October 31 - November 1, 2009 : Autumn

Autumn, and Day of the Dead. All Saint’s Day. Samhain. A time of transition, when the earth moves from growth and reproduction to death and decay, sequestering nutrients to the underground world of its roots, concentrating its energies not in flight, mating, feeding, and nesting, but in falling, and the near-death of hibernations. Some animals are moving south (down).

No wonder this is the time when spirits walk the earth - it is maybe more hospitable to their kind, now. Maybe the earth and the ghosts understand each other better in this time of dying. Maybe the falling leaves are like knocks on doorsteps.

Don’t go outside now without a scarf, a hat, your winter jacket. It seemed like just yesterday your tank-tops sat at the fronts of your bureau drawers, but suddenly winter is on its way! Or maybe it’s the breath of ghosties that puts chills around your neck. Don’t worry, they wont hurt you. But bundle up.

And be nice to them. How would you like to be tickled, 364 days of the year, but 2 million feet rustling over your resting place 6 feet underground? Dia de los Muertos would be your last chance to scratch and stretch before the millipedes, centipedes, acari, arachnae, protists, fungi, and bacteria resume their rambling above your bones. But you old spirits probably like those little creatures alright, really. After all, they’re forgotten about most of the time, too.

Geese and antelope move south, gophers find their burrows, humans chop firewood. What do the forgotten creatures - the tiny, “ugly”, “creepy” creatures, the ones that live, largely unseen, in the real earth, the soil, the leaf litter, the rich humus and dry sand - do in winter?