Dark Brew

Happy Halloween!!!

For Halloween I'm going to be a reclusive anti-establishment free thinker hiding out in the woods with a pit bull and a black cat, far from the evil world. Maybe cook over some sterno. Spam that is… pass the moonshine. Yeehaw.

Tomorrow begins November, my birth month. I love that my month begins with a day celebrating the dead. It just seems apropos. Here in the Northwet November is beginning as it should, with rain. Lots of rain. Gonna rain straight on into next weekend. I love that too. I like the sense of... hmmm... expectant melancholy that my month brings. It's as if the soul (or maybe it's just my soul) begins to acknowledge the long dark days ahead, nods with a sigh, and takes a plunge into the deep darkness knowing full well that the imagination will take over, making the things that go bump in the night take on new, more lurid qualities. I love that. I'm never so creatively and spiritually extant as I am in the winter months.

Before the dawn of electricity most artists would only paint during the day. However, there were some who (I'm guessing it's partly because they just couldn't shut off the flow) would paint at night by candlelight. You can tell the difference. The paintings done at night have richer, deeper tones and slightly more ethereal qualities. They're lush and as inviting as a whispered conversation behind a closed door - as if they're revealing something we weren't supposed to see. That's the darkness I love.

I don't recall ever having been afraid of the night. I welcome the dark, the bumps in the night, the silent mutter of shadowy things as they play just out of sight, the sideways turn of my imagination, the quiet whisper of stillness. Don't be creeped out... come on down here and sit with me for a bit... shhh... it's not to be afraid of. This is an opulent place; let it take you where it will.