It is really frightening for me, poor little Protestant that I am, to discover yet another way in which I am attracted to Byzantine spirituality. Little did I know that after years of observing the Feast of the Great Pumpkin in solitary devotion that I would discover here, on this forum, my brothers and sisters in the true faith. It is really too much for my poor brain to take in- I need a long rest with a slice of pumpkin pie and pumpkin carols playing softly to soothe my troubled soul.
BTW, I use canned pumpkin because of the heart rending scene in ITGP,CB when Lucy delightedly cuts into a pumpkin and Linus moans "I didn't know you were going to kill it." Perhaps, by using only mass produced canned pumpkin I am saving the life of a sincere pumpkin from a sincere pumpkin patch.
Yours truly
Michele

Reminds me of someone who was constantly bombarding her friends with samples of the ethnic cuisine of a country which will here be nameless. The stuff all tasted like library paste.

Finally one day, she appeared with some fresh candies, home-made (she proudly informed us) from organic yams. Someone else in the gang responded by saying: "ah, you shouldn't have killed a whole yam just for me"!

Incognitus

Here's a pre-festal prosomion:

Pumpkin days are here again!
Hallowe'en is drawing near again!
The pumpkin patch - sincere again!
Great Pumpkin soon will rise!

Incognitus

See this is why the celebration of the Great Pumpkin is a USA influence and not a latinization.

Mystifying carols are sung in a very isolated boroughs in Pike, Carbon, Wyoming, and Sullivan Counties. I think they may still have the hymns performed at a mini-concert somewhere in Sullivan County.

Pyrhohý's example of the carols still being used in certain counties raises the potentially interesting question of whether the devotion to the Great Pumpkin has Gnostic roots. I was reminded only today that in certain European societies a similar phenomenon can be observed involving a turnip (since pumpkins were not traditionally grown in those societies).

Then there is the matter of morals - the supermarket today had a large display, with a conspicuous sign announcing "loose pumpkins". What sort of message is that for impressionable young people?

Incognitus

As the night of the Great and Holy Pumpkin approaches I would like to wish all of our readers my very best wishes. I hope everyone has access to a pumpkin patch that is most sincere.

I had an e-mail at the website yesterday asking me about fasting regulations for today. The typicon I consulted was silent on the issue, so I recommend abstinence from any food contain pumpkin….