{"id":2111,"date":"2010-10-28T18:43:19","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T18:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html"},"modified":"2010-10-28T18:43:19","modified_gmt":"2010-10-28T18:43:19","slug":"punkie-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html","title":{"rendered":"Punkie night!"},"content":{"rendered":"<form mt:asset-id=\"18873\" class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"pumpkin.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/pumpkin.jpg\" width=\"314\" height=\"210\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left; margin: 0 20px 20px 0;\" \/><\/form>\n<p>Beth Owl&#8217;s Daughter reminds us that tonight is &#8220;Punkie Night,&#8221; an ancient celebration from Somerset England which is celebrated by the carving of pumpkin-like mangolds.   Beth writes, &#8220;Throughout Somerset, locals use the term &#8220;spunky&#8221; to refer to Will-o-the-Wisps &#8212; a ball of light seen at night rising up from a marsh or bog.&#8221;  In Christianized England these &#8220;spunkies&#8221; were thought to be the souls of unbaptized children who wandered eternally through the night, but the pagans saw spunkies as being trickster sprites; the carved and lit pumpkins were meant to turn the tables and trick the spunkies.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I don&#8217;t know what it is about Somerset and adjacent Wiltshire: these magical places are the sites not only of Avebury and Stonehenge, but also of most of the world&#8217;s crop circles. In any case, modern day &#8220;spunkies,&#8221; called &#8220;orbs,&#8221; are frequently found in new crop circles and there is much speculation about the nature of these balls of light.  Are they UFOs?  Are they conscious beings?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll be writing more about Samhain which is celebrated by contemporary pagans in lieu of Hallowe&#8217;en on October 31st; the actual astrological date of Samhain is when the Sun reaches 15 degrees Scorpio which this year will be on November 7th.<embed style=\"width:400px; height:326px;\" id=\"VideoPlayback\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/video.google.com\/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3167855518747713346&amp;hl=en-AU\" flashvars=\"\"> <\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beth Owl&#8217;s Daughter reminds us that tonight is &#8220;Punkie Night,&#8221; an ancient celebration from Somerset England which is celebrated by the carving of pumpkin-like mangolds. Beth writes, &#8220;Throughout Somerset, locals use the term &#8220;spunky&#8221; to refer to Will-o-the-Wisps &#8212; a ball of light seen at night rising up from a marsh or bog.&#8221; In Christianized&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holidays"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Punkie night! - Astrological Musings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Punkie night! - Astrological Musings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Beth Owl&#8217;s Daughter reminds us that tonight is &#8220;Punkie Night,&#8221; an ancient celebration from Somerset England which is celebrated by the carving of pumpkin-like mangolds. Beth writes, &#8220;Throughout Somerset, locals use the term &#8220;spunky&#8221; to refer to Will-o-the-Wisps &#8212; a ball of light seen at night rising up from a marsh or bog.&#8221; In Christianized&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Astrological Musings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-28T18:43:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/astrologicalmusings\/pumpkin.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lynn Hayes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Punkie night! - Astrological Musings","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Punkie night! - Astrological Musings","og_description":"Beth Owl&#8217;s Daughter reminds us that tonight is &#8220;Punkie Night,&#8221; an ancient celebration from Somerset England which is celebrated by the carving of pumpkin-like mangolds. Beth writes, &#8220;Throughout Somerset, locals use the term &#8220;spunky&#8221; to refer to Will-o-the-Wisps &#8212; a ball of light seen at night rising up from a marsh or bog.&#8221; In Christianized&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html","og_site_name":"Astrological Musings","article_published_time":"2010-10-28T18:43:19+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/astrologicalmusings\/pumpkin.jpg"}],"author":"Lynn Hayes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html","name":"Punkie night! - Astrological Musings","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/astrologicalmusings\/pumpkin.jpg","datePublished":"2010-10-28T18:43:19+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-28T18:43:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/#\/schema\/person\/0267afd41b8c0ee7204a5063b003a35f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/astrologicalmusings\/pumpkin.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/astrologicalmusings\/pumpkin.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2010\/10\/punkie-night.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Punkie night!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/","name":"Astrological Musings","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Lynn Hayes","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/#\/schema\/person\/0267afd41b8c0ee7204a5063b003a35f","name":"Lynn Hayes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d66\/d66c632862817d88a0ce2af3a36c4050x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d66\/d66c632862817d88a0ce2af3a36c4050x96.jpg","caption":"Lynn Hayes"},"description":"Lynn Hayes has been a practising astrological consultant in beautiful North Carolina for over 25 years, working with clients all over the world both in person and by phone. 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