Catherine Greenfeder

Category: My Books

Total 16 Posts

All Hallow’s Eve, Halloween, a Time of Remembrances

By • October 31, 2024

Halloween, a Time of Remembrances

 

The leaves become a patchwork of green, crimson, orange, yellow, and brown; a brisk breeze stirs a few to the ground to be crunched under foot as I traverse through the park with my dog.  

 

 

Grinning pumpkins line porches, nearby potted mums shimmer gold or orange, and towering plastic skeletons hover over lawns. There’s always that one neighbor who competes for the gaudiest or most gruesome display with several skeletal creatures, some even dressed up or black robed mechanical witches with pointy hats and brooms, and cloth ghosts suspended from the branches of trees.

Night time brings out the vibes of the season. As darkness descends, orange, green, and yellow lights flash on. So does ephemeral  music. Electronically created howls, shrieks, cackling, or disembodied whispers break the silence. 

Ancient Tradition of All Hallow’s Eve

Halloween, a time of pretending, a time of remembering other times, and a time that has an interesting history, one not far removed from today’s traditions of wearing costumes, trick-or-treating, and telling spooky or horrific stories.

It echoes back to centuries ago with Celtic roots coming from the ancient  Irish and Scottish spiritual tradition called Samhain, pronounced sow-win, which for an agricultural society meant to welcome in the harvest and mark the start of the dark days of winter.  Generally Samhain is celebrated from October 31 to November 1. 

Trick-o-Treating

The tradition of wearing costumes on Halloween comes from the Irish tradition of mumming where participants put on costumes and went door-to-door singing songs of the dead.. There’d been the belief that faeries could play tricks on the unwary so it was best to provide the treat or you might be tricked. Treats were given in the form of cakes, also called soul-cakes which are like cookies. The notion of trick-or-treating stems from these earlier traditions, but today we hand out candy instead of soul cakes, and the tricks which might be played could include smashed pumpkins, toilet paper on one’s lawn, raw eggs thrown, or other nasty tricks. 

Pumpkins

Pumpkins are a symbol for Halloween which stems from the earlier Celts. In Ireland, for example, it was common to carve turnips and put candles into them to ward off evil spirits. The legend of Jack-o-Lantern comes from the Irish story of a man named Stingy Jack who tricked the devil. The devil had given Jack a burning coal which Jack put into a carved-up turnip. The Irish called it the Jack O’Lantern, and when both the Irish and the Scottish immigrated to America they brought this tradition with them. However, they switched to pumpkins because it was easier to carve up than a turnip.

Ghosts 

In the spiritual tradition of the ancient Celts there is the belief that the barriers between the physical world and the spiritual world break down. The notion of ghostly apparitions and contact with the departed is supposed to be strongest at this time of year. Hence, the use of divination in the form of card reading, seances, and spirit contact of some form.

In earlier times and still today in parts of Great Britain and Ireland, bonfires are lit and there’s the belief of communion with the dead on October 31.

Witches

Wicca, a pagan religion,celebrates Samhain as the passing of the old year and beginning of the new. It is a celebration of the harvest and is considered one of the most important Sabbats for Wicca. A few ways that this is celebrated is by lighting bonfires or candles if you can’t build  a bonfire and calling out to the dead, telling stories about departed loved ones or spooky stories, a silent supper with an empty chair left out for the spirit of the departed, and placing apples and pomegranates before the photos of the departed loved ones.

Apples are associated with death, and pomegranates with life. That’s interesting in several ways. We’re often told that an apple a day keeps the doctor away; the apple is considered the forbidden fruit as it represented wisdom in the Book of Genesis and has been given to teachers who impart wisdom. Some mythologies interpret apples as life giving. The pomegranate is considered the fruit of life because of its many seeds, and in ancient Greek mythology it represents eternal life. An interesting connection to Halloween is the use of apples at the party game of bobbing for apples. Candied apples, cider donuts, and apple cider are found at a lot of farm stands and in grocery stores during the autumn season. 

Wearing Orange and Black?

The traditional colors worn on Halloween are orange and black. Orange is considered a Fall color and representative of the harvest, and it is the typical color of pumpkins. Black is typically symbolic of darkness and since Halloween celebrations generally commence at night, it has become a symbolic color for Halloween. The color purple, one of my favorite colors, is also symbolic of Halloween as purple represents mystery and magic.

Writing and Halloween

Two of my young adult novels, A Kiss Out of Time and its sequel A Dance Out of Time, are about hauntings in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, a place I love to visit.

My current fiction writing is a young adult paranormal with elements of magic as a teenage witch is learning how to responsibly use her powers in dealing with the trouble makers at school.

Halloween is my favorite holiday for many reasons, not the least of which is the storytelling and the dressing up. I think it goes back to my own Celtic roots.

 

Happy Halloween! Happy Samhain!

Reference Sources:

https://hero-magazine.com/article/159423/a-witchs-guide-to-celebrating-halloween

https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/samhain

 

Art and the Writer

By • January 16, 2024
Edouard Manet’s “Boating” featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
“Plum Brandy” by Edouard Manet featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think that my earliest memory of art originated as a young child in New York’s Greenwich Village during the Sixties. I loved the scent of the Crayola crayons and paper my first grade teacher put out for us, and later on, I enjoyed working with poster paint on large sheets of paper. My father sometimes took me to the art show in Washington Square Park. Although I didn’t understand some of the pop art I viewed or the quick portraits in charcoal or pencil done by local artists, I felt the vibrancy. At age seven I attended a pottery school in the neighborhood. The moment I walked into the pottery studio, I inhaled the earthy smell of the clay and enjoyed using my hands to shape it into some object.

