My fascination with Halloween has not abated one bit with adulthood. I am still attracted to all sorts of costumes and Day of the Dead festivals, candles, graveyards, ancestors, and many of the imagery associated with feasts which honor the spirits. In my travels, I've seemed to always find the one shop which sells masks catering to these rituals. Maybe because I am multi-ethnic, it's like a beacon; my soul seeks out those things from which my ancestors believed in, and to which I respond. A scientist would take the genetic explanation, that our preferences are passed on through our DNA, and I do agree with that. But when it comes to the supernatural, I've never really needed a long explanation and experiments; I take it on faith. And as an artist, the visual feast these holidays provide is more than mere eye candy, felt long after the sugar tooth ache from candy corns.
In Italy, my first experience was in a narrow cobble-stone street in Venice. On my mother's side, I am Italian through my grandmother, and I was on fire all throughout my Italian trip. It's as beautiful as you can imagine. So, I was in a heightened state of awareness—the art, the architecture, the food, the climate, my senses were reeling from it all. I was married then, and on my honeymoon during the month of September. We were wandering around at night, trying to get lost, far away from the more crowded vias around St. Mark's Square. Mists had come off the water, creating an atmosphere more intense than some movie smoke-machine could dream to. It seemed like the fabric of time between past and present was became thinner, creating a portal, but it's hard to describe. It was like time became elastic, thin, like the air around us, shimmering, alive, and I felt as people had felt for years, at this time, in this place, on this street, at this very moment and every moment before and after.We heard footsteps, and became concerned, because there was nowhere to go, and we didn't know if we had come upon a dead end. Out of the fog, a man appeared, dressed all in black, like The Plague from Poe's The Masque of Red Death. He had on a cape, a winged hat, black boots, and a black half mask. We were stunned and immobile. I was no longer apprehensive, but completely and utterly captivated because I felt like I wasn't in this time period. I remember I couldn't even see my feet as I looked down, with the mists swirled around my feet.
We looked after the figure until he disappeared. As we followed his path down the alleyway we found...nothing. It was the end of the street. We rationalized he must have gone into a doorway to some pre-season Carnevale party, but I will never forget that feeling; like anything was possible, and that the limitations of our perceptions can sometimes be chains to the greater elements that exist beyond the terrestrial, beyond the banality day-to-day concerns.The next day, I made it part of my mission to seek out and acquire the masks of Carnevale, which had so marked my time in Italy. I found two which spoke to me; the infinite jester, and an autumnal version of the Green Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Man), both hand-crafted from leather.
My next experience with this particular aspect of the supernatural occurred, naturally, in New Orleans, another city I have responded to deeply. I was living in Colorado, and my boyfriend at the time (I was now divorced) decided to take me there to celebrate my birthday in December. My connection started as soon as I landed in the airport. I can't remember who I handed my license to, perhaps a porter to get my luggage, but he took one look at it, looked me right in the eye, smiled, and said "Welcome home, Miss Doucette" saying my name in its' correct pronunciation.
For you readers who don't know me personally, my last name is an old family name handed down on my fathers' side, and no, it is not French. Rather, I am descended from the original French who settled in Canada, then after their expulsion, founded the colony of New Orleans. During the time of the expulsion, I believe someone tried to anglicize the name from Doucet by adding the extra "te" to the end, but this ruse probably held up little in the face of such an attempt to obliterate people of French Canadian Catholic heritage. But these stories of my heritage are for another post. For now, perhaps they can explain my pull to this place.
In honor of my name, my boyfriend had booked us a balconied room in the French Quarter at the Hotel Ste. Marie. It was old, grand, a bit run down, with tall ceilings and high shutters, ornate wallpaper and antique wood furnishings, right in the heart of the oldest part of French New Orleans. It was, in a word, perfect for me.
We had many adventures on this trip and others to New Orleans, pre-flood: a visit to the graveyard which housed Madame Laveaus' remains, the shop at the House of Voodoo, the requisite morning visits to the Café du Monde for beignets, but always, always this searching the streets and wandering, looking at everything. Some objets drew me, others were tacky tourist souvenirs. I bought a poster from the House of Voodoo, but of course the glass has since cracked. I think we all know what that symbolizes, yes? It is no longer displayed in my home.
As a traveller, I do not like crowded tourist hot spots, because I can't read the city as well, or pick up what it has to tell me, feel the vibrations which mark the character of unique and special cities, so I was glad we avoided the Mardi Gras season, the Catholic pre-Lenten feast. Still, my attractions being what they are, I knew I would find something which would hearkened to that festival, but what?
I'm sure you've already guessed from the pictures, haven't you? Two hand-made Mardi Gras masks. They live on my bedroom wall, along with those from Venice. It was only until I wrote this piece and took pictures of them that I made this realization; the two masks from Italy are for men, and the two from Mardi Gras are for women. There they now co-exist peaceably on my wall, creating a harmonious visual balance between the male and female, my soul souvenirs of the feasts which celebrate the sometimes thin line between our world and the next.
Happy Halloween.
My next experience with this particular aspect of the supernatural occurred, naturally, in New Orleans, another city I have responded to deeply. I was living in Colorado, and my boyfriend at the time (I was now divorced) decided to take me there to celebrate my birthday in December. My connection started as soon as I landed in the airport. I can't remember who I handed my license to, perhaps a porter to get my luggage, but he took one look at it, looked me right in the eye, smiled, and said "Welcome home, Miss Doucette" saying my name in its' correct pronunciation.
For you readers who don't know me personally, my last name is an old family name handed down on my fathers' side, and no, it is not French. Rather, I am descended from the original French who settled in Canada, then after their expulsion, founded the colony of New Orleans. During the time of the expulsion, I believe someone tried to anglicize the name from Doucet by adding the extra "te" to the end, but this ruse probably held up little in the face of such an attempt to obliterate people of French Canadian Catholic heritage. But these stories of my heritage are for another post. For now, perhaps they can explain my pull to this place.
In honor of my name, my boyfriend had booked us a balconied room in the French Quarter at the Hotel Ste. Marie. It was old, grand, a bit run down, with tall ceilings and high shutters, ornate wallpaper and antique wood furnishings, right in the heart of the oldest part of French New Orleans. It was, in a word, perfect for me.
As a traveller, I do not like crowded tourist hot spots, because I can't read the city as well, or pick up what it has to tell me, feel the vibrations which mark the character of unique and special cities, so I was glad we avoided the Mardi Gras season, the Catholic pre-Lenten feast. Still, my attractions being what they are, I knew I would find something which would hearkened to that festival, but what?
Happy Halloween.
(from Wikipedia) Halloween (or Hallowe'en) is an annual holiday observed on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holiday All Saints' Day, but is today largely a secular celebration...The festival of Samhain celebrates the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half", and is sometimes[2] regarded as the "Celtic New Year".[3]..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 while 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.[4]...The souling practice of commemorating the soulspurgatory with candle lanterns carved from turnips, became adapted into the making of jack-o'-lanterns.[11] In traditional Celtic Halloween festivals, large turnips were hollowed out, carved with faces, and placed in windows to ward off evil spirits.[5]...Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2). It originated in Ireland and Britain,[19] although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy.[20]Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering or whining] like a beggar at Hallowmas."[21] The custom of wearing costumes and masks at Halloween goes back to Celtic traditions of attempting to copy the evil spirits or placate them, in Scotland for instance where the dead were impersonated by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white.[22][23]
