desert spirit's fire!: 31 October: Almost

Saturday, October 31, 2015

31 October: Almost

Last day, yay, I did it! All month long, every day, I've been writing for Kate Motaung's October 2015 edition of 31 days of free unedited writes, this is wrapup day 31.

Saturday 31 October: Almost

Intro

As a big fan of country-crosssover vocal artist Mary Chapin Carpenter; I've sprinkled her songs throughout my YT playlists. This "almost" prompt immediately reminded me of her "Almost Home." On her version of Almost Home in my into the future playlist someone commented, "these days, days, home seems to be just where I am." But then I realized I can say a lot more about almost than home.

Today is 31 October—Halloween, Samhain, and for church and theology types, supremely Reformation Day! In fact, this is the 498^th celebration of the church-, world-, and culture-reorienting Wittenberg Door Event. 498 years means it's almost the 500-year anniversary, #Reformation500, #Luther500...

#Halloween means All Hallows' Eve, which means almost All Saints Day. This year All Saints Sunday – usually celebrated the Sunday after 01 November – is on All Saints Day. Churches of Reformation heritage typically celebrate Reformation Day in a big way only when it falls on a Sunday; otherwise Reformation become Reformation Sunday, the Sunday before 31 October. The Gaelic festival of Samhain signals "almost winter," with the end of autumn harvest leading to the start of winter, a seeming (but not real) lull in the gift of the agricultural cycle. It's also almost winter in the northern hemisphere because we have one more month of meteorological fall, and that means almost summer in the southern hemisphere. Today in many locations in the the northern hemisphere, it's almost time to set the clocks back one hour, so we're almost up to those very visibly shorter days when it gets dark early.

Outro

production notes about my illustration:

~~(after multiple failed attempts)~~ This is amazing! I scanned the 4 seasons holiday cards my grandparents had printed on not exactly high quality paper who knows where and finally, with lots of imagination, patience, experience and photoshop tools I've ended up with something more than acceptable. Despite my using descreen scanning the originals, the paper texture on all the cards except "summer" remained obnoxious, but a cool and serendipitous combination of filters and effects helped mostly to obliterate it (don't look too closely, though).

from Almost Home by Mary Chapin Carpenter