In high school, I took an art major elective when I was able to. My art teacher, Mrs. Rose, headed the art department and believed in my abilities. She even suggested that I attend an art school after graduation. However, I decided to go to St. John’s University where I majored in English and took classes in creative writing, literature, and communication. After graduation, I worked in advertising, public relations, and much later as an English teacher. I continued to enjoy viewing art and dabbling in creating it from time to time.

I also visit art museums when I travel. These included the Museo Nacional del Prada in Madrid, the Louvre in Paris, and both the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum  in Amsterdam. I’ve enjoyed viewing western art at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma (temporarily closed for construction), the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. However, my two favorite art museums remain New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art or MOMA.

As a hobby when I was a young mother, I created stained glass at the Glass Gallery Stained Glass Studio in Nutley, making stained glass panels, lamp shades, trinket boxes, and kitchen items. I used patterns and enjoyed picking out the various colors and textures of the glass for the creations.

 

I took art classes in drawing, pastels, and watercolor in the evening at the adult ed. program in a local high school. Pat, the instructor and a professional artist, taught me a great deal and provided a lot of information from the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. It’s all in how you look at things. Focus on the negative space, rather than the subject matter. She even invited some students to her home to do watercolor paintings and sketches of her garden. Unfortunately, the adult ed. program got cut along with other school programs because of budget cuts.

In the last few years, I returned to art classes at the Montclair Art Museum and at the Montclair Institute for Lifelong Learning and learned a lot more about how to see things as an artist, techniques for both drawing and painting, and learning to loosen up and enjoy the process. I’ve studied under an excellent instructor, Karen, who encouraged me and other students to keep on keeping on and learning. A couple of my art pieces even ended up in an art gallery and as postcards in a museum shop.

Chickadees in winter was made using watercolor, fine markers, and plastic wrap to create texture.
A collage for Fall which I made using Yupo paper and watercolor paint.

Art compliments my writing. In learning how to see things, taking note of details that I might have overlooked, such as the colors in the leaves, the patterns in a seashell, the reflection of the sun on water, I’m paying attention to a lot more. I can bring the visuals into my writing.

It’s no coincidence that in three of my five published books, A Kiss Out of Time, A Dance Out of Time, and Angels Among Us, my main character is an artist. Art provides what words cannot.

My birds on a bough is unrealistic but was fun to paint in watercolor.
This is a watercolor I painted based on a photo. I enjoyed using napkins and cotton balls for texture.
My still life in watercolor based on a photo of jars of jam and jelly.

By • December 12, 2023

I Believe in Angels

By Cathy Greenfeder

Where did my fondness for angels come from? Partly from my early years at a parochial school where the nuns taught about them and I saw the statues of angels in the church. I had also received pictures of guardian angels on prayer cards and learned the prayer to guardian angels along with the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary”.

As a child inflicted with severe bronchial asthma where each breath took tremendous effort, I held those prayer cards like a beloved teddy bear close to my chest as I lay beneath a pile of blankets inhaling the scent of Vicks vapor rub steamed into the air in the dead of winter.

Once, perhaps in a state of delirium from the medication I’d been given, I imagined my guardian angel standing by my bedpost, glowing and smiling down at me.

“Hello,” I managed to say. She smiled in response, and that somehow filled me with relief and aided my recovery better than the medications given to me at the time.

As a parochial school student you had to be at church every Sunday and holy day of obligation. You had to be with your class, and attendance was taken. Unlike some other children I knew back then, I enjoyed going. I found it comforting. Once  I attended twice. My mother asked, “Why are you going back to church?”

“I forgot to take her?”

“Who?”

“My guardian angel! I forgot to take her. So, I’m going back with her to church.”

“Can’t she fly there?” 

I didn’t laugh because to me the guardian angel and all the angels were real sources of protection and perhaps to a lonely child that I had been then, a companion who’d never leave me. I used to picture my guardian angel, dressed in long white robes and glittering wings, walking with me and guarding me wherever I went in our Manhattan neighborhood.

In the second grade Christmas pageant at my parochial school I played the role of the archangel who announced the birth of Jesus to the Wise Men. It didn’t matter if Gabriel was considered male, I wore a pink costume. My mother made it from a soft, pink fabric. She also made my wings from foil covered wire hangers and used silver tinsel to make my halo.

The fact that my mother who worked hard all day made my costume meant a lot to me, as was being part of the school Christmas pageant.

Later in life, I had experiences which enhanced my belief in the angels.

A near drowning at Davy’s Lake, a man-made lake in New Jersey, when I was about ten was one. I didn’t know how to swim, so I tried to stay close to the shoreline. However, I grew bold and ventured out further. A voice warned me not to step too far out, and when my foot felt a slippery dip in the ground, I managed to move back to the shallows.

As an adult, I remember driving home late one night. I’d been about to change lanes, but I heard a voice telling me to wait. I did. At that moment, a car whose driver was doing well above the speed limit passed me in the lane I would have entered.

There have been other times. Some may call it coincidence. Some may call it intuition. I call it the work of angels.

This inspired my reading and my research, and subsequently my writing of my first published book Angels Among Us, where a psychic artist encounters her guardian angel who saves her from danger and helps her heal from a broken heart.

I’m grateful for my own guardian angels. I believe we might have more than one. I do believe that in these times especially, our angels are here to work with us, to guide us, and to listen to us, and as messengers to intercede on our behalf.

Prayer to Your Guardian Angel

Angel of God, my guardian dear,

to whom God’s love commits me here,

ever this day be at my side,

to light and guard, to rule and guide.

Amen.

Meet the Author

Catherine Greenfeder

Catherine Greenfeder

Romance Novelist

My Books

Wildflowers

Angels Among Us

Sacred Fires

A Kiss Out of Time, a Georginas Ghost Story

A Dance Out of Time, a Georginas Ghost Story

© 2025 Catherine Greenfeder.  All Right Reserved.