Galloween, Old Memories and the Guarding of the Garlic
I you live in the US you are likely quite aware of what this past week was all about. If you don't, you probably have had some tangential contact with a spooky decoration. Yup, it's Halloween!
Therefore today's post contains Mara/Willow costumes, a scary front lawn addition and an ancient Romanian rite that would be the correspondent of the Night of the Hallows.
Therefore today's post contains Mara/Willow costumes, a scary front lawn addition and an ancient Romanian rite that would be the correspondent of the Night of the Hallows.
I decided to call it Galloween this time because our little Gal (yay for puns!) Mara is part of it, even though she likely doesn't understand much of it other than new shapes to look at, plus some more people's faces on which to train her brain.
Of course, like any thoughtful parents, we had thoroughly discussed if we would put a costume on a struggling baby, with the potential risk of scarring her teenage years when we insist on showing these cute photos to her prospective boyfriend.
And we decided by a majority - the opposition consisted of Willow who gets 1/4th of a vote, and Mara herself who stared disapprovingly - that it's totally worth it!!
Of course, like any thoughtful parents, we had thoroughly discussed if we would put a costume on a struggling baby, with the potential risk of scarring her teenage years when we insist on showing these cute photos to her prospective boyfriend.
And we decided by a majority - the opposition consisted of Willow who gets 1/4th of a vote, and Mara herself who stared disapprovingly - that it's totally worth it!!
Here is a photo documentary of how the losing party took the news:
1) Watermelon Baby!
Disclaimer: We took the first three photos a while ago in preparation, because Mara was growing in length quickly - she is wearing 3-month outfits at 8-weeks. It turns out that it still fits though, so the rest of the photos are from tonight! This is such a sweet little costume, thank you +Lucy Abramyan and +Jared M Johnson!
2) Trick-or-treating Topiary Cat!
Thank you, +Tammy Tener for the costume! Willow sends her regards, the embarrassingly shaved fur on her shoulder is now hidden in the classiest of ways.
3) Owlie Baby!
Thank you, uncle Rick and aunt Jane! We loved putting this on her for welcoming our trick-or-treaters! It's a sleep sack so maybe we can try to get her used to sleeping in it too :-)
Thank you, +Tammy Tener for the costume! Willow sends her regards, the embarrassingly shaved fur on her shoulder is now hidden in the classiest of ways.
3) Owlie Baby!
Thank you, uncle Rick and aunt Jane! We loved putting this on her for welcoming our trick-or-treaters! It's a sleep sack so maybe we can try to get her used to sleeping in it too :-)
A Freshly-Dug Grave on our Front Lawn
Meanwhile, the neighborhood was getting ready for the yearly sweets-seeking preambles, as we were told by no less than three of our street's co-residents. I felt like I would have to send myself to the gallows if I missed my very first October 31st celebration in our home - yet another reason to refer to this day as Galloween (yay multi-puns!).
Thus we mobilized. Greg was tasked to get lots of candy. I looked up what we can do in a couple of hours to raise the scare factor of our house from nil to any acceptable level. With Mara's busy on-demand schedule we pretty much have no time to breathe thrice in a row, so there was no question of shopping for decorations. Plus, we wanted something different and fun.
Thus we mobilized. Greg was tasked to get lots of candy. I looked up what we can do in a couple of hours to raise the scare factor of our house from nil to any acceptable level. With Mara's busy on-demand schedule we pretty much have no time to breathe thrice in a row, so there was no question of shopping for decorations. Plus, we wanted something different and fun.
A quick brainstorm revealed that we have an Optoma PK301 pico projector that had not been taking on a challenge in a very long time. It has a standalone battery, can play videos with sound off of a micro SD card or through any streaming device like the Chromecast.
The first thought was to have it project nothing (i.e. a black screen) onto our door, with one of us sitting by the French window in our front room with any connected Android device. When someone would walk up to the door, we'd tap the play button and have some white ghosts ooze across the doorway.
After some consideration we realized that this whole interactive setup might be quite startling, on the border of mean, especially if little kids are present. As per the ancient "do onto others..." and the fact that the mini HDMI adapter we had ordered for the Chromecast was still in transit somewhere in Illinois, this idea was benched. Maybe we'll revive it next year after knowing the neighborhood youth a little better.
The first thought was to have it project nothing (i.e. a black screen) onto our door, with one of us sitting by the French window in our front room with any connected Android device. When someone would walk up to the door, we'd tap the play button and have some white ghosts ooze across the doorway.
After some consideration we realized that this whole interactive setup might be quite startling, on the border of mean, especially if little kids are present. As per the ancient "do onto others..." and the fact that the mini HDMI adapter we had ordered for the Chromecast was still in transit somewhere in Illinois, this idea was benched. Maybe we'll revive it next year after knowing the neighborhood youth a little better.
Then, Plan B arose from the ashes: play something scary on a loop, project onto the garage door / front door / anything. With limited time to dedicate to this ourselves, we did a quick search for videos of scary things that we might want to project, and stumbled upon this simple yet effective project by Mr. Chicken.
The Stone
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Thanks to my reluctance to get rid of the little things from our dearest, we still had the E.ON-marked foam board that my brother recycled into a protecting sheeting for the vibrant painting that he gave us as our wedding gift. The painting is a fantasy portrait of Greg and me by a Romanian artist, incorporating surreal elements among which a Phoenix drinking light from the blazing sun!! I still need to mount it in a nice place in our house..
