Joshua Dowidat

All Saint’s Day: A Wrap up for Halloween

 

Hello Everyone,

Thought I would use another place this week to kind of wrap up the Halloween blogs with a holiday that coincides. That would be All Saint’s Day. As some of you already know, whether you learned it form my blogs or from previous sources, All Saint’s Day is a part of the original three day celebration.

All Saint’s Day:

The holiday is usually celebrated on the 1st of November yet this date can change from the different Christian traditions. It is basically a day reserved for praying for the souls in heaven and acts as a date to commemorate the deceased and their lives. Saints of the Christian faiths are particularly observed on this day, hence the name all Saint’s day.

Traditions of Celebration:

Many traditions change in their ways of celebrating the holiday and observing the deceased. Most customs that share similarities are the nagging Continue reading →

Halloween: Trick or Treating

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to another little segment of mine I am introducing for the month of October focusing on aspects of Halloween. This time its Trick or Treating.

What is Trick or Treating?

Well most of us can think of only one thing when it comes to Trick or Treating. That would be going house to house on Halloween night and collecting candy or treats dressed in costumes of various natures. Great fun and games, right? Well not always.

In America at one point it was literally what the phrase means. If you don’t give me a treat I will give you a trick. Hence the term Trick or Treating. Now while the going from house to house on different nights of the year in the past was something created before the times of calling it Trick or Treating the phrase did somewhat originate in the America. Houses, factories were Continue reading →

Halloween: A little history and the name

Hello Everyone,

Well it is that time of year. Of course I know everyone will probably be too busy today and tonight to really get a chance to read this segment about Halloween but here it is anyways.

The Name-Halloween:

Halloween, or as some call it Allhalloween, All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve. Why, you might ask. Well although the origins of the celebration go back very far and along different paths the name Halloween pretty much is the celebration of the dead. In the name Halloween it refers to saints. This is because the saint’s or “hallows” that they are also referred to as are celebrated on this day and their passing. Hence Halloween. It is also the start of the Allhallowtide which is a three day celebration in the Western Christian’s heritage of three days observing saints.

Origins:

Well just because the name has a different origin Continue reading →

Halloween: Jack-o’-lanterns

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to address the Halloween subject of carving pumpkins or also known as Jack-o’-lanterns. It is not often we hear the term, Jack-o’-lanterns, anymore but I guess times change.

Origin of Jack-o’-lanterns :

Well before they were Jack-o’-lanterns they were called will-o’-the-wisp. At least in the old folklore’s of England and other parts of Western Europe. This started around the mid to late 1600s. The term “Jack” just replaced “Will” but they meant virtually the same thing. One was of the torch. Will of the torch, and the other of the lantern, Jack. It was based off the lighting phenomenon that occurs but the will-o’-the ‘wisp was most commonly just a torch. I know it’s confusing but it slowly grew from a standard torch, a bundle of sticks and what not, to the surrounding vessel that contained the flame.

The carvings from the pumpkins was not original Continue reading →

Samhain: A Festival, a Tradition

Hello Everyone,

Since I have been mentioning it in several of the last blogs I thought I would share a little information about Samhain. As many people know, because they have heard it before or read some of my previous posts, Samhain has a lot of relevance to Halloween. A topic I have been focusing on this month.

What is Samhain?

Samhain is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and celebrating the beginning of the darker half of the year. It is traditionally celebrated from sunset of October 31st to the sunset of November 1st. This marks a Gaelic day in full cycle.

It is one of the four seasonal Gaelic festivals that also include Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh. All of which celebrate or mark the beginning or ends of seasons in the Gaelic cycles. Samhain just happens to fall on Halloween or Continue reading →

Haunted Places: Stull Cemetery

Hello Everyone,

I know what you’re probably thinking right off, he spelled ‘skull’ wrong. Actually if I was intending to spell ‘skull’ you would be correct. But I didn’t. It is Stull Cemetery and it resides right in the middle of the United States of America in a little place called Kansas. But even though it is physically in Kansas, you might want to check yourself if you ever visit. You might find yourself thinking you’re not in Kansas anymore.

Stull Cemetery:

The cemetery resides in Douglas County which is the county that the community of Stull is in. Settled mainly by people of German and Dutch ancestry the area was established into a community around the late 1850s. The town got its name from the only postmaster it ever had, Sylvester Stull.

Eventually a church was built for the locals and was constructed entirely of stone on the land Continue reading →

Seasons are Finally Changing

Hello Everyone,

I know I’ve mentioned it before but something always stirs in me this time of year when the seasons begin to change.

I know it’s not a drastic change, as of yet, but where I live when you stop reaching temperatures in the 100s it is a nice respite from the other 6 months of the year. The nights are what gets me. The cool air comes in a little quicker and compared to summer, the cool air actually comes in at night. But also there is the earlier sunsets. That rush to do things before the light fades away from the horizon when just a week ago you had what seemed like so much more time.

I guess that’s why they call it Daylight Savings Time.

The Mood of the Seasons:

The mood that people get in where I live becomes much more lighthearted. The hot temperatures Continue reading →

The Difference Between Eerie and Horror

Hello Everyone,

First off the definition alone separates the two emotions, genres, moods, or whatever you are using the word to describe. Horror is an intense feeling of shock, fear, or disgust. Eerie simply means strange or frightening.

What defines the two the most?

Well, I believe this is up to the individual who is experiencing the mood. One thing that another finds as pure horror might be just enough to give another person the “creeps” or an eerie feeling. Just the other day I was in an area where the houses were few and far between. The wind was picking up tremendously and the sky was darkening. It was not getting dark out but simply getting darker form the dust that was being stirred up in the sky. For some reason this gave me and eerie feeling and made me thinking of this blog as well as two other Continue reading →