halloween
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Salaam zenje,
Wow very nice batman as kids
wait a second! Are they your kids??? COOL
Peace Sis Maria
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Now they're too cute!
Once we dressed my grandson as Batman and he looked in the mirror and was afraid of himself. Way funny. He's 14 now.
I happen to live near one of the most famous costume companies in New York where you can rent. We've been thinking about have a masqurade party this winter. Dressing up can be fun. I was amazed by one they have that looks like it's two people, one riding piggyback but it's one person. My grandchildren have agreed that's all they really thought was fun about Halloween anyway.
Every year we have our own "Family Appreciation Day". It includes food, food and more food. We exchange gifts so you know the kids love it. Since we pick the date there is no stress. We do it when it's good for everyone and postpone it for any reason. The last few years we picked after New Years. The sales are fantastic. We even wrap the gifts with Christmas, Hannakah, or whatever paper is on sale. It makes for great jokes and renders pagan symbols meaningless. We shop by what has the prettiest colors. ) We decorate and have pinatas (sp) full of treats and toys too. This year we'll add the costumes. No religious significance. We keep it real. My son-in-law calls it Islamica. lol
We do an even bigger one in the summer but outside and no gifts and the whole neighborhood attends. We hire chefs to tend the grills and have games and prizes. The three legged race and tug of war (men against women) is sooo much fun. We ex-sunni's know how to have fun. This one we call "Family Fun Day" and it's growing every year. I wish you all could be there!!!!
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Peace,
Halloween according to many historians is the day when the Northern European countries celebrated a seasonal solstice. They believed like one poster above already mentioned; that this was the time that the spirits where technically free. It was a very important holiday to these people because they felt they could talk to there deceased relatives and what not.
When Catholicism spread to northern Europe, the Church found it difficult to get these people to stop practicing this pagan ritual. Realizing that they could never get people to stop celebrating Halloween they just allowed it to become "ok" under the banner of the Church. It was not uncommon for the church to take a native diety and make it a saint so that the people could more easily assimilate themselves into the Catholic fold.
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This writ is up for debate
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Any overview concerned with HALLOWEEN probably will touch upon ideas in HALL, HALLER, HALO, HALLO, HALLOW and HEALTH as well as in fruitful fruits such as APPLES and pumpkins which are full of seeds.
HALO
http//img447.imageshack.us/img447/4531/jesushalo20zp.jpg
http//www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050328/wd4.jpg
http//dlg.atspace.com//photos/halo1.jpg
http//www.alanbauer.com/images/Weather/Halo%20around%20sun%20before%20incoming%20rainfront-Horz2.jpgcompare with
http//img447.imageshack.us/img447/4295/170px410pxsunhaloopticalphenom.jpg
http//www.consultsos.com/pandora/images/f7622.jpg
http//www.consultsos.com/pandora/images/f7621.jpgThose with an aura were often called "auracles"...oracles.
HALL, in the sense of enclosure, relates to ideas such as HOME, HELL and in the case of spiritual and materialistic counterparts, SHRINE and HALLMARK, which are HALLOWed or valued as spiritual or materialistic sites.
HALLO and HALLOA imply shouting or HOLLERING, as in HAIL and HEIL HITLER, signals of vigor and HEALTH which extend to WHOLE, WHOLLY, WHOLESOME and the old term HAL for HEALTH.
The above cascade brings us to HALLOWEEN, the name for a VIGIL held October 31st., also known as ALL HALLOWS (formerly ALLHALLOWS EVEN). This feast has survived many attempts by the Vatican to supplant the Druid, Celtic and ancient Roman elements of this festivity with Christian ecclesiastical ideas.
Halloween, as a Druid tradition, represents an ancient celebration to mark the "end of summer", and to welcome the " spirits of all the departed". As an ancient Roman tradition, Halloween represents the festivities celebrated each November 1st. in honor of POMONA ( http//www.thaliatook.com/pomona.html ), a deity that protected fruit orchards. The Vatican dedicated these dates to celebrate saints and the dead.
In 61 AD, Roman rulers of Britain forbade human sacrifices during Halloween - but, to this day, some continue to sacrifice black cats in the belief that they represent the incarnation of evil spirits. With time, the Celtic Samhain, mixed with ancient Roman elements, became Halloween and as always, is celebrated as a vigil on October 31st. The added ecclesiastical elements remain segregated to celebrations during first two days of November.
In 731, Pope Gregory III declared November 1st as the Day of all Saints.
In 834, Pope Gregroy IV and later Odilo, the radical Abott of Cluny, instituted the "Day of all Saints" and the "Day of all dead", as a church-wide ecclesiastic festivity.
In 1484, the Vatican initiated a "war" against witches who were to be incinerated by public burning and black cats who were to be slaughtered.
Halloween was imported to the USA mainly by Irish immigrants. However, lucre fuels a growing tendency in the USA to manipulate traditional celebrations such as HALLOWEEN. In any case, Halloween includes, among its emblems, spirits, ghosts, skeletons, witches with their brooms and black cats as well as an emphasis on apples (In Hesperides or Paradise, golden apples had a cosmic power), nuts and pumpkins.
The ancient Druids believed that the spirits of the deceased gather on October 31st. and are guided by the deities to their final destinies. This provided an occasion for ghosts of the departed to visit their kin, and engage in "trick and treat" as they searched for cheers and affection. Living relatives offered apples, nuts and lit bonfires to guide the spirits as well as to singe witches and their brooms. In some cultures, there are traditions akin to Halloween when, on a given day, relatives visit their deceased kin to light candles on their tombs.
