11/11/09

I will be in Loreto, Mexico at the oldest mission founded in Baja.  I will pray for my beloved and let him know that the joy he gave me is returning with my lack of numbness.  I think Mexico has the right idea.  Put out food for the souls to join us in a meal and for us to celebrate being together again.  I will be going for five days and if Loreto is as small and delightful and non tourist as I have been told....I will return.

I am on a Pilgrimage and will find you when I return.

Nancy

Remember the blog...I always wanted a Harley?

I did it!  I bought a Harley Davidson Jacket...

who knows what is next!  It makes me feel gooooood!

Home from MN.  Baby Girl is healing but in much pain.  That is back surgery. They move so much around in there!  Nurse told her today there are no red flags and to baby herself a bit more.  Ice,ice, ice.

Robbie finished painting my bathroom & office.  Beautiful stunningly amazing.  Next fixtures, baseboards....she is a marvel and a love.

Finnegan is not letting me out of his sight.  I leave again for my pilgrimage in Mexico in six days.  I feel so badly about deserting him this soon but Mexico was planned many months ago.

Have to restore the linens, and knick knacks and etc.  So.......later!

Love, Nancy

                                              Happy All Saint's Day!

HALLOWEEN

Halloween has origins in the ancient festival known as Samhain (pronounced sow-in or sau-an),^[4][5] which is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end".^[5] This was a Gaelic festival celebrated mainly in Ireland and Scotland. However, similar festivals were held by other Celts – for example the festival of Calan Gaeaf (pronounced kalan-geyf) which was held by the ancient Britons.

Snap-Apple Night by Daniel Maclise showing a Halloween party in Blarney, Ireland, in 1832. The young children on the right bob for apples. A couple in the center play a variant, which involves retrieving an apple hanging from a string. The couples at left play divination games.

The festival of Samhain celebrates the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half", and is sometimes^[6] regarded as the "Celtic New Year".^[7]

The celebration has some elements of a festival of the dead. The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. The family's ancestors were honoured and invited home whilst harmful spirits were warded off. It is believed that the need to ward off harmful spirits led to the wearing of costumes and masks. Their purpose was to disguise oneself as a harmful spirit and thus avoid harm. In Scotland the spirits were impersonated by young men dressed in white with masked, veiled or blackened faces.^[8][9] Samhain was also a time to take stock of food supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities. All other fires were doused and each home lit their hearth from the bonfire. The bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames.^[10] Sometimes two bonfires would be built side-by-side, and people and their livestock would walk between them as a cleansing ritual.

Let us take the time to honor those gone before be they ours or those of others.  When the door opens between the two worlds.I shall search for my loved ones and hope that we can communicate.