This particular foam board had traveled with it all the way from Iasi, Romania!
This particular foam board had traveled with it all the way from Iasi, Romania!
The project is quite simple, all it really takes is a projection-tracing pencil sketch to create the contour of the tombstone onto the foam board.
Yet this innocent act of tracing by light brought back dear memories from when I was 7 or 8. My father had gotten us a new story film for our projection device, illustration of a poem of a great Arabian horse named El Zorab.
I stayed late that night staring at the image projected onto my bedroom door, the frame of the film right before El Zorab's desperate master realizes he loves him too much to sell him away from his children and wife that had raised and grown with him as part of the family, and into the sultan's cruel, enslaving hands. He takes the horse's life with his curved dagger, cherishing El Zorab's freedom over the risk of his family's starvation.
I couldn't take my eyes away. I took a piece of paper and taped it to the door, then spent the next few hours tediously tracing the outline of the majestic animal, in a valiant attempt to keep it from dying forever when the projector would stop its magical sustenance. That sketched piece of paper got lost in my childhood treasures somewhere, but I'll always remember the golden El Zorab almost ready to rear on its powerful hind legs, neck arched and muscles tense, eyes filled with fear. I had saved him.
I stayed late that night staring at the image projected onto my bedroom door, the frame of the film right before El Zorab's desperate master realizes he loves him too much to sell him away from his children and wife that had raised and grown with him as part of the family, and into the sultan's cruel, enslaving hands. He takes the horse's life with his curved dagger, cherishing El Zorab's freedom over the risk of his family's starvation.
I couldn't take my eyes away. I took a piece of paper and taped it to the door, then spent the next few hours tediously tracing the outline of the majestic animal, in a valiant attempt to keep it from dying forever when the projector would stop its magical sustenance. That sketched piece of paper got lost in my childhood treasures somewhere, but I'll always remember the golden El Zorab almost ready to rear on its powerful hind legs, neck arched and muscles tense, eyes filled with fear. I had saved him.
It's funny how these memories can fill your heart in just an inkling of a second. The next, Mara brought me back to the present by waking up from her evening bonding nap in Greg's arms. A wholesome nursing, diaper change, some video processing and a very easy exact-o-knife carving later, the board ascended to its next form of existence, as the tombstone of a newly dug grave in our front lawn:
The tombstone comes to life after dark, on the Night of the Hallows:
The video doesn't do it justice, the bright ghostly grave is very crisp in real life, and the animations quite scary. I got startled twice as I was setting it up :-)
The neighborhood kids loved it and stared at it for a while, some stepped closer to look inside the "magic pot" to see how it works. Definitely a great setup that cost us exactly $30, the donation for the video montage.
The neighborhood kids loved it and stared at it for a while, some stepped closer to look inside the "magic pot" to see how it works. Definitely a great setup that cost us exactly $30, the donation for the video montage.
Ancient Rites and Garlic
I could not finish this post without noting that Romanians don't traditionally celebrate Halloween. Recently it has become one of the imported holidays, pushed into our neo-culture more so by commercial pressure. We do indeed have our own costumed processions on new years day which hopefully I'll talk about in a later, more time-relevant post. |
| Covata de lemn |
Nevertheless, this holiday seems more closely related to the ancient rite of Santandrei, a wolf deity that our ancestors were celebrating on the night of November 29/30. This was the Dacian New Year, when nature dies and the wolf packs are stirring for the winter. This was when the balance between worlds was shaken and the spirits ran loose. Dacians danced and sang for death, because it ended life's suffering. Thus they danced and celebrated the perennial death of nature on this transcendent night.
Up until the 20th century in Romanian villages you would still see remnants of this rite in what was called the Guarding of the Garlic: on this night young women would bring three heads of garlic to be gathered into a wooden carved tub normally used for bread making.
The garlic was guarded by the most elderly woman at candle light, while all the youth would go indoors to celebrate through dance until early morning hours when the sun was up and it was safe to come outside again. During that night they said the spirits of the restless, the strigoi, would come out of graves and dance in horas at crossroads, take the mind of the weak if they were found outside in the night, cause mischief with the cattle and steal girls and children. When morning came everyone went back to their houses carrying some of the protective garlic to last them through the year.
The garlic was guarded by the most elderly woman at candle light, while all the youth would go indoors to celebrate through dance until early morning hours when the sun was up and it was safe to come outside again. During that night they said the spirits of the restless, the strigoi, would come out of graves and dance in horas at crossroads, take the mind of the weak if they were found outside in the night, cause mischief with the cattle and steal girls and children. When morning came everyone went back to their houses carrying some of the protective garlic to last them through the year.
This type of celebration might have inspired the garlic-vampires connection that is so prevalent nowadays, but to my knowledge we never really had any notion of vampires specifically in Romania. That was a simple fabrication by Bram Stoker with lots of elements from the Balkan myths, yet it is also imported nowadays for commercial profit to the point where the Bran Castle is full of little fang trinkets. Ah well, it's not causing too much trouble; I just wish that we knew and cherished more of the ancient traditions that are sadly being forgotten. I'd take a frantic dance till morning with the whole village over spending lots of cash on costumes and eating tons and tons of candy.
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