It's a very chilly night. About 4:30PM, when I left school, the sky was roiling with grey and white clouds to the west, and in the east, deep indigo backlit by a strange sun . Thinks are trying to settle down after Hurricane Sandy. We had rain and wind, and some without power - though nothing compared to New Jersey and New York. We lost 19 trees on our property.
The chilly night reminded me of all the trick-or-treat nights of my childhood. How I loved that! That was in the days of the 1950's when people feared the communists, not serial killers and child abusers and poisoners of candy. I loved the Walt Disney annual showing of "Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman" and the "Night on Bald Mountain" episode from Fantasia.
"Night on Bald Mountain" reminds me of something I read somewhere
somewhere that on Halloween night, the veil between the two worlds is very thin. I was spinning a poem out of that... haven't gotten too far:
Thin places...
Places where the veil between this world
And the other world
Is thin..
Truth abides stays lives in thin places
Raw, hard-to-face truth...
I found these thoughts on a website about Celtic Spirituality called "Thin Places"
http://www.thinplaces.net/
on that site, the author, Mindie Burgoyne - Walking Through Thin Places, says
I found these thoughts on a website about Celtic Spirituality called "Thin Places"
http://www.thinplaces.net/
on that site, the author, Mindie Burgoyne - Walking Through Thin Places, says
"Yet the
comfort, safety and strength to face that truth also abides there.
We
become very small there,
Know
something much bigger than us
a place
where one feels that mysterious power , God...
"The
place itself calls you, draws you into itself, transports you into the presence
of the world beyond this world. The thinness
of place moves you into the presence of the mysterious power. There, all things you perceive through your
senses are charged, electrified, illuminated with the presence of that power...
The meditation
room at Carmel is a thin place
The crypt at Chartres
is a thin place
The grotto at
Lourdes is a thin place
The Sanctuario
de Chimayo is a thin place
Crater Lake is a
thin place
quoting Mindie Burgoyne some more:
“once
you’ve been in a thin place and allowed your spirit to absorb that which
transcends the senses, all need for definition ceases. Our spirits learn differently than our
minds. All through our lives we walk
through these places. Some people notice the thinness. Some do not.
Yet the idea of "thin places" is not new. Memorials - made by humans - have been
marking thin places for thousands of years. Ancient people, especially in
Ireland and Britain were forever marking spaces as sacred and worth
remembering, as if to say, "something special happened here."
They are
often marked by human spirits that have gone before, felt the thinness and been
changed by it. Thin places not only
transcend the senses, but transcend the boundaries of time and space. While you’re there, time seems to stand still,
and there is a communion with the human spirits that have walked there before
and are yet to walk. Thin places are all about connection - with God, with the Other world and with all
who have lived, are living and will live in generations to come.”
