitting the parakeet in the neck and shoulder.<br />Harvey screamed as Yellowbelly's eyes widened like a Japanese cartoon character and blood spurt from the wound. Harvey dove to catch the bird before it hit the ground. Splatz's laughter from beyond the fence made the nightmare situation real. At that moment he couldn't focus on Splatz; Yellowbelly might still stand a chance.<br />Harvey ran into the house, showing the parakeet to his parents and demanding them to use their grown up powers to fix the bird's wounds. Harvey's parents eyed each other mournfully, then mother took Yellowbelly and gently cleaned the blood from his feathers. She instructed Harvey to lay him on the bottom of his cage near the window, where the light of the full moon would reach him. The full moon, she stated in her parental wisdom, had the power to transmogrify. Even if Yellowbelly's body seemed dead by morning, he had simply become something else. Maybe even a worm, or a spider, or a cow.<br />Harvey was twelve then. He loved his parents. Their wisdom was infallible. He did as his mother told him, ignoring Yellowbelly's stiffness and cold. Harvey poured extra seed into the cage and watched as the moonlight crept over the bird's body like a celestial blanket. He drifted off to sleep there at the desk, carried by rage and hope.<br />He woke soon after when something writhed beneath his skin. Harvey's veins took on a life of their own, a life that rebelled from the body that housed them. He would have cried out, more from terror than pain, but his throat was constricted. New attachments were formed, new conduits made, pores widened, blood rushed, skin flushed. His head suddenly pounded in an agony he had never before known. He must have passed out, for when he came to large yellow feathers littered his room, he lay naked in the floor, and the window was open.<br /><br />Harvey had learned that, indeed, Yellowbelly was dead. Or maybe, as mother had said, transmogrified. And that Craig "Splatz" Markowitz had died that night. According to the incredulous policemen on the scene, something had pulled him out of his bedroom window and carried him to a great height before dropping him onto the pavement of the Markowitz's driveway.<br />Since then it's happened like clockwork, once a month. Maybe it's a blessing not be aware of what happens when Harvey's not in control.<br />He retrieved the box of bird seed from the table and poured a mound into his palm. Before the window, in the moonlight, he sifted the pale seeds through his now trembling fingers. <i>"Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers at night, transmogrifies when the full moon is bright and the seed is right."</i><br /><br />Happy Halloween! &gt;:-D http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/808366.html stories Heavy Classix 1 and 2 Heavy Classix 1 and 2 creative and amused public 6 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/807998.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:05:55 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/807998.html THE SABBAT OF SAMHAIN/HALLOWEEN (October 31)<br />© Copyright 2005-2009 Karen Charboneau-Harrison, All Rights Reserved. <br /><br />Samhain (Hallowe'en, Hallomas, Sauin, Samhuinn, Nos Galan Gaoef, Nos Kentan'r Bloaz) is the traditional Celtic New Year's Eve. It is the beginning of the dark period of the year which will gradually give birth to a new sun and new life. It is the beginning of the gestation period for the coming year and of the future. As such, the Horned God must leave the seed of life with the Great Mother for the New Year. This is the last opportunity He will have to perform this greatest of all magicks before He must depart the physical world and so sojourn in the land of spirits and waiting souls. His departure at Samhain is very dramatic and powerful as it opens the gates of the entire netherworld for a brief period thus rendering Samhain a period of awe for all who have the senses to feel it.<a name="cutid1"></a><br /><br />Samhain begins the rule of the Lord of Death - the God of change, transformation and the growth of the soul. He is also the God of rest and sleep.<br /><br />This is a time to let old habits die and to meditate on who we wish to become. The Winter months are months to muse inward, seeking one's Self. Spend this time in your studies, calm meditations and gentle reverie so that, come spring, you may rise renewed, rejuvenated, fresh and whole. <br /><br />It is said that on this date, the Celtic God, Saman, judges the souls of those who have left their bodies and decides if they may return to their loved ones for this last evening before making their journey to the Otherworld. Bonfires and solar symbols of all kinds are appropriate for this Sabbat. The carved Jack'o'Lantern pumpkin with its lit candle inside is strongly associated with this season as a solar symbol. The cauldron used as a scrying tool and as a symbol of the regeneration of souls as well as the broom which sweeps away the past are also both appropriate symbols. Pomegranates, nuts, apples and root vegetables are all symbolic of this Sabbat.<br /><br />Samhain is a time to remember, honor and commune with our ancestors. Their wisdom and lore enriches our lives and gives us clear pathways to follow and emulate. The Dumb Supper is one such tradition which honors them and allows us a brief time to part the veil between worlds to receive information and comfort from those who have made the transition and gone before us. Set a festive table with the favorite foods of those relatives and friends who are no longer in-body. Along with the place settings for the living who will participate in this Dumb Supper, also place plates, silverware and cups for those deceased family members and friends that you are inviting. Name each one and fill their plates with food, their cups with drink. Enjoy a lively conversation full of memories and stories about those people. End by drinking a toast to them and then have a few minutes of silence to receive any information or messages from the other side. At midnight, take their dishes outside under the light of the moon to receive her blessing and scatter the remains of the food the next morning to share with our animal friends. <br /><br />Divinations are traditional at Samhain to foretell the coming year's energy tides, challenges and gifts. At this time omens and oracles are believed to be the most accurate, as the veil between worlds is so thin. Divining by fire is popular and you can use either a candle flame or a fireplace. If you use a candle, the color purple is a good choice. Light the candle and begin gazing at the flame, quieting your breath and centering your energies and body. Begin playing with the flame mentally, establishing your connection. Make the flame grow taller then flattening it; cause it to wave wildly then quiet it. Once you have your connection, unfocus your eyes slightly, and ask a yes or no question. If the flame grows taller, your answer is yes, if it flattens the answer is no. Using your fireplace allows you to see pictures in the dancing flames that answer you questions. Again quiet your breathing and center yourself. Gaxe into the flames and slightly unfocus your eyes. .Ask your question and watch the flames play with each other as they form pictures and as the embers glow and wink out forms and numbers to give you your answer. <br /><br />Traditional PUMPKIN BREAD: Mix 1 cup of corn oil, 3 beaten eggs; ¾ cup of water and 2 cups pumpkin (either fresh or canned) until smooth. Add to this liquid 3¾ cups sifted flour; 1 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking soda; 2½ cups sugar and 1 teaspoon each of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and powdered cloves. Fold in 1 cup of chopped walnuts. Bake at 350° in 2 greased and floured loaf pans for 45 minutes to an hour depending on your oven. This keeps very well, but is most delicious fresh out of the oven!<br /><br />© Copyright 2005-2009 Karen Charboneau-Harrison, All Rights Reserved.<br /><hr><hr><br />REVERENCING THE DEAD AT SAMHAIN<br />© Copyright 2002 Montague Whitsel, All Rights Reserved. <br /><br />So much has been said about the haunted time of Samhain, yet little has been said about how to interact with spirits, souls and ghosts, and how to reverence the dead at this pivotal time in the Celtic year. When the Sídhe open and the ‘dead’ are free to walk back and forth between the worlds, how might we respond? This article explores a Celtic understanding of death and the Otherworld and offers several traditional reasons for why the ‘living’ might be visited by ‘ghosts’ at this hallowed time of the year. I then provide practical suggestions for the keeping of Samhain today, including graveyard visitations, the Dumb Supper and the Séance.<br /><br /><br />“There’s no need to holler; the dead are here!” (137)- Daniel Westforth Whittier, The Emerald Swamp (1984)<br /><br />As human beings, we have all wondered what might be in store for us after we die. Every known culture has addressed this question, as it is one of the defining questions for our existence. We die; what does this mean for us? Do we go on to ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’ – as Christianity teaches – or do we get reincarnated, as some eastern religions teach? Do we go to a place of ‘shades’ where we continue to exist, but only as a shadow of our former selves, as ancient Greek religion taught, or is there nothing after this life, as the ancient Israelites seem to have believed and as modern atheism and materialism assert?