In honor of Halloween, Dia de los Muertos and the ancient Celtic pagan festival of Samhain, my Celtic band would like to play a little show for the Occupiers on Saturday October 29th, around noon. We'll use the North Steps if nobody else is using them at that time, or if the Steps are being used we'll go to one of the corners on the North side. If anybody knows of any scheduling conflict, please let me know at freepacifica@gmail.com , since i believe supporting Occupy means me being respectful and considerate of others. If there's no conflict, we'll show up in full face-paint!!!! 8p

Samhain (pronounced SAOW-in) literally means "Summer's end." For the Celts, the nighttime between October 31 (last day of Summer) and November 1 (first day of Winter) was the time when the veil between the waking world and the spirit world was thin and porous, and anything could happen. Spirits could walk the Earth, even come to your door and ask for a drink of water. In anticipation, farmers would thin their herds for meat and harvest their crops before the land was blasted by icy fairy-breath. A bonfire would be built in the center of the settlement in honor of the goddess Tlachtga, and all other fires would be extinguished. People would make tokens representing their wishes for the New Year, and toss them into the fire. After a night of feasting, dancing and drinking, the bonfire would be allowed to die and the village hearths would be rekindled from its embers. The child born that day was considered lucky.

In Christian times, Halloween became a day for giving nuts and apples to the children, and a day for divining the future, sometimes by pulling kale up from the ground. You could throw an apple peel over your shoulder to see the first letter of your future true love's name spelled out. Children would go door to door singing Soul Songs for All Souls' Day, and be rewarded with soul cakes. In Louisiana, the "dumb supper" was popular, where nobody would speak throught the entire meal -- also the backwards supper, where of course everything was done backwards. In Victorian times, people invited their neighbors into haunted rooms, where they would have their guests feel grapes in the darkness and tell them it was eyeballs. (Or pasta for guts, cheese for brains, etc.) Halloween in the 20th century became known as Mischief Night with youngsters pulling pranks of different levels of seriousness. And then around 1940 someone invented Trick or Treating. Today this time of year is an opportunity for creativity, either nonsensical or spititual, so let's celebrate the Hell out of it, Occupy!!!!!!