The October moon casts blurred shadows under the trees’ bare branches. Fog drifts eerily over the grass and weaves between the trees. Then the mist slowly parts, revealing…
A homicidal maniac in a hockey mask?
A chainsaw-toting killer?
A tooth-bared zombie shuffling toward you…
Stop. Just stop.
Real life is awful enough these days. I can’t bear a holiday that celebrates a gore-fest of horror. A haunted house decorated with ghastly dismembered bodies isn’t scary, it’s just disgusting. What’s scary is a haunted house with a cobweb-draped door that opens into a mysterious hallway…
Let’s reclaim the shadows. Let’s turn away from chainsaws and blood-spatterings, and turn towards the quiet evenings at this darkest and most mysterious of holidays.
Halloween is an ancient festival–perhaps the most ancient one of all. Ironically, the celebration long pre-dates its own name. All Hallow’s Eve, the eve of All Saints Day, only goes back as far as the early days of Christianity, a mere two thousand years or so. Halloween’s roots sink far deeper into time.
All over the world, long into prehistoric ages, humans have shared this season of shortening days and looming shadows. A time of fear, certainly. Is the sun dying? Will the cold be endless? But it’s also a season to slow down, to withdraw into oneself, to breathe deeply. In a word, to hibernate.
Let’s turn off the horror movies and wander through the ancient realm of Hallow’s Eve. What goes on Halloween night? Why are scarecrows so, well, scary? And what’s up with the pumpkins—how has an ordinary vegetable, once raised as cow fodder, become the symbol of a holiday industry that makes billions for purveyors of Halloween junk made in China.
The October moon casts blurred shadows under the trees’ bare branches. Fog drifts eerily over the grass and weaves between the trees. Then the mist slowly parts, revealing…
…a will-o-the-wisp, a glowing misty shape. The wavering light seems to beckon you forward into the shadows under the trees. Lantern in hand, let us follow…
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Totally agree. I have always liked the black cats and pumpkins and spookiness of Halloween…don’t know when it morphed into gore galore. Time to reclaim its ancient origins!
Beautifully written. And remember, the early Christians prohibited the wearing of masks and other Halloween traditions that we know today. I think it was because they were related to the earlier Pagan holidays of Samhain, etc. There is a long history of pre-Christian mask and revelry at the waning of the autumn days, which had everything to do with communion with one’s ancestors and the thin veil between this life and the afterlife. You’re welcome to fact-check me, Anita or anyone else!