<br /><br />While there are almost as many options as there are people asking the question, we must not be discouraged by this plurality of belief where death and the ‘afterlife’ are concerned. From a spiritual point of view, it is not as important to know what happens after death as to continue asking the question and to continue entertaining extraordinary possibilities, for in this we strive toward being human. Asking the question of death and the afterlife is a way of living life to the fullest, seeking wisdom and wholeness.<br /><br />The ancient Celts believed in an afterlife, and their conception of it is rather different from the options many of us in the West have grown up with. For the Celts living in ancient Britain, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, “this world” was paralleled by Another Country – an “Otherworld” that was, for all intents and purposes, ‘like’ this world. Death, for the Celts, was a doorway leading from this life into this next realm, where a person continued what they had been doing in this life.<br /><br />There are two things that stand out as being quite unusual about the Celtic view. First, the Otherworld is not a place of punishment and reward. There is no ‘supreme being’ waiting to condemn you to an eternally boring heaven or a place of perpetual suffering. Death is simply a transition, and what you ‘get’ in the next life is what you have prepared yourself for while living this life. That is, if you have sought wisdom and wholeness while incarnate (“in the flesh”) then you will simply continue this quest on the Otherside. If you have frittered this life away in mundane pursuits, you will end up waking up on the otherside without much of a clue as to what’s going on. What you get is what you prepare yourself for.<br /><br />Second, the Otherworld is quite close to this world. It is “right down the lane,” or “right beyond the gate,” as people used to say. There is a story of a druid and his student that I like to tell that illustrates this ‘nearness’ of the Otherworld. As the story goes, they were in the druid’s cave one night, each engaged in his respective studies, when the student looked up and asked his druid, “Horned One, where do we go when we die?” The druid, distracted from his work for a second, looked up and, with a casual wave of his hand, said, “Ah_ over there,” – alluding to another part of the cave. He then went back to his work. The student, however, was stunned by this revelation.<br /><br />As this intimates, the Celts lived in close proximity with the dead. All places were potentially ‘haunted,’ therefore, and this was seen to be natural. Because the dead were not in a place of punishment or reward, it was common for houses to be ‘haunted’ by past residents, some of whom stayed permanently ‘around’ while others came and went at different times and seasons. Certain places in the Celtic landscape were also haunted, such as burial mounds, stone circles, rings of standing stones and other megalithic monuments. These places functioned as doorways between the worlds; places where the dead could walk back and forth.<br /><br />As the Celts were fascinated with borders, gates, streams and rivers, crossroads, and doorways were all considered ‘haunted’ by virtue of being places of transition. A fence, for instance, dividing the farm fields from the woods or pasture beyond was thought to be a place where communication with spirits was more likely to take place than in the middle of the field. Ghosts and spirits were known to travel along such boundaries.<br /><br />Because of the nearness of the Otherworld and the existence of these doorways in the landscape, communication between the living and the dead was much more commonplace in the Celtic world than it is in a Christian cosmos. Celtic people even tended to welcome visits from the ‘dead,’ as they didn’t think of spirits and souls as necessarily being hostile or lost, or as needing to be ‘sent into the Light’ (this is just a pop version of the Christian view; the “Light” simply taking the place of “Heaven”).<br /><br />While the Otherworld and this world were always in close proximity, at certain times of the year the pathways between ‘here’ and ‘there’ opened up to allow even more spiritual communication across the sídhe (a Celtic word used to refer to these gateways between the worlds in general) than usual. Celtic time was divided into definite periods, each having ritual and mythological parameters. At the transitions between these periods, communication with spirits and souls on the Otherside could better take place.<br /><br />The Celts divided time up differently than we do today. Their day began at dusk rather than at dawn, as they believed that light emerges from darkness; that darkness precedes and grounds the light. The Celtic year was divided into seasons, the passage between which was always marked by a traditional festival. The four major festivals – Imbolc (2 February), Beltaine (1 May), Lughnassadh (2 August) and Samhain (31 October) – are the most liminal times, and as such the most potent for communication with spirits and souls of the dead. Each is marked by the enactment of rituals that allow people to move safely from one season into another, crossing between these luminous earthen times in safety.<br /><br />Samhain (pronounced “Sow-en”) is perhaps the most liminal of these festivals, as it not only marks the transition from one season to another (Autumn—Winter) but also the transition from one year to the next. Because of its importance, the Celts imagined that time became ‘strange’ as Samhain approached. At dusk on the 31st of October (the last day of the old year), they believed, a new ‘day’ didn’t begin as it does at every other sunset. Rather, a period of ‘time between the worlds’ set in, lasting through the night until dawn on the 1st of November. During this time, the dead and other denizens of the Otherworld were free to come back and visit those of us still living in the incarnate realm. The first ‘day’ of the New Year was also unusual, therefore, as it began at dawn and ended at dusk, when the world returned to ‘regular time.’<br /><br />Because of the significance of this ‘transition’ – the end of one year and the beginning of another – the veils and walls between ‘this’ world and the Otherworld were thought to dissolve. Ordinary time evaporated at sunset on 31 October, and thus the boundaries that normally defined the world and allowed people safe movement from place to place were displaced until sunrise the next day. Beginning at dusk on the 31st of October, spirits, the Sluagh-Sídhe (Faeryfolk) and souls of the discarnate (a term that describes beings on the Otherside) all came forth from the sídhe to roam freely for the night.<br /><br />“Haunted in the Eaves of October,<br />Spirits and Gnomes come out to play,<br />to deck our homes with remembrance,<br />witching up the powers of the Fay!”<br /><br />We have all heard stories of ghosts and other visitants at Samhain. Our own popular lore (expressed in movies, TV shows and literature) is full of intimations that – at this time of the year – we are as unalone as we can possibly be, surrounded by a great congress of spirits and souls, deities and ancient beings. This is very much in concert with an ancient Celtic understanding of Samhain, except that they didn’t think of all discarnates as malevolent or “up to no good.” As the veil between worlds dissolved at sunset each year on the 31st of October, Celtic people made certain preparations for the night’s rituals, revels and feasting. They made themselves ready to receive the dead in a variety of ways, and were filled as much with anticipation and fascination as with ‘dread.’<br /><br />Celtic people in times past actually anticipated visits from ancestors, relatives, lost loves and friends, and even from the souls of household animals (such as hunting dogs) during Samhain Night. They were deeply connected with their past, and as such they believed that, so long as they were living life with integrity and good purpose, relatives & ancestors who had passed over the sídhe would be interested in visiting their place of dwelling at Samhain. If you had somehow dishonored the clan or your own particular family in some way, however, you might find yourself quite alone on Samhain night! Not to be visited at this haunted time by at least one ancestor, spirit-guide or relative might mean that you had lost your way or that you were acting in a way that made you less than interesting to those who had passed through this world before you!<br /><br />The Celts were romantics, and as such they valued the deep emotional connections they had experienced with others in this life. When a friend or a lover died, this connection remained, linking the dead lover or friend with their living partner. The bond between Celtic friends and lovers enabled the living partner to continue experiencing the presence of the discarnate one in deeply poetic ways. Imaginative ‘conversations’ would take place between them throughout the year, and then the dead would come back to visit the living at Samhain.<br /><br />Celtic people would also imagine being visited by spiritual mentors at Samhain. Pagan Celts often invited legendary Druids & Gwrach to their end-of-year celebrations. If they had actually been mentored in this life by a Druid or Gwrach who had then passed beyond the veil into the Otherworld, they would surely be expecting a visit from that person sometime during the night. Celtic followers of Christ likewise treated any anamchara (i.e., soul friend; spiritual director) they may have known who was living on the otherside with the same respect, expecting to be visited by them before the New Year began.