Samhain freewrite

What follows the hunter’s moon, those nights when something is in the air, an expectancy. stirs us to pure verb. Muted horizons, the hills blend into a haze, marking a time for when the gates of the Otherworld will open, a time of harvest, a time of gathering in, the end of the agrarian year. Samhain, the new year in the old year's arms. Pumpkins like multiple suns, sleep in the fields of Half Moon Bay. They say on average, every American spends $16 on pumpkins each Halloween. I’ve almost reach my quota. Mini pumpkins and squash on the windowsills gaze out at me. Large pumpkins nesting on the table glow amidst seashells, ancient spirals of the conchs of Sanispac Island. I wonder if there’s an identity crisis amid the shells and squash? Shells so old they might’ve been opened by Arawak Indians. Cannibals, Columbus called them. Gone now to the otherworld. In the year 800, the pope gave up trying to get the populace to give up the old ways, celebrating the day of the dead when the doors of the sídhe rolled open in enchantment walked the land, taking fairy lovers and demons alike into the fold. And when Pope Adrian heard the Indians too celebrated the dead, he took All Saints Day from May and moved it to November. He couldn't comprehend the Aztecs taking a beating heart, holding it up to the sinking sun, crowned with marigolds and perfumed with copal. Everyone carrying on and partying in the graveyard offended the padres and so they renamed it El Día de los Muertos, the day when the boundaries between the living and the dead dissolved into el oscuridad de la noche, welcoming the dead into our lives for one day of the year.

10/21/2005 Writers’ Group