Over the last few days, since arriving back from filming, we've been busy preparing our land for our horses. It's been long days of gathering all the old dead sumac and putting in into burn piles. Thus we found ourselves, on All Hallow's Eve, sitting around a balefire as the near-full moon rose over the trees.

We had baked some potatoes in the coals, and were passing a bottle of wine back and forth as night fell around us. Sitting there, we felt like we were in another world.

                                                                         The Halloween moon reminded us of lycanthropes and goblins . . .
"I'm glad you're not afraid of the dark," I said to Rebecca.

"But I am," she replied.

This is one of the things I appreciate most about Rebecca, and it's a quality I admire in anyone who possesses it. It's the ability to see the object of one's fears and walk into its midst. Fear can be useful -- it keeps our risk-taking behavior in check. Yet when fear prevents  us from experiencing some aspect of life that we wish we could enjoy . . .

Delving into your fears can be exciting. I can understand Rebecca's fear of the night, since I've felt it myself. Indeed, few humans venture out into the woodlands these days without bringing 'day' along with in the form of flashlights. Though it might make our hearts beat a bit faster, Rebecca and I both love walking out over the hills when the dark cloaks the land. Sounds become louder, and we become audio-based organisms rather than visual-based organisms. Creatures that we'll never be able to identify scamper over the ground, walk through nearby bushes, or fly past on unseen wings. It's an amazing experience, and it's just not the same if you bring a flashlight along to accommodate your fears.

The truth is, when you look at fear like this, it ceases to become fear. Instead, it becomes excitement and passion.

As the fire crackled, I could tell that Rebecca was enjoying every moment of this experience. She might say that she's afraid of the night, but I don't think she is. Rather, she's inspired and empowered by the night, and in the firelight, her eyes looked wild and alive.

We watched the moon crest the trees and flood the forest with silver as we took one last sip from our wine. Then we wandered up to clean the day's dirt, sweat, and blood from our flesh. In the world around us, there were no cars, no cities, no electricity. For a moment, we were living in a world that was older, and perhaps more pure. It might have been the wine, or it might have been the Samhain magic in the air, but as we walked through the silvery dark, the boundaries between the worlds seemed very thin.

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