Getting Close to our Roots on Halloween

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In my lifetime, Halloween has always been a lighthearted unofficial holiday of costumes, candy, horror movies, and the inchoate thrill of tame fright. Our children dress like vampires or ballerinas, we decorate our offices with faux spiderwebs and plastic skeletons, and we enjoy a safe touch of fear of imaginary creatures in the night.

Our ancestors lived in a different world: one where wolves roamed the European forests (or the American forests on my dad’s side), where sudden illness could take your child or spouse in a day, where vengeful spirits of the dark required placation. Halloween’s roots come from ancient Celtic sacrifices to spirits to ward off ill fortune.

Now, with the rampant fear of anthrax, of terrorists attacking malls, of the possibility of even more grueaome diseases to be visited upon us with no way to avoid possible contagion or destruction, we can understand how our remote ancestors genuinely feared the night and the spirits of disease and death.

2

An astute observation, gobear. I vote we round up all those people causing this fear and use them in a Celtic sacrifice ritual.

3

What’s important to remember on Hallowen is that it is a holiday that ultimately celebrates survival, of life triumphing over death, of light conquering darkness, as we will eventually conquer the darkness we are passing through these days. Have a Happy Halloween.