Autumn

Hello back with 2 more pages of my 2014 desk calendar.   September is the end of summer, beginning of autumn.    Traditionally it is the time of gathering and preserving.  Preparing for the coming of the lean times.

It is also a time of rich colour ripe, yellowing green's warm oranges fading to browns.   Some of my favourite colours and  combinations.    It is paper pads with these colours that draw me in as well and I was able to use two different pieces on this September Page.

Will just add that Stampendous stamps are gorgeous I've used then more than once in this project, but the so called cling on the back is hopeless and I will be stripping all mine down to the rubber.

So October.    This has become linked for the whole month with halloween.    Halloween 31st October the day before All Saints Day in Christian calendars.    Almost certainly this is another of those traditions whose roots go back to pre Christian times.    Imagine a world with a population less than 1/10th our modern world, one without electricity, running water, brick houses, glass windows. Mud and Wattle homes on bare earth, shared with your livestock.   A fire for heat and cooking, small related groups of people in settlements surrounded by the fields they farm.   Happy people whose days are spent living laughing and sharing.   Night falls the air grows chill, these same people huddle in their homes for warmth and comfort.   There is a small wood nearby here live hogs, maybe bears and wolves.   Hunting animals whose noise travels across the fields into the huts.    Come morning the world is garlanded with spider webs glinting with dew in the morning sun.    These were people whose spiritual world was populated by many goods and spirits and other beings who walked the earth at night when people were safely tucked up in their homes.    Early Christians descendants of pagan people lived in very similar circumstances and shared those same traditions and community memories giving rise to old superstations running wild during the night before All Saints Day.     Most cultures have a day such at this but a whole month? someone is making a lot of money!

Goodness where did all that come from!   Back to my October page more of those wonderful autumn colours and stamps from Basic Grey I just love the delicate web and the fun spider so pagan or not they have decorated my page.

Hiding in My Craft Room (an old favourite of mine) have a new challenge Anything but Holiday.