<br /><br />While most spirits and souls who came to visit people in this world during Samhain came simply for fellowship and with good intentions, there was some cause for intrepidation, especially if you had wronged someone who then died before you could make amends. The Celts were very keen on inter-personal and communal justice. How one treated family and other members of the tuath (i.e., “tribe”) was crucial for maintaining a kind of ‘psychic balance’ in the world.<br /><br />When someone cheated, hurt or in some other way demeaned or insulted another person, this undid the psychic balance until restitution could be enacted. If the person you wronged died before you got a chance to make amends, Samhain might be your last chance to mend the breach. According to Celtic codes of restitution, you might make an offering to the family or friend of the one you had wronged as Samhain drew near. If that wasn’t possible, you could choose to leave an offering of food or perhaps a valued possession out on your doorstep at dusk on the 31st of October in the hopes that the ghost of the person you had wronged would see it and forgive you. One could also take such an offering up to one of the bonfires lit on the heaths during Samhain Night. Throwing it on the blazing fire was seen to symbolize delivering it to its intended recipient on the otherside.<br /><br />If a wrong was done to someone in your own household, everyone would expect the ghost of that person to show up during the passage of Samhain and haunt the guilty party until their gestures and offerings of restitution were accepted. Then the discarnate person would be invited to sit down at the Dumb Supper (see below) and partake of a ritual meal with the living. One of the main purposes in observing Samhain is this reestablishment of communal and interpersonal balance; undoing wrongs and forgiving faults and actions that have unsettled the ‘cosmic equation.’ Once all of these acts of restitution have been made, people were then free to go forward in revelry, communing with the dead, dancing throughout the night in hallowed circles around outdoor bonfires and before their own hearths at home.<br /><br />How might we keep Samhain today, given the nature of the Celtic understanding of death and the Otherworld?<br /><br />First, we need to get ourselves into the mood to be haunted. This may take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days, and so its always good to begin ‘setting the stage’ for Samhain at least by the beginning of Ioho; the short, three-day ‘month’ at the end of the Celtic year. IOHO – which means “Yew” – begins at dusk on the 28th of October and continues until dusk on the 31st. The Yew is a mysterious evergreen often found growing in graveyards and believed to be a gateway into the Otherworld. A single Yew may live for centuries, though not in the usual way. When its branches touch the soil they grab hold, sprouting new roots and becoming new trees. Thus the Yew renews itself and is born again from its own death.<br /><br />There is an unbroken continuity in the growth of any old Yew, the present tree being a distant descendant of the original. Because of this unique way of propagating itself, Yews also have a tendency to migrate, inch by inch and foot by foot, from where the original tree was planted. As such, the Yew is a symbol of regeneration & the transmigration of the soul.<br /><br />Ancient Europeans often buried their dead near consecrated Yew trees. In some Northern European cultures, there was no more hallowed place for interment than a grove of old and gnarly Yews. Many of these ancient groves became Christian graveyards in later centuries. Thus to walk in some of the older cemeteries in Europe is to be in a place where people have been buried for upwards of 2,500 years.<br /><br />It is a custom among Celtic Pagans today to visit graveyards sometime before dusk on 31 October, in order to reverence the dead and get into the mood to be haunted. Always remember, when visiting a graveyard, that you are on sacred ground, and that respect must always be paid to the dead, or else retribution may come. By visiting graves, mausoleums and tombs we show reverence for the dead. Consider visiting the grave of someone you know who has died. If you have lost loved ones, friends or relatives in the previous year, consider journeying to a cemetery before Samhain to visit their graves.<br /><br />If you find a Yew tree growing anywhere near a familiar grave, touch it; encounter it with respect. Yews are energized by a deep‑running psychic power. Contact with a Yew Tree may connect your incarnate soul with the essences of loved ones who have recently crossedEover. A link with the dead who are known to you may be established by this contact, helping a departed person find their way home for Samhain. If you have permission, cut a small sprig of Yew from a tree growing near the grave of a loved one or an ancestor and then plant it by your house. This will act as a beacon to guide the souls of the beloved dead to your home. If the Yew cutting takes root, imagine seeing spirits moving in, around and through its branches at Samhain each year as it grows.<br /><br />From the 29th to the 31st of October the doors between the worlds are opening, and as such graveyards are believed to come to life with various presences. Places of interment are transitional in nature, and thus are always a bit ‘haunted.’ Then, in the Season of Samhain, they become quick with the dead. Go there with reverence and respect for the liminal nature of the place, open to whatever you may experience or remember as you walk around, reading inscriptions and listening for voices from Another Country.<br /><br />Try not to ‘spook’ yourself, and – at the same time, if you can – remain ‘open’ to whatever might happen. If you imagine that a spirit or a ghost is present, ‘greet’ it by making three equal-armed crosses before you in the air. This is an ancient symbol of the Goddess – signifying Maiden, Mother and Crone; the three ‘phases’ of the Goddess – and as such is a way of blessing any discarnate entity you may encounter. To walk around a graveyard is to move in the ley-lines of mystical rapport with spirits and souls. Accept whatever happens, and use whatever arts of taghairm (divination) you know to interpret it.<br /><br />As dusk approaches on 31 October, consider how you might want to spend the night. If there is “trick or treating” in your area, you might reverence the dead by participating in this tradition, either going out dressed-up as one of the ‘dead’ yourself or else by consciously receiving trick-or-treaters at your door as representatives of the spirits and souls out walking abroad. There was a custom among the ancient Celts of gathering up offerings for the ritual bonfires. These offerings might be food (such as small ritual cakes) or even magical objects (amulets or talismans) that the living desired to send across the sídhe to dead lovers, friends and kin. The practice of “trick or treat” today is a vague remembrance of the offerings once made to the spirits and souls of the dead in ancient Celtic times.<br /><br />If you want to redeem the custom of handing out candy and trinkets to trick-or-treaters, think – with each handful that you offer – of what their costumes suggest; they intimate the presence of souls and spirits who are visiting the incarnate realm during this most haunted night of the year! Say to yourself, with each offering of candy or trinkets, “may the dead be appeased; may restitution be made.” If you go out trick-or-treating yourself, ask whatever spirits or ‘guardians’ there may be who watch over the house and the property to look on the candy and trinkets you are offered as restitution for anything that needs to be made right or atoned for in the house.<br /><br />Many people today suffer injustices, while others are wronged by people who would never think to make restitution for their acts. By engaging in the rituals of Trick-or-Treat with conscious intent, you may help to make amends for a great many wrongs. If you know of someone who has died before you could make things right with them, because of something you or they did before their death, use the handing out of treats as a way of letting go of the imbalance. If there is no wrong to make amends for, think of ancestors or spirit-guides who have died, and name them (silently to yourself) as you hand out candy and trinkets to the costumed visitors who come to your door. This will connect you with the Otherside and increase the possibility that you will, indeed, be visited before the return to regular time at dawn on 1 November! Pagan Celts also make a habit of going trick-or-treating to each other’s houses. If you do this, you might say to your visitors, “This offering I give for x,” either “who wronged me” or “whom I wronged in life.” In this way you can re-establish psychic balance in your world.<br /><br />After the trick-or-treating, set a table for a late evening meal, including a place or two for people you have known who are now dead. This is the “The Dumb Supper.” Mortals at this meal eat a real feast while they play at conversing with ghosts. If you do not know of anyone who has died recently, set a place for one of the old Celtic heroes or saints, or perhaps a personal spirit-guide. Leaving their plate empty of food, place something either symbolizing them or else something that belonged to the dead person, on the plate or the chair. As you sit down to eat, invite the dead to your table.