It is 6 days till Halloween. Now that I have an 18 month old daughter, Julia, I find myself looking forward to it nearly as much as I am looking forward to Christmas. In fact, I now look forward to any universally celebrated occasion that has these two criteria: a non-working holiday and it is child-friendly.
Halloween hasn’t always been called that way to me. It had always been All Souls’ day and All Saints' day (and I wasn’t sure which one was Halloween. I later learned Halloween comes from the word All-hallow-even, which means the eve of “All Hallow’s Day”, which is also known as All Saints' Day.) And I have always celebrated it as such – in remembrance of the souls in purgatory and the saints in heaven. I saw it as a religious ritual and if not for the fact that it is a holiday, I get to play with candles while watching over the dead love ones tombs and have a chance to visit (and get visited) by friends in the cemetery, I wouldn’t have liked it much as a child.
Halloween feels like the western and commercial counterpart of All Saints day - and without the saints. While All Saints day reminds me of candles, tombs, cemetery, prayers, vigils, dead relatives and holy masses, Halloween brings up images of the plastic pumpkins, gory plastic masks, Disney costumes, children in malls, candies and anything orange and black. A lot of it had to do with me now living in a metropolitan city, far from home. Having no dead relative tombs to visit and not wanting to be stuck somewhere in the highly populated travel highways, we are at risk of ending up celebrating it the commercial way this year – going to malls, carrying a pumpkin bucket for candies and looking everywhere to see who got the coolest costume. As a new mother, it makes me wonder if this is the way I would "imprint" this tradition in Julia's memories.
I see traditions and rituals to be a time for remembering, for connecting, for celebrating our being a part of humanity. We needed to set special days else we forget, being mostly engrossed with the little things that keep us busy everyday. In Halloween, it is remembering our ancestors, their spirits, and the people who had been once human and had gone on to the other life. It reminds me of the great carpet of life of which I am a thread, the world we live in now and the spirit world we have yet to see. If there’s a small thing I could add on how I’d spend Halloween here in the city, it would be to infuse a touch of history, spirituality and some magic into the occasion. Halloween in certain cultures after all, is believed to be one of the liminal times of the year when spirits can make contact with the physical world, and when magic is most potent.
(Wikipedia defines the liminal state as one characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed - a situation which can lead to new perspectives. People, places, or things may not complete a transition, or a transition between two states may not be fully possible. Those who remain in a state between two other states may become permanently liminal.) "Liminal" is definitely an intriguing word!
I thought I’d write a poem-story, to start a personal tradition, to celebrate the season in a way that maybe our ancestors might have spent each day millions of years ago – storytelling; gathering around a fire and exchanging stories that enriched their imagination and connected their spirits to their past, their present and their future.
The Tree Fairy
Rebekkah looked towards the forest
She feels its pulse; she hears it calling.
She stepped into the night and embraced the shadows,
She knew she was going home.
Darkness enveloped her; she floated towards its heart
Somewhere she saw the image of Silas,
Tied up to a tree, he was in pain.
Begging for his life as he was slowly butchered by strangers.
His bloody hands gripped the tree tightly with each blow,
He called out her name – Rebekkah! as he took his last breath.
Rebekkah felt the tree,
She hears him calling from within.
Her soul yearned for his touch, For her spirit to break free.
She felt her body tingle as a tree branch pricked,
She smiled as it drained her blood
It was part of her now and she was part of Silas.
They, neither here nor there.
Halloween hasn’t always been called that way to me. It had always been All Souls’ day and All Saints' day (and I wasn’t sure which one was Halloween. I later learned Halloween comes from the word All-hallow-even, which means the eve of “All Hallow’s Day”, which is also known as All Saints' Day.) And I have always celebrated it as such – in remembrance of the souls in purgatory and the saints in heaven. I saw it as a religious ritual and if not for the fact that it is a holiday, I get to play with candles while watching over the dead love ones tombs and have a chance to visit (and get visited) by friends in the cemetery, I wouldn’t have liked it much as a child.
Halloween feels like the western and commercial counterpart of All Saints day - and without the saints. While All Saints day reminds me of candles, tombs, cemetery, prayers, vigils, dead relatives and holy masses, Halloween brings up images of the plastic pumpkins, gory plastic masks, Disney costumes, children in malls, candies and anything orange and black. A lot of it had to do with me now living in a metropolitan city, far from home. Having no dead relative tombs to visit and not wanting to be stuck somewhere in the highly populated travel highways, we are at risk of ending up celebrating it the commercial way this year – going to malls, carrying a pumpkin bucket for candies and looking everywhere to see who got the coolest costume. As a new mother, it makes me wonder if this is the way I would "imprint" this tradition in Julia's memories.
I see traditions and rituals to be a time for remembering, for connecting, for celebrating our being a part of humanity. We needed to set special days else we forget, being mostly engrossed with the little things that keep us busy everyday. In Halloween, it is remembering our ancestors, their spirits, and the people who had been once human and had gone on to the other life. It reminds me of the great carpet of life of which I am a thread, the world we live in now and the spirit world we have yet to see. If there’s a small thing I could add on how I’d spend Halloween here in the city, it would be to infuse a touch of history, spirituality and some magic into the occasion. Halloween in certain cultures after all, is believed to be one of the liminal times of the year when spirits can make contact with the physical world, and when magic is most potent.
(Wikipedia defines the liminal state as one characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed - a situation which can lead to new perspectives. People, places, or things may not complete a transition, or a transition between two states may not be fully possible. Those who remain in a state between two other states may become permanently liminal.) "Liminal" is definitely an intriguing word!
I thought I’d write a poem-story, to start a personal tradition, to celebrate the season in a way that maybe our ancestors might have spent each day millions of years ago – storytelling; gathering around a fire and exchanging stories that enriched their imagination and connected their spirits to their past, their present and their future.
The Tree Fairy
Rebekkah looked towards the forest
She feels its pulse; she hears it calling.
She stepped into the night and embraced the shadows,
She knew she was going home.
Darkness enveloped her; she floated towards its heart
Somewhere she saw the image of Silas,
Tied up to a tree, he was in pain.
Begging for his life as he was slowly butchered by strangers.
His bloody hands gripped the tree tightly with each blow,
He called out her name – Rebekkah! as he took his last breath.
Rebekkah felt the tree,
She hears him calling from within.
Her soul yearned for his touch, For her spirit to break free.
She felt her body tingle as a tree branch pricked,
She smiled as it drained her blood
It was part of her now and she was part of Silas.
They, neither here nor there.
2 comments:
Din, thanks for visiting. I look forward to see you in your costume. Funny to imagine you wearing your first halloween costume at age 30 something..its never to late to party!! :)-- like Christmas, Halloween is for kids from age 1 to 92.
...please where can I buy a unicorn?
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