Halloween Movies perfect for Kids!

Halloween also called All Hallow’s Eve and Samhain, this Autumn festival historically marks the end of harvest season and the beginning of Wintertime. Celtic and Gaelic traditions saw huge bonfires lit, as well as celebrations to mark the occasion. This is where the practice of dressing up comes from, since costumes were supposed to keep the cold, dark, evil spirits at bay by confusing them. It was the last festivity before the onset of the coldest months.

Today, we’re fortunate enough to live in a time where electricity, air-conditioners, heaters, and a marked jump in health institutions are enough to keep most of the cold chilly darkness under control. Nonetheless, we still celebrate Halloween. Apart from the usual parties, costume competitions, pumpkin fairs and trick-or-treating, many also take the opportunity to watch some good old horror movies to get into the mood.

Here are a number of some old favourite movies which I always make a point to watch during this time. These are not films of the slasher-horror type, but rather those which I associate with childhood, and which always leave me feeling of good cheer. Definitely ‘must-sees’ for all those with children and for those who can’t handle scary flicks!

The Tim Burton Quartet – The Nightmare before Christmas(1993), Corpse Bride (2005), Beetlejuice (1988) and Edward Scissorhands (1990). Tim Burton’s work is just perfect to watch cuddled on the sofa while a heavy rain lashes against the windowpanes. These dark fantasy movies are all, somehow or other, centred around Halloween. The first two mentioned are animated, full of catchy tunes and delightful characters. In fact, the ghouls, ghosts, skeletons and monsters aren’t scary at all. Although all of these movies are targeted at children, they also have dark sinister meanings which only adults will be able to appreciate, and which have nothing to do with Halloween and everything to do with the society we live in; a society which can be cruel and intolerant, and end up pressuring people into doing what is acceptable instead of being happy with their own individuality.

Hocus Pocus (1993) – I must admit, the Sanderson sisters have always been my favorite media witches. Especially Bettie Middler, who’s somehow perfect in her rendition of an angry yet funny medieval witch, who after being burnt at the stake, comes back to the present to take her revenge. Unfortunately, she and her sisters are totally unprepared for today’s world, not to mention today’s children, who are much pluckier and smarter than the ones she was used to.

The Addams Family (1991) – The stories of this eccentric, affectionate clan who don’t care what others might think about them have always been close to my heart, and the 1991 rendition with Angelica Houston as Morticia, Christopher Lloyd as Uncle Fester and Christina Ricci as Wednesday is just perfect in complementing Halloween. The Addams seem to live in a perennial Halloween all year round. Their neighbors think them strange, and society tries to shun them. And yet, they love and care for each other, especially when it matters the most.

To read the rest of the article, which was published on EVE magazine follow the direct link:- http://www.eve.com.mt/2016/10/26/halloween-movies-for-the-faint-hearted/

Susan Waitt’s Night Gallery – Halloween Interview

My first personal meeting with American artist Susan Waitt occurred some years ago at a private spiritually-themed event and reception, taking place in a certain ex-bordello in Valletta. Her colourful, vibrant outlook and curiosity immediately struck a chord. A Scorpio, the Connecticut-born artist worked as an illustrator for a Disney studio in Massachusetts, hosted her own American TV talk show and was an artistic director and writer for Liquorish TV, to name but a few of her achievements.

On the other hand, her gothic, surreal artwork seems to spell quite a different character; more dark, more mysterious, but still very intriguing. Waitt’s perception seems to filter and reproduce vagrant metaphysical ideas of succubi and the supernatural; sinister presences which may as well hide within each and every one of us, or even behind the closed door around the corner.

What prompted you to come to live in Malta?

Originally, I came here to co-organise an international conference on the consciousness of the Megalithic Temple builders, and somehow, I never left. I’ve lived in Malta for nine years.

From Disney artwork to the grotesque: How did one category of art evolve into the other?

The concept of the grotesque in art and literature speaks to something profoundly basic about human nature, and the nature of existence itself. In fact, Disney perfected for a general audience the interplay of paradoxical opposites such as fear and laughter, aggression and playfulness, and the merging of bizarre, carnivalesque atmospheres with rational and logical realities. Think of all the terrifying moments in Bambi, Peter Pan, and Snow White to name just a few animated feature films. My art evolved from this quite naturally, in that I felt like it was part of the whole circle of life, since the spectrum of experience was all there in Disney already.

 

Of course, I was always drawn to Bosch, Goya, Fuseli, Moreau, Dali and many other artists who portrayed what was dark, subterranean and wrapped in ineffable mystery. Now, having grown older and somewhat wearier of the world, it often appears to me that there are also precious gifts within the darkness of the human mind – depth, profundity, nuance and complexity. Intense contrasts of light and dark add a sense of drama and therefore a sense of awe. Awe is a key aspect of the experience of the sublime.

