American Halloween and Pagan Samhain are very different holidays. Neither are Asatru, or heathen, but because they are celebrated by the wider local community, this year I celebrated both. My experiences at the Samhain Soiree appear second in this post, after the link to an American Halloween celebration for those who wish to have one.

American Halloween is a fine community tradition. My street does it all together as a street fair, which we started doing in 2020 so we could move Halloween outside for safety, but we kept doing it because it was more fun this way. American Celebration Kindred does both Asatru holidays and American holidays. 

I wanted to make my Happy Halloween post before Halloween. In case any of you out there are feeling nostalgic for an American Halloween and can't participate in one this year, I have you covered.

Here's a video from Ed Hubbard's show the year he came to our American Halloween after going to Sin City Witch's Samhain Soiree. The first half is at the Soiree. You can see me briefly when Ed and I were judging the King and Queen of the Soiree contest. The second half is my street's Halloween, with my kindred members and neighbors. There's also an interview with me, where I  talk about a couple of different topics, including the good luck objects here in my valley, the Las Vegas valley. 

https://www.facebook.com/EdAHubbard/videos/468119508643224 

This year we're not planning a TV appearance but I hope we'll have plenty of fun with neighbors, marshmellow roasting, and the witch's brew from the magic bean (coffee.) And seeing all the cute costumes, of course. I dressed as a witch for the Samhain Soiree with an orange witch hat fascinator, so for Halloween I'll do something completely different. Thinking whale shark. 

xxx

At the Sin City Witches Samhain Soiree this year (2024), I gave a short intro talk about Asatru and then told the story of how Thor got his hammer back. I have little to report about the rest of the soiree because unfortunately I didn't know in advance that it was a smoking venue and I had to leave early due to asthma and allergy problems. I did get to see some friends there. Some of them expressed disappointment that they missed the show because they were on a different floor when I went on. Another friend told me she was going on near midnight but she would record her show and post it so I could see it later. I managed to stay long enough for my housemate to find someone who could give her a ride home after the event was over, so that I could leave early and she could stay.

Between the bad drive over, the smoke problem, and the energy expenditure of doing a performance that was interrupted in the middle and left me struggling to pull it together for the second half, I had an enormous energy debt to pay. Even though I washed my hair when I got home to get the smoke out, I was still coughing and falling asleep about every half hour to an hour the next day. It took me days to have the mental energy to finish this blog post. My immune system is like a sleeping badger; once it gets stepped on it keeps attacking long after the threat is objectively over.

It was clear to me that I could not keep doing that sort of thing. I had stopped going to Renfaire because it was too much for me physically and I am going to have to stop doing this type of event for the same reason. Just like I thought of alternatives for how to do some of the things I enjoyed about faire and decided to go to small low key stitch n bitch parties, I have thought of an alternative for how to tell my mythology stories. Instead of live shows I'm going to videotape them and put them on youtube. That will be even better, because that way no one will miss my performance time, it will always be there later.

XXX

On a positive note: we added another kitty to our household. Our adult cat is not a fan of the kitten yet but after only a week they seem to be starting to get along. I have hope they'll be friends. I'll write more about the kitten later. Thinking of calling my kitten post Storm Damage, because his name is Storm, or Stormy, and as soon as he got his name he lived up to it by breaking a tree. (A little one, inside in a pot. The mimosa tree seedling, sadly.) 

I wrote a poem for the kitten. This is big for me because I haven't written a poem or fiction since the "neurological event" in 2021 except by using enhancements (absinthe, in the case of a poem, lion's mane mushroom in the case of fiction.) It may not be the sort of epic poetry I wrote before but it came right out of my own brain without any such help.

Black as night,

With clouds of white,

Soft as wind,

The kitten comes in.