Soft Rain & Samhain - Little Snippets #8
Nature Diary
This week I walked my usual circuit a few times, visiting all the usual spots. On Friday the weather was erratic, dark and showery one minute, and sunny the next. I dodged the showers until the sun returned in the late afternoon. The air was unexpectedly still, hot, and heavy with moisture. I made my way to a lookout beyond the beach, from that vantage point I could see a huge dark cloud and a band of rain sweeping across the ocean, making its way towards land, and me. There was no thunder or lightning, the makings of the storm without the electricity. The clouds and their showers reached me within just a minute or two. I wasn’t drenched, but I discovered how ineffective my rain jacket was. I remembered that I don’t mind rain when it’s soft rain, like home. The kind of rain that covers you lightly, all-pervasive, umbrellas don’t work against it, but in Spring or Summer, you’ll dry soon enough. It brought to mind Damien Dempsey’s song, the string arrangement from Crash Ensemble in this clip from RTE is divine.
Read - Inside the Irish ‘hell caves’ where Halloween was born
Continuing the Irish theme. Those of us away from the island will be heard waxing lyrical about the Celtic roots of Halloween at this time of the year. Journalist Ronan O’Connell wrote this fascinating piece for National Geographic about the possible origins of Samhain in Oweynagat cave, in Rathcroghan in Ireland.
Listen - The History Show - Halloween Traditions
Over on RTE player, you can listen to Myles Dungan on The History Show talking about the traditions of Halloween in Ireland over the years prior to the trick-or-treat era.
Look - Halloween Game & Folklore Collection
Duchas is the National Folklore Collection of University College Dublin’s Digitization Project where there is a vast collection of references, stories, audio and photographs of Irish folklore and cultural history. It’s an incredible repository and the result of years of citizen science.
Games and pastimes: Hallowe'en games: Biting apples. C. 1935, County Dublin. Image by Maurice Curtin (Irish Folklore Commission). Colourised by Old Ireland in Colour from the Photographic Collection, N013.06.00021 by Dúchas ©
Natures notes is proudly written on and inspired by Dharawal Country. I recognise the Dharawal & Wodi Wodi custodians and ancestors who have an enduring connection to land, water and skies.
Always Was and Always Will be Aboriginal Land.