<br /><br />As the Dumb Supper progresses, most people will get a ‘chill’ or the feeling that they have been touched; they may even imagine hearing the voice of someone from the otherside! Almost anything can happen, if we have prepared ourselves to be haunted. Most of us may never ‘see’ anything that counts as psychic in our entire lives, yet other senses may be telling us that the dead are nearby. Imagining that you have experienced the presence of an invited discarnate guest; that you have received the ‘dead’ at your table – is one way of opening your ‘psychic’ senses to extra-ordinary possibilities.<br /><br />If you want to communicate with someone who has died in a more formal way, consider engaging in a séance at some point after the Dumb Supper. Though often portrayed in the media as the artifice of charlatans who rig devices that will deceive their paying clients into thinking they are being put in touch with a deceased loved one, the séance has a long history of legitimate spiritual use. Those who engage in séances must vow to one another to be honest, however, which means that you promise not to ‘pull any tricks.’ Honesty in psychic endeavors is of paramount importance, as it is so easy to be deceived – and to deceive others – under the right circumstances.<br /><br />Séances cannot be engaged in on the spur of the moment. You must prepare a room where the séance will be held and arrange everything carefully. Set up a table just large enough for all of the participants to be seated around comfortably without their knees or elbows touching. Then carefully choose the chairs that you will sit in, considering that you may have to sit still for a long time. Set up a few candles, then, around the séance room, making sure that their light doesn’t illumine every dark corner. Ideally, their light should cast as many shadows as possible! Then select music that has an enchanting lilt and ambiance to it. Arrange for this to be played at a low volume in an adjoining room.<br /><br />When you gather for the séance, light the candles and be seated. Meditate and chant together. Ask your deities, spirit-guides, anamchara or perhaps the anima loci (“spirit of the place”) to aid you in your task. Then join hands around the table and concentrate on the name or something else connected with the soul with whom you are trying to communicate. Continue to breathe meditatively and en-spirit yourselves, perhaps saying the name of the spirit or soul out loud as you do so, inviting them into your presence. There is usually a period of waiting, at this point, during which the consciousness of all the participants becomes focused. This interval concludes only when the first evidences of a visitation begin to transpire. Candles may flicker wildly though no air has moved in the room, or the participants may feel chilly, or even detect a peculiar scent on the air. However it manifests, welcome the visitant.<br /><br />At this point a person who has become proficient at communicating across the sídhe should ask, “Who is in the room?” They might also ask a spirit-guide or perhaps a discarnate anamchara (soul friend) to enable them to communicate with the spectral guest.<br /><br />As ‘communication’ with the discarnate guest begins, more may happen than the simple dramatic ‘acting out’ out of a persona by the empath (i.e., the person doing the communicating). The empath may suddenly go into a trance-like state, at which point any pretense at ‘acting’ becomes moot. Under the best circumstances, the person doing the ‘communicating’ may actually take on the identity of the spectral guest and then invite the dead person to talk ‘through’ them.<br /><br />This is the technique usually referred to in spiritualism as the work of a “medium.” It also has some vague resemblance to certain long-honored shamanic experiences. The Celts of long ago as well as many Celtic people today know all about this practice, as it is a common part of their folklore. The empath will wait until they are moved – as if by the soul-force of the presence – at which point they should imagine letting go of conscious control over their speech, ‘allowing’ the guest to ‘speak’ through them.<br /><br />Once the empath is in the proper mood; being inclined to speak as if for the guest – others should pose any questions that have prompted the séance. These inquiries should be asked respectfully, and while this is going on, another person – designated as a ‘Watcher’ – should keep an eye on what’s going on around the room. During genuine psychic communications, all kinds of epiphenomena may be witnessed. Shadows may move across walls, windows may seem to reflect faces in their panes, and doors may swing open or close of their own accord. I have been at séances where the participants suddenly sensed the movement of a small animal – such as a cat or dog – around their legs beneath the table. The Watcher is responsible for noting anything out of the ordinary and reporting it aloud in a manner that will not disrupt the questioning of the guest.<br /><br />A séance usually ends when the empath grows tired or – as sometimes happens – falls asleep. You must then “discharge the spirit” by bidding it farewell. This may be done by simply saying “goodbye,” or by going to a door to the house, opening it and then closing it again, giving the discarnate ‘time to leave.’ You may also make the triple cross in the air before you, blessing the spirit in its departing.<br /><br />After this, allow yourselves to come out of the enchanted poetic mood of the séance by slowly breaking the circle, getting up and walking around. Turning on a regular electric light will facilitate your return to ordinary waking consciousness. You might then indulge in a snack, as psychic experiments are often hungry work. Cheese and crackers served with a glass of good beer or wine will usually revive your energies. Avoid meat, however, as it dulls the senses, especially after psychic-work.<br /><br />If you can, try to evaluate the séance before going home for the night. You must always strive to interpret psychic experiences consciously and deliberately, being somewhat critical of what has happened. Allow that everyone has experienced what they have experienced, and try not to limit what is possible. At the same time, you must be willing to discount phenomena that end up having a natural origin. If you smelled ‘roses’ during the séance, for instance, it could be that the house where the session has taken place has roses growing outside or that a cake of rose scented soap in a tray in the upstairs shower is the source. Our senses become acute when we’re in a meditative state; psychic work sharpens them even more!<br /><br />If natural explanations for strange occurrences or spectral phenomena can be found, accept them for what they are. However, you must also avoid rationalizing, which is the tendency to discount or write something off – by giving it a common-sense explanation – simply because you can’t or don’t yet want to believe that it happened. Rationalizing is often the initial response of normal, secular people when they first experience something “out of the ordinary.” Though this response is to be expected, we must get over it if we are going to learn what really happens when we are engaged in psychic exercises.<br /><br />∆ ∆ ∆<br /><br />Another ritual that will help some people reverence the dead at Samhain is the hanging of wind-chimes near the entrance to their house sometime before dusk on 31 October. When you hear the wind blowing in the chimes, imagine that spirits and souls of the long-departed are ‘calling to you.’ If you feel right about it, invite them in. (This can be done early in the evening, before the Dumb Supper and the séance, or later on). If you leave them up all night you may hear spirits coming and going as you sleep. For some Celtic practitioners, this inspires vivid dreams of lost loves, friends and ancestors. Make sure, however, that you take the chimes down in the morning, as to leave them up past noon on the 1st of November is thought to prop a ‘door’ to the Otherworld open near the entrance to your house; the results of this – at least according to a Celtic logic of sacred time – can be less than pleasant.<br /><br />∆ ∆ ∆<br /><br />One result of these experiments with communicating across the sídhe may well be that you gain a sense that you are somehow less alone in life’s spirals than you may have thought. This is a characteristically Celtic feeling; one that is shared by Celts in many times and places. As Samhain is a traditional time for meeting anamchara; those who help guide us through this incarnate life – you might also discover that you have friends and soul-guides on the Otherside. It is also a traditional time for exploring our belief in the possibility of an afterlife by gathering potential ‘evidence’ for the existence of ghosts and other spirits. Whether or not the Otherworld actually exists, however, to imagine ourselves as in contact with it at the tides of Samhain can (1) help us come to terms with our mortality, (2) allow us to reconnect with loved ones and (3) be reconciled with anyone who may have died before we could mend a broken or faltering relationship. Nema. So mote it be.<br /><br />© Copyright 2002 Montague Whitsel, All Rights Reserved.