Seasonal decorations! Finally! 🍁🍂🍁 And my Besom...

I finally got all my decorations, and put them up!!!   Actually, they all fit in 2 ordinary paper grocery shopping bags.   I have really culled my decorations, and it's a good thing.

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This photo is looking into the Hearth Room, to the right.  If you "stepped back," you would see my comfy chair.

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This is the all-year-long white faerie lights, on the mirror over the couch.  With seasonal purple faerie lights added.  Kind of crazy, but.......   ~grin~

 

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Moving farther into the Hearth Room, we see the mantle, covered with decorations!!!  I still have to put candy corn into the bottom of the canning jar lamp, on the right up there.   🎃✨🎃   The *big* candy corn lights, I have had for years!  Used to have 2 strings.  I love them.  But don't have a place for them.   So I drape them over the old rocking chair.  ~smile~

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Look more closely, between the  fireplace and the rocking chair....   ANNIE... There is my besom...!   ~smile~  Handmade for me, and 'standing' on a chunk of very, very old European wood. 

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So, what is a Besom? you might well ask.   It looks like an old fashioned broom.   But with a slightly crooked handle/staff.   And thin branches of birch for the bristle part.  Bound with willow and heavy cord.

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It is associated with the completely false idea, the witches fly on their brooms.  ~sigh, sigh, sigh~  Sooo stupid!   

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What do we do with regular brooms?   We sweep dirt and dust, out of our homes.   

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What can a Besom be used for?   Not to really sweep.   But as something tangible, to stand for... ridding our homes of negative feelings, of anger, of sadness, of sickness, of any/all "bad" feelings, etc.   

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Because humans love to have tangible symbols of so many things.   We blow out candles, to make a Birthday 'real.'  We hang stockings on the mantle on Christmas Eve.   On 4th of July, we have a barbecue with hot dogs and hamburgers.  And fly the Flag.  Etc.

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The Besom on a hearth, can symbolize, often ridding our homes, of bad feelings, and not letting them linger.

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I keep mine, with bristles up, because it is not a "real" broom, to sweep dirt.    It is a lovely symbol.

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Now again, this is my interpretation of a Besom.   

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"October proved a riot,

a riot to the senses

and climaxed those giddy last weeks

before Halloween."

~Keith Donohue

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