Sense of Place: Samhain

Bat (excerpt) by Bradford Morrow / Art by Satchel

"Listen to me now. We have earned this moment together. Switch off the lamp. Forget the broomstick... The pipistrel does not want to be tangled in your hair. He does not want to drink your blood. He wants to continue on his way, cutting dazzling eights through air and etching arabesques. He wants to pick mosquitoes out of the thrumming darkness, mosquitoes who do want your blood. Go to the blanket chest and get out the Hudson Bay, our family's oldest. Gather him up in that blanket, so he lies in a double darkness, warm and safe. Hold him, and know he is a living being, precise as a scientist, shy as a hermit. Take him out to the second-story porch. Set him down. Calmly open the folds of the blanket and if you are still afraid, so be it, and into the house you may run. If not, though, lie down in the warm night and wait and watch him recover his sense of place, his animal dignity. Show patience, there is a reward. He is in no hurry, knowing you do not intend to destroy him. Soon he'll stir, bringing curious life to the blanket. Then he will fly, his warm mammal blood and mammal fingers rising with him. Your mammal character may fly up, too-high, erratic, sonic, loose--and when it returns to you there on the porch, you can weave it, with the merest touch in the act of folding, into the blanket. Anyone who sleeps under the blanket thereafter will have bat-blessed dreams of the sweetest kind, dreams from which they will always awaken refreshed."

We are almost finished with Samhain preparations. Costumes are almost finished - we will be a family of Anglerfish - S's fave. I was inspired by Isabella Rossellini's hilarious and imaginative nature short films, "Green Porno". So I fished google for ideas and wouldn't you know, Martha Stewart had Isabella on her show and together they made an Anchovy mask. I used their design as the foundation for our Anglerfishes, but changed the features accordingly and added a tiny working light.

Halloween can be a challenge for S. He reacts strongly to scary stuff, me too actually. In my humble opinion, I think it's disgraceful that anyone would expose our children to horrific decorations and costumes, you know the kind I'm talking about.

S likes skeletons and skulls because the nature boy likes bones.

Costumes can be difficult for S because of his SPD. He needs to feel comfortable in it and he gets unnerved when people look at him for more than a few seconds.

The felt leaf garland that I worked on last winter now dons our mantel...

The papel picado that I made for S several years ago, sways in our dining room...





There is a cauldron on our porch, from which S and his chums have concocted mysterious potions in small glass bottles...

The centerpiece on our table, a paper mache nest that S made last Spring, now cradles the spooky paper mache eggs that we made.


Pumpkin carving to commence on Saturday at the Autumnal celebration in the meadow at S's awesome school. (Our creations from 2007, 2008, 2009)

The broom's on the door and we're ready to fly!

May your Summer's end be filled with bat-blessed dreams!