Rethinking Halloween........

The fun of Halloween night
with my children is long gone,
our neighborhood is very quiet on that night
because the churches and nursing homes
put on parties for the kids - that's
a good thing.
But that doesn't mean that
the festiveness of the season
is over for me.

Being a Christian I'm not
that crazy about Halloween anyway....
but I love to celebrate
October.
So many reasons, but the month itself
is beautiful.
The changing light, early nightfalls,
leaves scurrying down the street,
the hooting of an owl, and flurry of
bats only makes it a mysterious
and whimsical month.
My potions are not potions at all
but beautiful bottles containing Autumn Whispers,
Dragonfly Blessings, Fairy Kisses and
Mermaid Tears. Rather than them
being ingredients for spells they're
little things I've captured to
hold onto the summer.
Mr. Poe and the skeleton are just
Halloween visitors to my studio.
It took me a while to
settle on how I wanted to
celebrate this season. Somewhere between
the grinning pumpkins and the really
terrifying, between the early
commercialization of yet another holiday
and sanity there's a place of whimsy and
mystery, joy, and fun.

That's how I celebrate October.

Diane