Grief in an age of indifference

A neepie lantern (turnip jack-o’-lantern) I carved last year.

I’ll be honest, Halloween, Samhain, and Allhallowtide have been harder these last few years. In addition to not being able to go anywhere because we live in hell and our official public health policy is “be a Gothic Romance love interest and never leave the house again or die, no one cares, you’re expendable”, the staggering amount of death and loss around us is more than I know how to process, be it intentional plague-spreading, war, genocide, or whatever other bullshit we’ve thought up. So yesterday I couldn’t find it in me to put on a costume and watch a spooky movie or light a candle and acknowledge the dead. I just laid there in a low energy lump listening to an audiobook. I was numb in my grief and too tired to keep grieving or keening or screaming when I know it will never be enough and probably go unheard. I cannot hold the world’s sorrow when too many others won’t hold themselves accountable for any of the reasons that grief and sorrow exists but then turn around and demand either performative happiness or emotional labor to comfort *them* for the things they did and continue to do. Because the grief and fear and guilt we refuse to feel goes somewhere and if we don’t unpack it, it will become our children’s baggage and their children’s and theirs and no amount of book bans will hide our sins from them or spare us their fury when the reckoning finally comes.

A Poem for Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow

I wrote this one year ago today on Armistice Day. It’s been gathering metaphorical dust in the computer since, as my focus has been more on my health, other personal matters, and our current dystopia this year than poetry submissions. Thus, I decided I might as well share it here for you fine folks and what better day than today? I didn’t set out to write this poem. It just kind of tumbled out, likely after listening to “The Green Fields of France”, “Christmas in the Trenches”, and “Zombie” one too many times. (If you haven’t heard the modernized version of “Zombie” for the 21st century, go listen to it now.)

Entering the Dark Half of the Year in Dark and Difficult Times

[A candle in a teal lantern on the windowsill burns against the darkness and backlights the silhouette of a small pumpkin as two dala horses cast shadows]

I don’t have the words tonight, with so much death, hate, and sorrow weighing on the world, but, especially in such a dark time, I want to honor and acknowledge those beyond the veil, be they at peace, searching for something before they can move on, or hungry for justice and a reckoning for the wrongs history has yet to right or is all too eager to commit again.

Samhain: Summer’s End

Hope you all had a great Halloween, whether you partied, passed out candy, binged Stranger Things, went to a haunted house or a ghost tour, marched in a Halloween parade, danced in the grove, or spent a quiet night at home. And who says the fun has to be over? You can curl up with a spine-tingling tale of the ghostly and the Gothic long after all the candy has been eaten and the zombie make-up has been washed away. Halloween may be over, but the dark half of the year is here to stay and it brings with it no shortage of superstitions or the supernatural.

In-Betweens, Thin Veils, and a Ghost Story or Two

The infirmary at Canterbury Shaker Village, Canterbury NH, photo by Shannon Barnsley, October 2012.

“It was Gate Night, the night before All Hallows’ Eve. Distant memories of the old stories nagged at me. During All Hallows’ Eve the veil between the world of the living and the word beyond was lifted. Our world and their world all blurred together like ink running on a page in my old primer when we schoolgirls would try to run home in the rain, shrieking and splashing up mud all the way.”

– Shannon Barnsley, Beneath Blair Mountain

Gate Night: The Veil Grows Thin

The fairies be out that night and they would take you away with them if you were out at that evil time. It is also said that the devil shakes his budges [fur] on the haws and turns them black and according to the old people if you eat a haw after Hallow Eve night you will have no luck (qtd in “Halloween in Irish Folklore”).

Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Society

It’s that time of year again. There’s a chill in the air, a draft in the house, and needles prickling at the back of your neck. So curl up with a good ghost story.

Persephone, Lara Rae, and Other Lost Girls of the Underworld

Much like Persephone from Greek mythology, Lara Rae Brecken, the main character of Beneath Blair Mountain, finds herself trapped in the underworld after wandering through a crack between worlds one cold October night. Irish mythology was at the forefront when I wrote this tale, but I consciously had Persephone and other analogous tales and figures in mind.

Gate Night Storytime

“It was Gate Night, the night before All Hallows’ Eve. Distant memories of the old stories nagged at me. During All Hallows’ Eve the veil between the world of the living and the word beyond was lifted. Our world and their world all blurred together like ink running on a page in my old primer when we schoolgirls would try to run home in the rain, shrieking and splashing up mud all the way.” 

–Beneath Blair Mountain

A mix of folklore from the Old and New World, Beneath Blair Mountain makes a great read for Halloween, Samhain, or Día de Los Muertos. Find it on Amazon and Goodreads.

Beneath Blair Mountain (Coming Soon!)

Cover art by Mariya Suzuki

So, as you may know from my last post, my novella, Beneath Blair Mountain, is being published as part of the Summer Writing Project 2015 Collection. The Summer Writing Project is an annual joint venture between 1888 and JukePop, which you can read more about in the link above (or here and here). And isn’t that a damn fine cover? Mariya Suzuki did a fantastic job on all three books in the collection, but I do admit to being slightly biased. Just look at those mountains! If those can’t spirit you away into the pages, the fey folk might as well pack up and go home.