Samhain Mediation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RjNTyI4xTs

 

S2E40 TRANSCRIPT:

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Mark: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm your host, mark. 

Yucca: And I'm Yucca. 

Mark: And it is Hallows seasons, Samhain season, Halloween, so many happy returns of the holiday to you. Today we're going to talk about all things related to those holidays, that constellation of holidays, and talk about themes and activities and how we celebrate.

So it's hard to believe that we've come all the way around the wheel of the year, again, to, to this time. But here it is

Yucca: Yeah, here we are. And personally, I'm thrilled. I love this time of year 

Mark: me too.

Yucca: it's a fun one. And right now, so we're recording the 24th, so a week ahead. But mark, you have another reason to be celebrating happening right now, right? 

Mark: I do it is pouring rain where I live and we've been in a really serious drought. So I'm, I'm, I'm in a really great mood today. It's the sky is dark and gray and we're probably getting about an inch, an hour of rain, maybe a little less. And, 

Yucca: a 

Mark: we have flash flood warnings and I couldn't be more pleased

Yucca: Yeah. So sounds like the land has been really, really thirsty. This is early for you to write. 

Mark: very much so. Yeah. I mean, we typically get one rainstorm in September or October, and then it stays dry again until like December But this is the second rainstorm we've had. The first one was very weak and about a week ago. But this is a class five atmospheric river, so it's huge. And we're expected to get as much as 13, 14 inches of rain in the next 24 hours.

So it's pretty exciting.

Yucca: That's amazing. Yeah. So I hope everybody stays safe during this time as well though. Cause you've had fires. So after fires, there's often the mudslides and flooding that comes from the areas that were burned. 

Mark: Right. The other reason why it is such a relief to have this huge rainstorm for us here is that this marks the end of wildfire season. Everything is getting a good wedding down and we're we're even if we have a lightning storm now, which is what set off the last couple of rounds of fires were lightning storms.

The ground is just going to be too wet for anything to take off. So we're, we're good 

Yucca: be that sponge, just that store to get you through the next few months. Hope, and then hopefully your rain will come, so, oh, well that's great. 

Mark: Yep. They're excited.

Yucca: yeah, 13 inches. That's amazing. So, but why don't we let's jump into Hallows and Halloween and all of that. And let's actually start by talking about.

Different holidays because like Blake, when we get to the winter solstice, there are quite a few holidays that are all clumped together. And sometimes we treat them sort of as one, sometimes we don't, but there's different themes. There's overlapping themes. So I think that'd be interesting to get into the differences 

Mark: Sure. Yeah, at the winter solstice, there's a, I mean, a literal blizzard of holidays, starting, starting with Krampus knocked on December 7th and then extending all the way until. 

Yucca: Mid January. 

Mark: January when you've got, you know, the end of 12th night and you know, all those three or three Kings day, and there's all kinds of stuff going on in there for, for various different religious orientations, but here in the United States.

Anyway, we really only have one conventionally recognized holiday that is celebrated by the predominant culture. And that's Halloween on the 31st, which is a week from today. And 

Yucca: I my area also

DIA de Los Muertos is really big here as well. Yeah. cause we're, my account is about 80% Hispanic. So that's a big, but for the, for the majority of the country, I think you're right. That, that Halloween is the primary celebrated holiday. 

Mark: We do have some celebrations of DIA de Los Muertos here. And, but I mean, the area where I live is predominantly Anglo. And so,