A Collection

We changed from Summertime at 2AM on Sunday morning. ‘Spring forward and fall back’ and all that you know.  I seriously question the very value of this move. There might be a bit of a point later on, say on Dec’ 1st through to Feb 1st. But four months of Official Miserableness of a morning is just wrong. Lately I’ve really cast about for a logical reason for this move. The nearest I can come up with that holds water is the road safety one. But that leaks also, for surely people are far more aware and awake in the morning be it dark or other, than after a days work. Further, that the fixed point is at Greenwich east of London and most of Ireland is a full hour different seems to matter not a whit.

Tonight is the start of the new year for the ancient European calendar, well near enough. (There is a conjunction issue with new moon. Samhain is the new moon mid way between the equinox and the solstice.)  We see shadows of this in the way we count the seasons with winter being Nov Dec and Jan. But what we are getting as Halloween is a homogenised concoction of culture mixed and liquidized in an American pot.  But the base stock is Irish and Scottish, Welsh, Cornish and Breton, which then extends to Iberia and beyond Poland. The campo stella, field of stars, in Santiago Spain was the earlier bronze age site.  But there is weirdness where the ancient clash of culture between Roman and Celt, meet. Little girls are confused. Big girls even more so. Are witches good or bad ?. Well it depends on your outlook. If you are of a Roman orientation you will see woman as a treasure that need protecting mostly from themselves. Requiring control and management. For at the very center of Rome sat the virgins of the fire seen as integral to the safety and continuance of the City. Which was a bit of a contradiction.

The Celts on the other hand had a far more practical outlook on women. They would have seen the permanent virginity of Rome as a waste and the levels of control as pointless. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes is a phrase misunderstood nowadays for while translated well enough it misses who the guards were facing. The Celtic women were far more open within society and could and did fight beside the men, as equal. They were leaders in both battle and community. But they weren’t Queen or Royal as understood today or to Rome then.

Little Celtic girls didn’t grow up dreaming about being passive princesses. They wanted to be warriors and they sure as heck didn’t see themselves being dried out tending a fire like their Roman sisters. And anyone who disputes this need to see their descendants, either Scot or Irish who perform the dance. While they may be decked in heavy furnishing fabric  or outlandish plaid. Those girls are smiling through bone splints, shattered toes and muscles in spasm.

So a witch in the bad meaning has cultural baggage attached to war propaganda. Why it remains has the profound implications to resistance and a remembrance to another time.

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These last few months I’ve readied the house for a very dark winter. I don’t know why I’m on this quest. I only know that it will be necessary. We’ve had a dark Summer. Almost no Summer to speak of really. It was dry. Well, as dry as it gets here. But in August I  painted doors that were in dark colours a click or two from white. Then the ceilings. And now I’m looking for high light bulbs, nearing daylight levels. Preferable LED’s. Generally speaking I don’t suffer from SAD. And honestly I don’t know if it’s a real condition. It may be one is craving something. Something leached out with coffee drinking. Or a vitamin. Anyhow some smidge of something.

Either way I feel this Winter will be a Doozey. One where light will be a premium. And if the blizzard in NJ, NY and Conn is anything to go by I’m on the correct track.

Happy Halloween;  Samhain maith agaibh.