<br /><hr></hr><br />HALLOWEEN AND PAGAN CHILDREN<br />© Copyright 2007 Karen Charboneau-Harrison, All Rights Reserved. <br /><br />Halloween can sometimes be problematic for Pagans with children. For us, it is one of our most sacred and important holidays, yet we are surrounded by green-faced, cardboard 'witches' hanging over candy displays, plus offensive greeting cards. Story hour at school often involves a scary tale with a 'witch' as a villain and our children receive coloring handouts at school that depict at least one flying, warty 'witch'. It is inappropriate to expect your child to challenge these misrepresentations at school or for you to arrive fuming to confront the teacher or principal. Tempting though it may be to forego public confrontations, the proper response is to deal with these inconsistencies in the privacy of your own home. Tell your children that these images are produced by people who do not really know anything about real Witches and that no hurt or insult is intended. You can also explain how current North American Halloween customs developed in order to show them how other people do celebrate an important holiday with us.<br /><br />The way I explained it to my daughter is:<br />Samhain begins the Celtic New Year, the time when 'the veil between the worlds is thin' and we are more sensitive to our inner selves and our psychic senses. Our ancestors who no longer have bodies often return to visit their homes and families at this time and we can communicate with them to help them pass on through to their next life and body, we can learn lessons from them and we can simply enjoy their company. Seasonal celebrations focus on the beginning of the rule of the God, the Lord of the Underworld, and Keeper of the Gates of Death. Our ancestors finished preserving their winter storehouse of food at this time and began the slaughter of animals that would feed them throughout the winter. The types of magick done at this time are for the preservation of our families and friends through the harsh winter months. We also send out energy to protect the wild animals, our winter stores of food and to strengthen the Sun for his rebirth at Yule. <br /><br />The rest of the United States is celebrating Halloween with costumes and candy - both of which are fun for children. This custom comes from older traditions of our ancestors and is a wholesome way to let your children be a part of the larger community as it celebrates, perhaps unknown to them, a Pagan festival. In addition, here are some suggestions for Samhain celebrations that can include children:<br /><br />Perform simple divinations for the coming year using the pendulum, scrying or candle flame gazing. <br />Talk about relatives, pets or friends who have passed on and what we learned from them or enjoyed about them. <br />Tell stories about ghosts, using the stories to illustrate how children might deal with fears. <br />Talk about the origin of Halloween customs. Trick or treating goes back to the beginning of the Iron Age when farm dwellers left offerings of milk, cheese or other treats to discourage the forest dwellers from pilfering. Leave some treats outside or in the hearth for the elves and fairy folk in your home. Costume parties developed during the Middle Ages so that on Halloween ('hallow' or holy evening) active ghosts and goblins could not recognize the people inside their homes celebrating the new year and therefore could not bother them. Jack-o'-lanterns developed from the custom of carving out turnips and placing candles in them to prevent the wind from blowing out the flame when people traveled at night using the hollowed out turnip as a lantern. <br />Make dream pillows for dreams of the coming year: Take a piece of cloth about 6 inches square. Make a mixture of any or all of these herbs/essential oils: Lavender, anise, mugwort, jasmine, white sandalwood, lily of the valley, lilac, chamomile, hops, skullcap and poppy. To prepare the herb/oil mixture, mix 1/4th cup of each of the herbs desired, then begin adding your chosen oils to the center of the dry herbs a few drops at a time. Knead the oils in gently with a spoon until the scent is as strong as you like. If you wish to sew your pillow, fold the cloth in half and sew the long side and one of the short ones. Turn it inside out so that your seams are inside. Stuff the pillow with the herb mixture then finish it off with a slip stitch on the remaining opening. If you prefer not to sew, lay the cloth flat and place the herb mixture in the center. Take two opposing corners and bring them together. Do the same with the remaining two corners. Packing the herbs tightly in the middle, twist the corners up together and bind them with a ribbon. Dream pillows can help children remember dreams, sleep more deeply or ease dreams in the case of children with nightmares. <br />Maybe it's just because it's my birthday, but to me Halloween/Samhain is one of the most fun holidays of the year. It's serious but fun and rich in lore and practices. Take advantage of all of the fascinating Halloween customs to introduce your children to your spiritual world view and share the magick with them!<br /><br />© Copyright 2007 Karen Charboneau-Harrison, All Rights Reserved. http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/807998.html articles <i>I Walk Alone (Artist's Version)</i> by Tarja <i>I Walk Alone (Artist's Version)</i> by Tarja bouncy public 4 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/807476.html Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:39:43 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/807476.html Ever on the prowl for cool gifts for folks, look what I just found:<br /><br /><a href="http://authenticclawprints.com/">Authentic Claw Prints</a>. http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/807476.html impressed public 8 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/805964.html Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:21:47 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/805964.html <a name="cutid1"></a><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09112.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09112.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09123.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09123.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09126.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09126.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09127.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09127.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09137.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09137.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09160.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09160.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/805964.html nature pics public 0 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/805042.html Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:48:22 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/805042.html <a name="cutid1"></a><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09020.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09020.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br />This was cool: there were two perfect crawdad claws beside one another on the bike path beside the river. Part of a leg was above them on the railing. Perhaps a bird dropped it there to crack it open?<br /><a name="cutid2"></a><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09023.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09023.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br />The South Platte was so clear and low. It was neat to see the bottom.<br /><a name="cutid3"></a><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09025.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09025.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br />Marbled Godwits (thanks for the ID, Catsarah!) cavorted on the opposite bank. Normally godwits are further east. This was our first godwit sighting.<br /><a name="cutid4"></a><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_killdeer1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_killdeer1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_killdeer2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_killdeer2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/805042.html nature pics bird pics public 5 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/804815.html Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:54:23 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/804815.html <a name="cutid1"></a><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09011.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09011.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09012.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09012.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09010.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09010.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09009.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09009.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09017.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09017.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/804815.html nature pics public 2 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/804566.html Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:31:01 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/804566.html Saturday's activities were sorely needed. I'd been stuck inside for weeks due to the weather, and finally the sun appeared and brought warmth for the weekend.