Preparing for Halloween

We don't plan to make any elaborate decorations for Halloween.  We have the large pumpkin plus a smaller one that we'll put out under a cedar tree in the front yard.  My husband promised to carve the little one and we'll put a flashlight in it.  It should be visible from the street.  The little ghosts and goblins, supermen and princesses, come at dusk so that the lit pumpkin will signal that treats will be given.  No tricks.

The first year that we lived here, there were no Halloween visitors.  I remember walking down the street to see if I could find any children, not even a ghost.  There are very few children on our street and they don't live down at our end.

I asked my son if ghosts and goblins did not go out to trick or treat any longer.  He said that kids got together at their schools and at churches for Fall Fests and Halloween parties.  He also said that in some communities there were "trunk parties."  Parents stuffed their kids in their cars;candy in their trunks, and met up at a designated area.

When carving the pumping, I will make sure to save the seeds for roasting and planting.  I also am in dire need of a new broom.  As you can see from the picture, I have a black coffee pot.  The tractor cat is missing--I doubt that she'll have anything to do with tomorrow's adventure.

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Wild Things

At this time of the year, when the days are getting shorter, and the goblins, ghosts, and other scary creatures are lurking in cobwebs and bushes to get you.  They even come knocking on your door and who knows what they will do if not treated well.

We worry.  We pray.  We look for the silver lining in the darkest sky.  We look for the light at the end of a very dark tunnel.  We search for peace and harmony.

We worry about our children.  We worry about our grandchildren.  We worry about those near and dear to us.  We worry about our health and well being.  What will the future bring?

I would like to share with you a poem by Wendell Berry that may give you some comfort, for a while at least. If you do your own research on Mr. Berry, I think that you will find him interesting, intellectual, and a stimulating activist.  Here is his poem about the real wild things called "The Peace of Wild Things":

When despair grows in me

and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting for their light.  For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Credit:  Copyright @ 2012 by Wendell Berry from New Collected Poems.
Used by permission of Counterpoint

Peace be with you.

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