![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tinhuvielThe Wheel of the Year spins and brings close to the Pagan Year with Summersend. This is a time for reflection and celebration. A time to commune with Those Who've Gone Before Us, who may still wish to tell us things left untold before their death. It's a time to remember our loved ones who have passed on to the Summerland, placing the Dumb Supper out as a token of reverence and remembrance. It's a time to dress in costumes and masks to confuse the hobgoblins and other bugaboos able to breach the Veil and pester us.
It's a time to thin out the herds and harvest the last of the fruits for the long Dark ahead.
This had long been my favourite holiday, even before I was aware of it's Pagan roots and my own Pagan nature. It was always a time of celebration in the home and it was also when Autumn seemed at her most vibrant. We began to pull into ourselves, whether consciously or subconsciously.....bringing in the warmth upon ourselves. Eating more, drinking warm drinks, relishing in Hallowe'en candy! The days were always so blustery when I was a kid, and the wind just terrorised my favourite yearly costume ~ a sheet (I was a ghost almost every year). I can still remember the biting winds and the laughter of my fellow children as we went from door to door, giving the ultimatum: Trick or Treat!
On this day, I choose to honour my grandmother, who helped to raise me. She always had a wry sense of humour and loved playing with words, especially with me, who was still learning and terribly gullible. When UNICEF was active during the Hallowe'en season, there would be kids who would say "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" and collect for that noble organisation. Granny, on the other hand, instructed me to go from door to door and say "Trick or Treat for Me Myself." Not until years later did I understand why all the adults laughed so hard when I said this. Naughty Granny!
Of course, she is the one who got me started in art. She told me, when I was 4 or so, to go sit in the corner and draw flies. So I did. Then I started drawing spider webs to hold them. Then the spiders. And I developed from there. Silly me. How was I to know Granny was being facetious and actually meant for me to draw flies?
I'll never forget the icebreaker for her and Todd. We were playing aggravation and Todd knocked one of Granny's marbles back to start. She looked him straight in the eyes, glaring, and said "Fuck you, Todd!" We were all flabbergasted and Todd became Granny's fast friend after that.
Granny was a fighter. She survived 10 heart attacks, diabetes, ovarian cancer, not counting the plethora of other health problems brought about by her Depression-era childhood, where all but just a few of the children in this country suffered some form of malnutrition due to lack of food and funds. It was the 11th heart attack that took her from us in September of 1993.
I still miss her, but I know she's near to me (or at least the essence of who she was) on this day, when the Veils are thin.
So tonight, when Aunt Tudi and I go to the GUUF to celebrate the Sabbat in the Women's Circle, it'll be Granny I honour, as I do every year.
It's a time to thin out the herds and harvest the last of the fruits for the long Dark ahead.
This had long been my favourite holiday, even before I was aware of it's Pagan roots and my own Pagan nature. It was always a time of celebration in the home and it was also when Autumn seemed at her most vibrant. We began to pull into ourselves, whether consciously or subconsciously.....bringing in the warmth upon ourselves. Eating more, drinking warm drinks, relishing in Hallowe'en candy! The days were always so blustery when I was a kid, and the wind just terrorised my favourite yearly costume ~ a sheet (I was a ghost almost every year). I can still remember the biting winds and the laughter of my fellow children as we went from door to door, giving the ultimatum: Trick or Treat!
On this day, I choose to honour my grandmother, who helped to raise me. She always had a wry sense of humour and loved playing with words, especially with me, who was still learning and terribly gullible. When UNICEF was active during the Hallowe'en season, there would be kids who would say "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" and collect for that noble organisation. Granny, on the other hand, instructed me to go from door to door and say "Trick or Treat for Me Myself." Not until years later did I understand why all the adults laughed so hard when I said this. Naughty Granny!
Of course, she is the one who got me started in art. She told me, when I was 4 or so, to go sit in the corner and draw flies. So I did. Then I started drawing spider webs to hold them. Then the spiders. And I developed from there. Silly me. How was I to know Granny was being facetious and actually meant for me to draw flies?
I'll never forget the icebreaker for her and Todd. We were playing aggravation and Todd knocked one of Granny's marbles back to start. She looked him straight in the eyes, glaring, and said "Fuck you, Todd!" We were all flabbergasted and Todd became Granny's fast friend after that.
Granny was a fighter. She survived 10 heart attacks, diabetes, ovarian cancer, not counting the plethora of other health problems brought about by her Depression-era childhood, where all but just a few of the children in this country suffered some form of malnutrition due to lack of food and funds. It was the 11th heart attack that took her from us in September of 1993.
I still miss her, but I know she's near to me (or at least the essence of who she was) on this day, when the Veils are thin.
So tonight, when Aunt Tudi and I go to the GUUF to celebrate the Sabbat in the Women's Circle, it'll be Granny I honour, as I do every year.