Is there a particular unifying theme within the exhibition?

I deliberately used Victorian Spiritualism and mediumistic séances together as a unifying trope or motif, because I felt it represented the collective desire of humanity to probe the unspeakable enigma at the centre of existence.

What is your method of creation?

For many years I painted in acrylics only, especially for large-scale mural projects. Now with my studio work, I usually first execute an unfinished acrylic under-painting, usually on a toned background and then finish in oils. When I was working as a commercial book illustrator for Disney and Fisher Price, I was constrained to lay out book galleys meticulously. That required sketching and sometimes re-sketching scenes and finishing with inks, water colours and airbrush. In recent years, I started executing artworks with the same absolute freedom and energy that I had usually reserved for my free-time sketching and doodling. I’m producing art directly onto the canvas now.

 

 

This article/interview appeared on EVE Magazine on 22.10.2016 – Please follow the link to read the rest of it: http://www.eve.com.mt/2016/10/22/susan-waitts-night-gallery-the-uncanny-the-sublime/

New House – New Rituals!

The amount of work to be lavished onto a new house is amazing. Apart from all those painting jobs, plastering and moving about of furniture, which still go on and on long after you have restructured the place to your tastes. After all the workers have gone, and you have purchased as many soft furnishings as you can to make the place comfortable and homey. After you have finally gotten rid of all the package boxes, put your clothes in the wardrobe and your millions of stockings in drawers. After having finally put all your many many books on their shelves, and then re-arranged them again and again, in order for them to make some sort of sense – according to author, subject and reachability…

Yes, after all this – there is still work to be done, especially by someone like me, who sensitive, emphatic, and naturally aware of negative energies, cannot rest until she feels that the house is REALLY free of any previous occupants – be they physical, spiritual, emotional or even just psychic residues.

So, I spent the last three weeks carefully writing quite a long ritual to banish, cleanse, bless and protect my new home from all the negative thoughts and feelings, all the pain and suffering, all the stress and anxiety, and in other words, anything at all, left over by the previous couple – who were selling the house due to their divorce after 16 years of marriage. Ouch! Yes, I’m pretty sure there must have been a lot of bad feelings flying around this house. I could actually feel them sometimes too.

I took my time with this ritual because not only was it the first one I was doing in the house, but also because, in a way, it was also the most important one, since it would not only have an unconscious impact on me, but also one on my partner and on our relationship. My boyfriend is not a Wiccan or a Pagan, he is an atheist, and yet I’m sure he’s been unconsciously feeling the tension and negativity in the house too. It has been becoming more and more apparent this past month, and I could’nt ignore it any longer.

A further issue was that our neighbours, the ones with the maisonette directly below us, are always fighting in a really bad way. The wife is always crying, and they are always swearing and saying awful things to each other. We get to hear everything because our bedroom window is directly above their internal yard, which they always leave open. They fight almost every day, and their fighting is the first thing we hear each morning when we wake up, and sometimes the last thing we hear before going to sleep at night too. This does not help the general atmosphere, no matter how many times my boyfriend says that seeing the difference between their relationship and ours (which is very loving, happy and balanced) makes him feel kind of aloof in a sniggering kind of way. So, my ritual also incorporated putting on layers of protection on each window facing their place, in order to keep their negativity out of our lives.

I performed the ritual succesfully last weekend. Finally. And I must say, I really physically felt the actual difference immediately afterwards. The house needed to breathe and so did I. And even though I had known this would have an effect, I never actually knew the amount of bad energies coursing through my poor home, before I actually got rid of them, and could appreciate the change in atmosphere.

Immediately after that, I bought our first plant! I am so happy and excited about it! I plan to slowly construct a roof garden in future, and though this is a house plant, it is still the start of that venture. I had two other plants before this one, one in my old apartment and one at work. Both died. Let’s hope this one doesn’t. It’s a dieffenbachia, which, I am told, are quite hardy. So, fingers crossed.

Next up is Imbolc! I must still declare and bless my sacred space and altar, not to mention re-purify all my tools, so I must try and incorporate that into the Imbolc ritual as well. Another lengthy one! Ah well, quite worth it considering the effects of the last one!

The Legend of the Mermaid Melusina – Men who break their word, and women who continue to love them

Some people say that women often find partners whose character resembles that of their father. Such, indeed is the story of Melusina.

Melusina was the eldest daughter of a mermaid who had married a human man for love. The mermaid relinquished the freedom of the seas, gave up her scales and gained two normal legs, gave up her whole life, to become a mortal woman and live with the man she loved.