<br /><br />I was desperate for nature and one of my favorite stomping grounds. After Sam's burial Friday, my mood began to lift. Nature immersion, and seeing <i>Where The Wild Things Are</i> afterward, would push me toward joy. <br /><br />And they did.<br /><br />Jay was my photo facilitator extraordinaire. He knows my vision too well. I'm grateful. <br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09003.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09003.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09005.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09005.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09004.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09004.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09014.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09014.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_October17th09016.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_October17th09016.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/804566.html nature pics rejuvenated public 0 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/803743.html Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:52:40 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/803743.html Here are the photos from mom's camera. Yesterday was very busy in the best of ways, despite my sunburn. I have pics to re-size and post tomorrow from a blissful and much needed hike along the 104th Trail (photographic highlight: the territorial scuffle between two great blue herons).<br /><br />Thank you all for your kind words.<br /><br />Thista, Sam's eye gunk looked milky white.<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_sam1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_sam1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><a href="http://s382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/?action=view&amp;current=T_sam2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo264/Lynxspirit_photos/104th%20Trail%20October%2017th%202009/T_sam2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/803743.html animal pics peaceful public 20 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/802499.html Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:04:18 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/802499.html (from www.religioustolerance.org):<br /><br />The Fall Equinox is also known as: Alban Elfed, Autumn Equinox, Autumnal Equinox, Cornucopia, Feast of Avilon, Festival of Dionysus, Harvest Home, Harvest Tide, Mabon, Night of the Hunter, Second Harvest Festival, Wine Harvest, Witch's Thanksgiving, and the first day of autumn.<br /><hr></hr><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><i>Etymology:</i><br /><br />The word "equinox" was derived from Latin term "æquinoctium" which, in turn, came from "æquus" (equal), and "nox" (night). It refers to the time that occurs twice a year when the nighttime is equal to the daytime -- each being 12 hours in duration.<br /><hr></hr><br /><i>A multi-faith celebration:</i><br /><br />Religious followers from around the world observe many seasonal days of celebration during late September. Most are religious holy days, and are linked in some way to the fall or autumn equinox. Common themes found worldwide are balance, harvesting, hunting, and remembrance of the dead.<br /><br />People view other religions in various ways, and thus treat the celebrations of other faiths differently:<br /><br />Some people value the worldwide variety of fall equinox celebrations, because demonstrates the diversity of religious belief within our common humanity. They respect both their own religious traditions and those of other faiths for their ability to inspire people to lead more ethical and fulfilled lives. Religious diversity is, to them, a positive influence.<br /> <br />Others reject the importance of all celebrations other than the holy days recognized by their own religion. Some go so far as rejecting some of their religion's holy days when they are discovered to have Pagan origins (e.g. Easter, Christmas, and Michaelmas). <br /><br />Some consider religions other than their own as being inspired by Satan. Thus the solstice and equinox celebrations of other religions are viewed as Satanic in origin, and intrinsically evil.<br /><hr></hr><br /><i>When and why the fall equinox happens:</i><br /><br />The seasons of the year are caused by the 23.5° tilt of the earth's axis. Because the earth is rotating like a top or gyroscope, it points in a fixed direction continuously -- towards a point in space near the North Star. But the earth is also revolving around the sun. During half of the year, the southern hemisphere is more exposed to the sun than is the northern hemisphere. During the rest of the year, the reverse is true. At noontime in the Northern Hemisphere the sun appears high in the sky during summertime and low in the sky during winter. It is highest at the summer solstice (about June-21) and lowest at the winter solstice (about December-21). The half-way points in the year are called the equinoxes. It is time of the year when the sun rises exactly in the east, travels through the sky for 12 hours, and sets exactly in the west. Everywhere on earth experiences close to 12 hours of daylight, and 12 hours of nighttime. <br /><hr></hr><br /><i>The date and time of the fall equinox:</i><br /><br />The exact date and time of the fall equinox, when the sun moves into the astrological sign of Libra, varies from year to year. Each year, the date/time moves progressively later in September until the year before leap-year is reached. On leap-year, it returns to an earlier date/time. This four-year cycle is then repeated. <br /><br />Year Fall Equinox, in the Northern Hemisphere (UT) <br />1999 SEP-23 @ 11:32 <br />2000 SEP-22 @ 17:27 <br />2001 SEP-22 @ 23:04 <br />2002 SEP-23 @ 04:55 <br />2003 SEP-23 @ 10:46 <br />2004 SEP-22 @ 16:29 <br />2005 SEP-22 @ 22:22 <br />2006 SEP-23 @ 04:03 <br />2007 SEP-23 @ 09:51 <br />2008 SEP-22 @ 15:44 <br />2009 SEP-22 @ 21:18 <br />2010 SEP-23 @ 03:09 <br /><br />The dates and times were derived from the astronomical calculations on The Dome of the Sky web site for years 1999 to 2006. However, the web site does not seem to be functioning as of 2005-APR-05. The remaining equinoxes were taken from archaeoastronomy.com. An online "Easy Date Converter" calculates the dates and times of the equinoxes and solstices within 20 seconds. Times are in UT (Universal Time). This used to be called Greenwich Mean Time or GMT. In North America, you can find your local time by subtracting:<br /><br />2 hours 30 minutes for Newfoundland daylight savings time <br />3 hours for ADT <br />4 hours for EDT <br />5 hours for CDT <br />6 hours for MDT <br />7 hours for PDT <br />8 hours in AKDT (Alaska) <br />9 hours in ADT (Aleutian Islands) <br />10 hours in HST (Hawaii) 10 <br /><hr></hr><br /><i>Fall celebrations by various faiths and countries - ancient and modern:</i><br /><br />ANCIENT BRITAIN: Both the solstices and equinoxes "were the highly sophisticated preoccupation of the mysterious Megalithic peoples who pre-dated Celt, Roman and Saxon on Europe's Atlantic fringe by thousands of years." Stonehenge and other stone structures were aligned so that the solstices and equinoxes could be determined. <br /><br />ANCIENT IRELAND: The spring and fall equinox were celebrated in ancient times. A cluster of megalithic cairns are scattered through the hills at Loughcrew, about 55 miles North West of Dublin in Ireland. Longhcrew Carin T is a passage tomb which is designed so that the light from the rising sun on the spring and summer equinoxes penetrates a long corridor and illuminates a backstone, which is decorated with astronomical symbols. <br /><br />ASTROLOGERS: On the day of the fall solstice, the sun enters the sign of Libra -- the constellation of the balance or scales. <br /><br />CHRISTIANITY: The Christian Church replaced earlier Pagan solstices and equinox celebrations during Medieval times, with Christianized observances. Replacing the fall equinox is Michaelmas, the feast of the Archangel Michael, on SEP-29. "His feast was celebrated with a traditional well-fattened goose which had fed well on the stubble of the fields after the harvest. In many places, there was also a tradition of special large loaves of bread made only for that day. By Michaelmas the harvest had to be completed and the new cycle of farming would begin. It was a time for beginning new leases, rendering accounts and paying the annual dues." <br /><br />Other substitutions by the Church were:<br /><br />Replacing the spring equinox by the Feast of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is held on MAR-25, on the nominal date of the spring equinox according to the old Julian calendar. There was a "brief flirtation with calling the Vernal Equinox 'Gabrielmas.' " This is the time when the angel Gabriel told Mary that she was pregnant. (Luke 1:26-38)<br />Replacing the summer solstice, Midsummer Day, is the feast of St. John the Baptist, celebrated on JUN-24. <br />Replacing the winter solstice is Christmas, on DEC-25 when Mary is traditionally believed to have given birth to Jesus, while still a virgin. <br /><br />CHUMASH: This is a Native American tribe from Southern California. They celebrate their fall equinox sun ceremony during their month of Hutash (September). It takes place "after the harvest is picked, processed and stored....Kakunupmawa is a ritual name for the Sun. According to traditional Chumash lore, all humans were known as