Autumnal Equinox

 It's officially Fall, everyone! Happy Spooky Season to all!

(gif art by Petrichor & Pumpkins 2022)

It's beginning to look a lot like --

 Not sure why, but that Halloween Feeling hasn't been hitting me as intensely this year -- which is why I haven't been updating this blog or my Instagram much. 

That didn't stop me from feeling absolutely delighted about exploring the selection I found at Nordstrom Rack this weekend, however:

I bought the fuzzy skull blanket -- I mean, who needs yet another Halloween-themed blankie? Me, that's who.

It seems like they were just beginning to put stuff out. Lots of fun bed & bath related decor.

When all the leaves have fallen

At long last - it's time for me to show off my new tattoo! After 2 sessions, this piece is finally complete.

(Photo courtesy of @vining_tattoos)

This piece has been years in the making -- a tribute to the incomparable group Dead Can Dance, who are among my top 5 absolute favorite bands of all time. I was introduced to them by a friend in the early/mid 1990s, and I've been completely captivated by their music ever since.

Also sometime in the 90s, I found this Dead Can Dance poster at a (now long-gone) gift shop in York, Maine (whose name I can't remember now), along a beach-town strip of tourist-trap spots, tucked in between a fortune-teller's parlor and a pizza place. The shop specialized in hard-to-find rock band & novelty t-shirts, posters, buttons & pins, band patches, postcards, celebrity 8x10 photographs, pipes & bongs ("for tobacco use only"), and other cool miscellaneous stuff. 

That poster stayed plastered to my bedroom wall til I moved to WA state in 2015.

The imagery of the dancing skeletons in the poster/tattoo is from a 1493 woodcut, Danse Macabre ("the dance of death"), by German artist Michael Wolgemut, symbolizing the concept of memento mori, a reminder of death's inevitability. 

For my tattoo, a border of tangled vines and leaves was added to the design to represent the cycle of life, death, and renewal/rebirth, as is visible every day in the changing seasons; a reminder that change is unavoidable, that death is merely a part of that rhythm. We cannot resist change, so we might as well accept it and dance our way through the process.

One of my favorite Dead Can Dance songs, "Severance," addresses the fears we face when confronting these difficult realities, calling upon the season of Autumn as a metaphor for imminent change: 

Severance
The birds of leaving call to us
Yet here we stand endowed with the fear of flight
Over land the winds of change consume the land
While we remain in the shadow of summers now past

When all the leaves have fallen and turned to dust
Will we remain entrenched within our ways?
Indifference, the plague that moves throughout this land
Omen signs in the shapes of things to come

Tomorrow's child is the only child
Tomorrow's child is the only child  

 

I'm very happy with how my tattoo turned out, and I'm grateful to Ariel at Primeval Ink in Olympia, WA for her amazing work and talent!

Feralia

Feralia, observed annually on 21st February, is an ancient Roman holiday to honor the souls of the dead. 

Common offerings to the departed were bread, salt, and flowers. Take a moment tonight to remember your loved ones who have gone ahead to the great beyond.

(Photo by Mitja Juraja from Pexels)

 

Further reading:

http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Feralia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feralia

I'd sacrifice myself to you

The candle is burning low
At the window to my soul
The reaper is at my door now
He's come to take me home

(click pic for London After Midnight)

 

[Image by Petrichor & Pumpkins/ Nebulosus Severine/ CMPauluh 2021]

 

The morning after

Sigh.

Halloween night is over, but the season continues with Dia de los Muertos and other related traditions honoring the dead. To me, the feeling of the season goes on into at least mid-November, anyway. The Veil is still thin now. The dark time of the year is upon us, the days are shorter and shorter.

I'll keep on updating this blog of course, but things will slow down a bit til next season. I hope you'll stick around, as I celebrate Halloween and horror content all year. 🎃
 

A busy October - part 2

 It's Cabbage Night -- the 30th of October, also known as Devil's Night, Mischief Night, or simply Halloween Eve. The post-Halloween funk is already creeping up on me. Despite all the stuff I got to do this year, especially compared to last year, I should feel super grateful -- and I do, I absolutely do. 