She diminished, from sea-goddess of bream and wave, to mere woman of hearth and home. In return, she asked her husband for one thing only, that he not gaze upon her or his newborn child, whenever she gave birth, and that he give her one day in which to be alone with the child on that day. He consented, dazzled with her beauty and drunk with her love. They lived many happy years together, and were blessed with two daughters. One day, the man’s brothers and father asked him why his wife wanted this time alone and what sorcery she was performing on their children. The man became suspicious and fearful, distrustful of his wife, he broke his word, and hid in their chamber, while his wife was giving birth in another one. After the birth, his wife came back into the room with the child and started bathing her while giving her all the ocean-wide magic of the water.

The man gasped, and she turned with tears in her eyes, knowing that their life together had ended. For he had betrayed her. He had broke his word and put others before his own true love.

The mermaid kissed her husband one last time, donned her scaly tail and went back to her watery home, leaving with her three daughters forever.

Time passed and her youngest daughter, Melusina, began to question her parentage. Melusina was a half-goddess, mermaid while in the water, human maiden when she was dry. She was 15 years old, curious and bold, with a hundred questions. Pestering her mother until she told her the story of her father’s betrayal. Enraged at the falsity of this beast called man, whom she had never seen in her life, Melusina went to find her father. She spied him napping beneath a tree, bound and gagged him and took him prisoner. She wanted to make him pay for betraying her mother, for making her so lonely and sad throughout the last years, and for being a human man, and so different from his own daughters. She took him to a sea-cave, tied him to a stalagmite, and left him there while the tide came in, and the sea swirled angry and foamy around him.

After the deed was done, she went  back to her mother and told her that the man who had betrayed her, the man who had left her broken-hearted and alone, had been punished. Melusina expected her mother to be pleased, what she did not expect was that her mother still loved her father. The ocean goddess’s wrath was indomitably, her anger unstoppable. In her sorrow and rage, she punished Melusina casting her out of the sea. With flashing eyes, she cursed her:

‘As I was betrayed by the thing I loved most, so shall you be. Your scales and power will diminish and you will try to escape from your human skin in vain. Only on moonless nights will you be able to be your true self. But beware, should anyone born of mortal woman see you in this guise, your body shall be ripped from you forever, and you will see only Death’.

Alone and afraid, Melusina wandered around the wild forest, weak with hunger. Her face full of tears, her white feet bleeding and hurting, she finally found a lake where she rested and bathed in the light of the stars. The Duke of Poitou, who was riding home with his men, had stopped by the lake to drink, and saw the beautiful girl, naked and singing, glorious in her beauty, lounging amidst the fireflies.

Entranced, he asked her to go back home with him and become his wife. Alone in a strange world, Melusina accepted, knowing she would need someone’s protection and a place to sleep, even though she distrusted all men. Like her mother before her, she asked the human Lord for one thing only, that once every month, on the dark of the moon, he would leave her alone to bathe and be in solitude, and like her father had done, he also accepted.

The years passed, as years will, and Melusina gave her Duke many sons. Unfortunately, all her sons had scales, fish eyes, or gills. They were all deformed, and thus the Duke was never really happy. He could not understand his wife, who walked slowly and stared off into the distance as though at another world. He could not hear what she heard, or see what she saw. Her eyes were beautiful and enigmatic, full of mystery and pain he could not comprehend. In time, he became obsessed with the idea that his wife had a secret lover, whom she met at the dark of the moon. One night, when the moon was hidden, he hid behind a tapestry and saw his wife in her bath, her long irridescent tail glistening in the candle light, while she combed her long luxurious hair. Aghast, disgusted and horrified, he did not make a sound, until he could get away. A day later, news came that his youngest brother had been killed. While he was grieving, his wife went to comfort him and in anger and pain, he blamed her, shouting in front of everyone ‘It is your fault you demon! You serpent! You corrupted my sons with your blood and now even my brother is lost to me’. Melusina, deathly white, fell in a cold faint.

When she came to her senses, her husband was sorry he had said those words. Sorry he had betrayed his love and been so cruel. Sorry he had said anything at all – but by then it was too late. Melusina’s raging watery nature broke forth from its cage until it consumed her. Her scales took over her whole body, the colors so blinding, that no one could look directly at her, until finally her body was consumed in agony. Her lamentations and screams could be heard all over the kingdom, and her husband qualied then, knowing that her blood would forever flow in the veins of his descendants.

When, on his deathbed, he anointed Melusina’s first son, the son with the mismatched eyes and webbed fingers, as his heir, the whole castle heard the mysterious disembodied wailing of Melusina, cursing and crying out, testament of the betrayal and fickleness of men. When, years later, the son died, leaving everything to his son after him, the same wailing could be heard. Throughout the years, each time a son of Melusina’s was about to die, the whole of Lusignan, whom in his youth its Duke had named after his beloved wife, rang with the agony and loss of the mother of the line. As it still does. As it always will.

Such is the curse which comes from betrayal.