children of the Sun, or 'sons of Kakunupmawa.' " The spiritual thoughts of the tribe would become focused the importance of unity in the face of winter confinement, death and rebirth. <br /><br />DRUIDS: At this time of the year, the ancient Celts conducted a mock sacrifice of a large wicker-work figure which represented the vegetation spirit. This might have been the origin of Julius Caesar's comment in his Gallic Wars that the Druids performed human sacrifices. Although he never witnessed a human sacrifice and never met anyone who had, this story has been accepted and repeated often enough to be accepted as truth. The Celtic mock sacrifice has been reborn in the Burning Man Project, a yearly fall festival celebrated for one week in Black Rock Desert in Nevada. The movie "The Wicker Man" was based on the Celtic tradition; to say more would ruin the film if you are seeing it for the first time. <br /><br />FRANCE: A new calendar was adopted at the time of the French Revolution in the late 18th century. The first day of the year, the 1st of Vendemiaire (the grape-harvest month), was the date of the fall equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. The year was divided into twelve months of 30 days each. That left five or six surplus days which were celebrations ending the year, in honor of virtue, genius, work, opinion, prizes and revolution. <br /><br />MAYAN: The ancient Mayans constructed a pyramid at Cihick�n Itz� which displayed different patterns of triangles of light at the time of the solstices and equinoxes. The dates signaled the start of a harvest, planting, or a religious ceremony. On the fall equinox, seven triangles become visible on the pyramid's staircase. <br /><br />NATIVE AMERICAN SPIRITUALITY: There are countless stone structures created by Natives in the past and still standing in North America. One was called Calendar One by its modern-day finder. It is in a natural amphitheatre of about 20 acres in size in Vermont. From a stone enclosure in the center of the bowl, one can see a number of vertical rocks and other markers around the edge of the bowl "At the winter solstice, the sun rose at the southern peak of the east ridge and set at a notch at the southern end of the west ridge." The summer solstice and both equinoxes were similarly marked. <br /><br />"America's Stonehenge" is a 4,000 year old megalithic site located on Mystery Hill in Salem NH. Carbon dating has estimated the age of some charcoal remnants at 3,000 and 4,000 years ago. Researchers have concluded that the site was erected either by Native Americans or an unknown migrant European population. The site contains five standing stones and one fallen stone in a linear alignment which point to both the sunrise and sunset at the and fall equinoxes. <br /><br />NEOPAGANISM: This is a group of religions which are attempted re-creations of ancient Pagan religions. Of these, Wicca is the most popular; it is loosely based on ancient Celtic beliefs, symbols and practices, with the addition of some more recent Masonic and ceremonial magic rituals.<br /><br />Monotheistic religions, like Judaism, Christianity and Islam, tend to view time as linear. It started with creation; the world as we know it will end at some time in the future. Aboriginal and Neopagan religions see time as circular and repetitive, with lunar (monthly) and solar (yearly) cycles. Their "...rituals guarantee the continuity of nature's cycles, which traditional human societies depend on for their sustenance." <br /><br />Wiccans recognize eight seasonal days of celebration. Four are minor sabbats and occur at the two solstices and the two equinoxes. The other are major sabbats which happen approximately halfway between an equinox and solstice. Wiccans may celebrate Mabon on the evening before, or at sunrise on the morning of the equinox, or at the exact time of fall equinox.<br /><br />Mabon is the second and main Wiccan harvest festival. <br /><br />Selena Fox of Circle Sanctuary comments: "The Goddess manifests in Her Bountiful Mother aspects. The God emerges as the Corn King and Harvest Lord. Colors are Orange, Dark Red, Yellow, Indigo, and Brown. It is the festival of thanksgiving." <br /><br />Lee Wavedancer of Witch on the Go.com comments that the Wiccan God "has sacrificed the last of Himself to provide us with a final harvest of food before the winter begins. Celebrants gather to mark the turning of the wheel and to give thanks for the ultimate sacrifice of The God, recognizing that He will be reborn at Yule. This holiday has been called 'The Witches' Thanksgiving' and is a time for feasting together with family and friends." <br /><br />The author of the Pagan Family Circle writes: "While in the past, most all were farmers, this harvest festival traditionally applies to the harvest of foods, yet in this day and age, the 'harvest' may also apply to the 'seeds of dreams and wishes' that were planted many months earlier. Now is the time to see if they have come true. Whether they have come true or not ... a ritual to thank the growing energies of the God and the fertility of the Goddess should be preformed at this time. Lay upon your altar a sampling of your 'harvest'.... use it freely in your ritual. (Note: even if your 'harvest' came up empty, IE: your dreams were not fulfilled, the God and Goddess should still be thanked for the effort put forth in your name)" <br /><br />JAPAN: "...the Spring and Autumn Equinox is observed as the six-day celebration the Higan-e. It is celebrated "for three days before and after the Equinox. Six days was chosen because it is based on the six perfections, giving, observance of the precepts, perseverance, effort, meditation and wisdom - needed before one goes from this shore of sams�ra to the further shore or nirvana. The literal meaning of Higan is 'other shore.' The ritual includes repentance of past sins and prayers for enlightenment in the next life. It also includes remembrance of the dead and visits to the family graves. It is thought that the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, being the most temperate times of the year, are ideal moments to reflect on the meaning of life."<br /><hr></hr><br /><i>Fall equinox traditions:</i><br /><br />"The month of September also marks the 'Wine Moon,' the lunar cycle when grapes are harvested from the arbors, pressed and put away to become wine...The full moon closest to the Autumn Equinox is known as the 'Harvest Moon,' since farmers would also harvest their crops during the night with the light of the full moon to aid them." <br /><br />Teutonic tribes called the period from the fall equinox until Winter Night (OCT-15) by the name "Winter Finding." Winter Night was the Norse new year. <br /><br />"Symbols celebrating the season include various types of gourd and melons. Stalk can be tied together symbolizing the Harvest Lord and then set in a circle of gourds. A besom can be constructed to symbolize the polarity of male and female. The Harvest Lord is often symbolized by a straw man, whose sacrificial body is burned and its ashes scattered upon the earth. The Harvest Queen, or Kern Baby, is made from the last sheaf of the harvest and bundled by the reapers who proclaim, 'We have the Kern!' The sheaf is dressed in a white frock decorated with colorful ribbons depicting spring, and then hung upon a pole (a phallic fertility symbol). In Scotland, the last sheaf of harvest is called the Maiden, and must be cut by the youngest female in attendance." <br /><hr></hr><br /><i>Egg-balancing belief:</i><br /><br />There is a rumor that surfaces twice a year at the time of the spring and fall equinoxes. Many people believe that since the equinox is a time of balance where the daylight hours and nighttime hours are equal, that -- by some mystical force -- one can balance eggs on their end on these days. Some believe that one can only balance an egg within a few hours before or after the exact time of the equinox. <br /><br />Philip Plait (a.k.a. the Bad Astronomer) writes: "Usually you cannot stand a raw egg because the inside of an egg is a very viscous (thick) liquid, and the yolk sits in this liquid. The yolk is usually a bit off-center and rides high in the egg, making it very difficult to balance. The egg falls over. However, with patience, you can usually make an egg stand up. It may take a lot of patience!" He has a photo on his web site that shows himself and three eggs standing on their end. <br /><br />Being able to stand an egg on its end is clearly determined by the internal structure of the egg, gravity, condition of the surface of the egg at its end, the condition of the surface that the egg is being balanced on, how level the surface is, etc. None of these factors have anything to do with the passage of the seasons. So, a person probably has as much luck standing an egg on its end on the equinox as on any other day of the year. <br /><br />Plait reports that only a small percentage of eggs can be balanced. He believes that the successfully balanced eggs have small irregularities that act as miniature legs and prop up the egg. <br /><br />Needless to say, balancing an egg on it stubby end is a lot easier than on its pointed end.<br /><hr></hr><br /><i>References used:</i><br /><br />The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.