HALLoween opens a gate to explore HELL, HEALth and death. It is provocative that HELL in Ukrainian and Spanish points to devil, sin, fornication, darkness and baking in the INFERnal heat of the INFERior strata of the world. Satan, on the other hand, may have whispered to John Milton to write
"... the mind ...
is its own place ...
in itself can make
heaven of hell ...
hell of heaven ...Regarding HEALTH and HEAL, the core idea can be summarized as preservation of self, aging not withstanding.
HEALTH also points toward WHOLE WHOLLY and HOLY. In biologic and medical terms, health is a state of optimal HOMEOSTASIS or perpetuation of "self" under conditions of continous flux. Additional vistas open when deities such as Salus, Hygiea, Esculapius, Medicina which are concerned with salubrity, health, healing and medicine are explored.
Regarding DEATH, SPIRIT, GHOST, and WITCH, these "think-words" gain clarity from other languages distant from English. Death points to stop, cease, sleep and peace and in other tongues, to failure, pestilence and loss. SPIRit in some tongues points to properties of alcohol and breath or respiration, while in other tongues, words with SPIR often convey ideas of eternity.
GHOST and aGHAST point to breath or ATMA as in ATMOSphere which seems to underscore the ETHEReal nature of SPIRits. Notable are the many legends about ancient GHOSTS such as LARVAe and LEMURES and the more contemporary PIXIES and POLTERGEIST or polter-ghosts.
The core power of WITCHES is foreSIGHT. In Ukrainian, WITCHes are called VIDma, while VIDomo and VID refer to KNOW and VISION. There are many stories about CHARming WITCHES who are called CHARivnas. Among the most famous witches, was the CHARismatic Baba Yaga, with her flying broom and a black cat. Another CHARming legend is about three witches who had monocular VISion and shared one eyeball. When Perseus stole their sole eye, they were forced to reveal the HIDEout of the HIDEous Gorgon Medusa. This ancient story, articulated by the Greeks from a variety of sources, underscores the CHARm that confers to WITCH stories, the grit to resist the oblivion of the ages.
More recently, the idea of WITCH or BRUJa in Spanish, was incorporated in BRUJula, the name for a magnetic compass, as if to imply that this modern instrument is beWITCHED. Even later, religious zealots discovered WITCHes in Salem, Massachusetts. More surprisingly, among our contemporaries who should remember bloody WITCH hunting campaigns in France and Spain, are those who continue to believe that there are many witches living in the Basque country. In any case, WITCH is a word with roots in WEIBE, WICCA and UICTIMA pointing to VICTIM. Notably, the link of WITCH and VICTIM does not reflect ideas of mercy - instead, it underscores the human penchant to punish women who can beDEVIL or beWITCH, perhaps due the persistence of the belief that the DEVIL may be incarnate in carnal CHARMING or CHARISMATIC women.
You can read about witches all over the Internet, but what I'd like to discuss here is the witch / broom connection.
http//img424.imageshack.us/img424/6818/witcha45kf.gifOn the eve of Samhain (what we now call Halloween) the witches would gather to perform the rites of divination. They would prepare a hallucinogenic ?Flying Ointment? to aid them in their journey. There are many recipes for this ointment all having a base of Atropa belladonna or Mandragora officinarum, both highly psychoactive plants producing visions and encouraging astral projection.
The ointment was rubbed all over the body, especially in places where the skin tissue is rich in capillaries. The mucous membrane of the genitals was the preferred location. The ointment was applied to a broom handle then rubbed on and inserted into the vagina. This is one version of how the ointment got its name and probably where we came up with the picture of witches flying on broomsticks. Astral projection allows someone to leave their body and ?fly? anywhere in the world in their mind and visualize themselves in certain situations and their method of transportation was a broomstick. Over a period of about thirty years, the United States Intelligence services spent millions of dollars on a technique known as 'Remote Viewing', which is just another name for astral projection.
This brings a whole new meaning to the Halloween Party.
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http//www.ridance.com/fbbroom.gif
http//oregonstate.edu/dept/eli/images/witchlg.gifOwls and Cats have a connection to Halloween also (Moloch and Bast?).
http//img397.imageshack.us/img397/6928/h5a9vr.jpghttp//img447.imageshack.us/img447/8914/owlskitty3ga.jpg
http//www.sloanillustration.com/images/hallownjr.jpg
http//www.saroffillustration.com/portfolio/page/ch5_owl_cat.jpgPerhaps because of their vision, to remind us that we are never in the dark? Maybe cause they prey on similar animals? They are among the few predator animals whose eyes face forward.
I think the most basic thing about them is that their eyes glow in the dark. Let's go back long before Egypt, before the Vedas, etc and imagine what associations shamans might have for these critters. The great White Goddess (the Moon, triple in nature (phases)), in some sort of varying relationship with the Sun, Her consort. Animals whose eyes glow in the dark (wolves, owls, cats etc) were connected to Her, and thus "sacred" to Her...they were seen as agents of the Moon on earth. Whenever decoding symbols of the Moon, these animals can be substituted images.
(www.consultsos.com for more word-play)
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Andrew RutajitMel's own comment. I find it interresting that they conclude that it is a druid tradition, as I had no knowlede it was so, untill I realised that it is the same as our "fastelavn" but as it appears pretty different so i didnt make the connection. Then again I have always been more interested in the execution of principles rather than the mythology surounding it (silly stuff like each plant has its own god). An attitude very common among norse druids, but not so with the wiccans (altso part of the druid family) who take the mythology and tradition very seriously.