But, as every year, it seems like there is just never enough time to do all the things I want. And social media is a both good and bad for me, in that I get to see so many other people's Halloween experiences, projects, costumes, and events, while also suffering a serious case of FOMO (fear of missing out).

I don't have a home that I can really decorate the way I'd like -- I live in a small apartment. We don't get trick-or-treaters here. I definitely can't do a home haunt. I've been so busy with various life things that I haven't even had a chance to carve a pumpkin yet.

But here are a few more cool things that happened this month:

-- My BFF, who I just spent 3 weeks with visiting in Connecticut, came out to WA to visit me! 

-- We paid a visit to Champion Party Supply in Seattle, an old-school party store that has tons of great Halloween stuff, semi-vintage and new:

 

-- We spent a little time exploring the small town of Wilkeson WA, which is rumored to be haunted. I'd been there before without knowing its reputation, which I learned about recently via a Pretty Gritty Tours video, and it definitely gave me the creeps even then.

 

 

(Click this link to watch a video by Pretty Gritty Tours about Wilkeson and another creepy Washington town, Bucoda) 

-- We went, on a very rainy weeknight, to Fright Factory, a haunted house in Buckley, WA. My partner and I went several years ago, but my BFF had never been so we decided to go again and drag her along. 

 

The main takeaways from this year's experience: 

1.) Weeknights will get you in the door quickly, especially when it's raining, but there won't be nearly as many actors. 2.) The actors, both this year and a few years ago, were overall top notch. 3.) The sets are creative and aesthetically pleasing, though a few seemed a bit lacking in lighting in areas that seemed like there should be more actors; wondering if those are different on busy nights? 4.) There are a lot of animatronics used pretty strategically that help make up for missing live actors. 5.) This haunt is LOUD. Lots of jump-scares based on sound alone. Might want to bring some ear plugs for this one if you're sensitive to loud sounds. Their use of music was a great touch though, I loved it. 6.) The final room was a maze, and got a little confusing. The room became a bit bottle-necked because people (including us) kept second-guessing the exit, which lead outside to seemingly nowhere, making us all wonder if we'd gone through an emergency exit. A slightly exasperated evil clown finally just told us that was it. Wish there had been even a simple sign saying "thank you for visiting" or something to indicate that it was the end of the haunt.

**Unfortunately, we had two minor injuries during our visit. An animatronic in the ceiling in one scene extended too low, and smacked my partner in the head, leaving a slight mark. This should not have happened, either the animatronic should have been up higher in the ceiling out of the way of customers' heads, or the area should have been blocked off to prevent this from happening. Also, on our way out, an actor with a chainsaw ran at my friend and didn't back off quickly enough, thus bumping her slightly, which left a slight bump/red mark where his chainsaw came in contact; when it happened, he muttered angrily and openly blamed her (???). My partner, my BFF, and I more or less shrugged off these incidents, realizing that they were just minor accidents, while at the same time acknowledging that someone could have been more seriously injured. Never in all my time of going to haunted attractions has something like this ever happened, and they should never happen in a haunt, pro or not. Although there's lots to like about Fright Factory, I'm not sure I'll ever go again because of this, which is a serious bummer. 

-- We paid a visit to the annual Dia de los Muertos exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum, a beautiful and somber display featuring a massive sand painting, and an entire room full of community and personal ancestor altars, including ones dedicated to missing and murdered First Nations women and children.

 -- And, today, we finally got some sun after days and days of rain. 

 

Stay tuned for my Halloween 2021 wrap-up.

Don't Spook to Me or My Son Ever Again

 

And other adventures in Halloween decor:

(The wreaths above & below were created by my extremely talented BFF)

(All photos and content by Petrichor & Pumpkins/ Nebulosus Severine/ CMPauluh 2021)

Old stomping grounds

I'm glad to be back in Connecticut for awhile. One of the things I've missed most is going out for walks in my neighborhood. I must have covered these grounds a zillion times over the years but there's always something a little new to see, changes here and there, taking detours down different side streets occasionally. 

It goes without saying that my favorite time to be out here is during the Fall.

I mean, it's obvious why, right -- around these parts, lots of us take Halloween very seriously.

Great to see some old friends again.

 

 

Can't wait to get back out there!