Life on this planet: It Never Rains In Perth......

Referring to an old song.... "it never rains in Southern California".... I often think of Perth, it never rains in Perth either...... except five minutes after I spend half the night watering the garden!!!! Here we're on a roster system for watering our gardens, we are allowed only two days each week to water the garden, and on those two days we can water only either early morning or at night. The two days are determined by house\lot number hence a roster, and for me it is Tuesday and Saturday. So here tonight I was spending half the night watering the garden. The weather forecast did say 30% chance of rain later at night, which usually means it won't rain at all, it is just more like cover their arses in giving the forecast!! So I went ahead spending half the night outside watering the garden, shifting sprinklers, etc assuming as per usual it won't rain. Then I finally finished, and went back inside..... and five minutes later I hear the very rare sound of water droplets on the roof...... RAIN!!!!!! Arrrrgh!!!!! So I wasted half the night!!! But if I didn't water the garden tonight I would have to wait four days before I could water again, we're not allowed by law to water outside our roster. Such is life in this drought stricken city of Perth.........

Anyway my favorite holiday is coming up...... Halloween!!!! I just soooooo LOVE Halloween!!! It's the only holiday that I decorate my house for. I never decorate for Xmas or any other holiday. The other great benefit for Halloween is it doesn't bring bad memories. Halloween was not celebrated in Australia during my childhood, it became popular only in more recent times, so it has no bad memories associated with it. Xmas and the other holidays has bad memories from my childhood but not Halloween. Its just that due to being such a dark soul that I am with paranormal experiences, Halloween just so fascinates me. I do remember as a child I'd read about Halloween in the books I read about America and I would wish that it was celebrated in Australia. I always had been fascinated by the paranormal, hence my interest in Halloween. And nowadays we always have the trick and treaters coming to my door. I place some decorations out the front, and a bowl of candy to hand out to the trick and treaters, the only time we interact with the neighborhood kids! ;)

Halloween is indeed one of the Christianised adaptation of one of the eight Pagan holidays of the year. The Pagan holiday in question is "Samhain" which is celebrated on November 1st in the Northern Hemisphere (in the Southern Hemisphere it is "Beltane"). It is given as the start of winter on the Pagan calendar, and according to legend it is when the veil between the physical world and the spirit world is at its most thin, hence it is the time when we connect with the spirits of our ancestors, relatives who passed away, and other spirits. And so the night prior to Samhain, October 31, is said to be when the spirits from the other sides appears and walks this planet. Not all of those spirits has our best interests at heart, so in ancient times the Pagans would wear masks and disguised themselves so to protect their identities from these spirits. Sometimes these spirits would come knocking on one's doors, so they would have gifts prepared to appease these spirits, and those who didn't have gifts risks being cursed by the spirits - hence the tradition of "trick" or "treat", and people dressing up in masks and costumes.

The Christianised version of Samhain is "All Saints Day". As we all know, Christians seems to have a knack of adapting Pagan holidays for their own holidays hence Christmas (Yule) and Easter (Ostara), etc. Samhain is the day when Pagans make contact with deceased loved ones and ancestors, and so All Saints Day is when Christians (Catholics) makes contacts with the Saints, that is, praying to the Saints. It was alternatively known as "All Hallows Day", and so the night before became "All Hallows Eve" - hence, "Halloween".

Here in the Southern Hemisphere the correct name of the holiday is Beltane, given as the start of summer. We Pagans in the Southern Hemisphere (such as Australia) keep our holidays at opposite times of the year due to the opposite seasons. While Samhain marks the start of the darkness of winter, Beltane marks the end of the darkness, so our celebrations are different. However it can still be said that the spirits from the other side still does pay us a visit albeit for slightly different reasons ;)

In my instance I see "movements" all the time even with the lights on !!!! ;)