Artbear Studios

The harvest is in. Pumpkins are everywhere. The leaves are falling, the air cools instantly. The year is dying. The Dark is coming. Cern, The Horned One, the forest god rises to stalk the woods. Ghosts pass through portals opened by The Faery and roam freely. Samhain again. I am convinced the purpose of holidays (other than the obvious having a good time) has got to be making you stop and feel. You feel anxious, you feel happy, or nostaglic, but you feel. This time of year in most cultures is a time to remember the dead. It’s the time I feel closest to my ancestors. Probably left overs from being raised in an Irish-American family? Through the prefection of imagination I can sit in a warm, candlelit cottage, the smell of a peat fire floating like a spirit around the room. I’m eating Grandma’s shortbread Soul Cakes filled with nuts and dried berries topped with a touch of dark rum icing while carving a Jack O Lantern. Offerings of nuts and apples are set out for “the visitors”and someone is telling scary stories about the Banshee or something that is just believable enough to compel me to actually listen.

Back in the more shared reality I’ve always felt a bit disappointed about Halloween. My little town here hosts a great celebration where all of the shop owners decorate for the holiday and hand out goodies to costumed princesses, and Ninja Turtles with a sprinkling of ghouls streaming past their doorways. It’s a fantastic time that I participate in every year and truly enjoy… but it misses the point. As a kid I anticipated and even occasionaly had a Halloween with dark clouds scudding through a stormy sky occasionaly revealing a faint moon so I could feel appropriately spooky. But the longing was always for bonfires and dancing in circles with the unseen souls in the dark encroaching on the edges of the festivities. With droughts and fire bans that will probably never happen now. Samhain is a festival of light with bonfires and candles and feasts to remind us of the Summer, The Light, that is passing as have the dead we miss and honor. Personally, I miss the Summer.

In art it brings out fanciful darker images. I’ve experimented with a blend of photos and photoshop that possibly highlights the Faery presence, or a more mystical feeling from my usual. I hope you enjoy.