Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts lived over 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.

Celts thought that the presence of these spirits caused trouble and damaged their crops. This time of year, they would turn to their priests who were beleived to make predictions about the future. With winter coming, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction.

To commemorate the event, priests built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes.

When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the fast approaching winter.

Hi everyone, happy Friday! Today I want to make you all giggle a little, and remind you to embrace everything that is you.

I always knew that my dad was color blind; he could see colors, he just had trouble with specific shades. For instance, he could see the color blue and know that it was blue but if we put the color purple in front of him, it was foreign to him… He would tell us that the color was blue or pink but he would never say “purple”.

When I was in junior high, maybe 13 years old, I got yelled at by my teacher for not following directions during an assignment. We were learning about the human heart and were told to color specific features blue and red. I was so confused, I followed directions and listened, my colored heart looked the same as everyone else’s, why was I being yelled at in front of everyone?! It turned out my heart was purple and red…. This is how I found out that I’m color blind! The diagnosis came completely out of the purple. LOL!

This really upset me initially, I felt dumb… I thought “wow, I’m like a child, I don’t know my colors”. I literally practiced my purple shades but obviously to no avail. However, I found out as many as 8 percent of men and 0.5 percent of women with Northern European ancestry have the common form of red-green color deficiency, so I’m not as alone as I initially thought!

Today I still think being color blind is a pain in the butt but it’s what makes me unique! We all have our things and we should learn to accept them, since they’re what make us, well, us!