<br /><br />"The Sun in the sky during the Spring and Fall Equinox in the Northern hemisphere," at: solar.physics.montana.edu/ <br />Jay Ryan, "Starman: Fall Equinox," at: www.oarval.org/ <br />Lance, "Hail to the Sabbat: Mabon!," at: www.paganet.org/ <br />"Fall Equinox," at: pagans.foolmoon.com/ <br />John Anderson, "Chumash Autumn Equinox," at: www.angelfire.com/ <br />"Wicker Man Film Review," www.sandrew.demon.co.uk/ <br />"The Shadow of the Equinox," at: www.isourcecom.com/ <br />J.W. Mavor & B.E. Dix, "Manitou: The sacred landscape of New England's Native Civilization." Inner Traditions (1989). <br />"America's Stonehenge" is at: www.stonehengeusa.com/ <br />Yisrayl Hawkins,"Ancient Pagan Religious Expression," at: yahweh.com/ <br />Selena Fox, "Celebrating the Seasons: Lore and Rituals by Selena Fox: Fall Equinox," at: www.circlesanctuary.org/ <br />Lee Wavedancer, "Fall Equinox," at: witchonthego.com/ <br />"Fall Equinox," at: pagans.foolmoon.com/ <br />William Duby, "The Fall Equinox," at: www.celestia.com/ <br />"Find the equinoxes and solstices for a particular year," at einstein.stcloudstate.edu/ <br />Lance, "Hail to the Sabbat: Mabon!," at: www.paganet.org/ <br />StormWing, "Mabon Lore," at: www.geocities.com/ <br />"Mabon Lore," at: www.pathwalkers.net/ <br />Von Del Chamberlain, "Equinox Means Balanced Light, Not Balanced Eggs," at: www.clarkfoundation.org/ <br />Philip Plait, "Standing an egg on end on the Spring Equinox," at: www.badastronomy.com/ <br />"Loughcrew Megalithic Cairns," Knowth.com at: www.knowth.com/ <br />"Loughcrew Autumnal Equinox 2002," Knowth.com at: www.knowth.com/ <br />"Equinox, Solstice & Cross-Quarter Moments," at: www.archaeoastronomy.com/ <br />"Dates and Times of Equinoxes and Solstices," Hermetic Systems, at: www.hermetic.ch/ <br />"Loughcrew Equinox," Knowth.com, at: www.knowth.com/ Download a video in WMV format from: Loughcrew Video <br /><hr></hr><br /><i>Copyright © 2002 to 2008 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance<br />Originally written: 2002-AUG-7<br />Latest update: 2008-JUN-24<br />Author: B.A. Robinson</i> http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/802499.html articles public 1 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/802287.html Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:00:53 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/802287.html ... from <span class='ljuser ljuser-name_satyrblade' lj:user='satyrblade' style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='http://satyrblade.livejournal.com/profile'><img src='http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif' alt='[info]' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='http://satyrblade.livejournal.com/'><b>satyrblade</b></a></span> <big><a href="http://satyrblade.livejournal.com/276431.html">here</a></big>. <span class='ljuser ljuser-name_upstart_crow' lj:user='upstart_crow' style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='http://upstart-crow.livejournal.com/profile'><img src='http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif' alt='[info]' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='http://upstart-crow.livejournal.com/'><b>upstart_crow</b></a></span> has had a slew of fantastic entries on health care, better written than I could manage.<br /><br />My parents, everyone we're close to, and I have been so saddened and sickened by the boorish behavior, often blatant racism, and willful ignorance of many associated with the right wing conservative party in America.<br /><br />I do my research, and take in diverse media sources (personal favorites being the BBC News, NPR, C-SPAN, and MSNBC). Yes, I'll even watch Fox "News" and check out conservative blogs for the view of the aforementioned.<br /><br />It's not even funny. Elevating and cheering loud, inappropriate, disruptive behavior at town hall meetings or at a presidential speech isn't mature or productive. So some folks are petulant and "want their country back"--back from what? From the scary "other" in power. A faction of America simply can't accept the notion that Crackers aren't in control. Elections aren't fair unless they win. No matter what he does or says, President Obama will never get a fair shake by any of the GOP. The conservatives refuse to listen to facts, they are so blinded by their ideology. Many in the GOP are proud to say they don't believe in evolution, despite undeniable facts to the contrary. Facts have lost meaning to a GOP that's been hijacked by rude, fanatic, trigger-happy (more often than not) evangelicals who look down on the educated as "elitest" and Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh as the sole voices of truth out there. Again, facts be damned.<br /><br />Last weekend and during the week I caught much of the Conservative Tea Party March on Washington and the conservative Values Voter Summit (on commercial-free C-SPAN, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC) that featured Huckabee, Romney, and the new poster child of the right--Carrie Prejean, the "well spoken" attendee at the Miss California Pageant who lost because she "was the most courageous person there and stood up for straight marriage" (or, as she put it on camera at the time of the pageant, "for opposite marriage"), never mind the discovery of her nude photos that were a big no-no in regards to her contract. This was a lyric from the song opening the forum: "God no longer blesses America because we no longer abide by God's rules". <a href="http://strikingthoughts.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/the-2009-value-voters-summit/">This offers great insight on the summit</a>.<br /><br />At the March on Washington, I saw a sea of bitter white people who were content to let Bush and his posse rape us monetarily, rob us of our right to privacy and other freedoms, and desecrate our Constitution. They sat idly by for eight years, but it was okay because they were mostly old white guys. And that Bushy was so real and salt-of-the-earth, someone to have a beer with, such a nice guy couldn't be so bad. Poor fella left a whopping shitstorm behind for the next shmuck who won the Office. Cue President Obama, who won fairly by a healthy margin, and suddenly all conservative heads go 'splodey. "Obama's a secret Muslim.", despite being a Christian and stating so. "Obama's not American!", despite being the only President to have put his actual birth certificate online. And so on...<br /><br />So many GOP folks going down as their wrongdoings and affairs come to light. Yes, all politicians are prone to corruption. President Obama's lack of reinstating <i>Habeus Corpus</i> has me pissed, as well as his lack of repealing <i>Don't Ask Don't Tell</i> and not pursuing the investigation of war crimes committed by the Bush Administration. But for the GOP, the so-called Family Values party, to have such a large number of politicians caught doing what they preach so staunchly against, the hypocrisy is maddening.<br /><br />Whew, didn't intend to ramble on so. Had a lot pent up I guess. &gt;;-) http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/802287.html public 6 http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/801924.html Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:19:51 GMT http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/801924.html Last night I stayed up until 12:30 AM finishing the thrilling new novel from John Farris, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/High-Bloods-John-Farris/dp/0312866968"><u>High Bloods</u></a>. <br />A little background first: since the age of twelve it's become a habit, whenever I'm in a book store, to scan the bindings for a title that could have something to do with werewolves. Usually I'm disappointed--it turns out to be one of the many vampire books hogging the shelves, or a trendy paranormal romance. I lucked out two Saturdays ago and discovered not one, but two new werewolf novels on the shelves at <i>Borders</i>. One, as you guessed, was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/High-Bloods-John-Farris/dp/0312866968"><u>High Bloods</u></a> by John Farris. The title alone didn't strike me as potentially a werewolf book, but the clawed werewolf hand on the binding did. <br /><br />What a fun book. It's a hard-boiled detective novel written in Pulp-era style, yet set in the future. A fast-paced action-packed thrill ride with lycanthropy, classism, and mystery on the menu. It hearkened back to the attitudes and ideals of the 1940's, evident in the hero's views of women, machismo, and in the behavior of the female characters. There is a spark of nostalgia that ignites under futuristic lingo, frightful glimpse of future southern California, and werewolves (those afflicted with lycanthropy) outnumbering normal humans. Unaffected humans are known as the titular "high bloods", and are the elite upper class. Werewolves are known as "lycans" or referred to as "hairballs", and are the outcasts as well as the low caste (ironically, despite their status, the lycans are the majority of the famous actors and musicians--Hollywood stars and media darlings). Humans afflicted with lycanthropy that have biannual blood replacements to keep from transforming are known as "off-bloods", and their own class (not considered as lowly as lycans, but not equal to high bloods).<br /><br />The book ends at a jumping point for a sequel. Hopefully a follow-up is in the works. I'm itching for a broader view of the world, the history of the lycanthropy virus and its origin, more about the growing lycanthrope rights movement, and more of the exciting mayhem of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/High-Bloods-John-Farris/dp/0312866968"><u>High Bloods</u></a>. &gt;:-) http://conduit-cat.livejournal.com/801924.html reviews impressed public 1