the silence when doors open wide

Hallowe'en is another holiday I think nobody does right; at least, not past childhood. It's great that kids are indoctrinated into the idea of fluid identity and masks and their relationship to the nighttime (even though today's suburbized "Halloween" takes most of the flavor out of it), but what do we do with our masks when we put aside childish things? We wear them to the party and take them off once in sight of the drinks. Instead we should, like most indigenous cultures with a living link to their past, celebrate death & change (and death as change) by revelling in it, once a year opening our cemeteries at night, and throwing the biggest greatest celebration of existence we can muster.

Death & change are an integral part of life and are not to be feared, and the more we are capable of embracing them, the greater is our potential for living fully, unafraid, with wild freedom and abandon.

After all, why do you think fundies are always trying to ban Hallowe'en?

And I picked on the whims of a thousand more
Still pursuing the path that's been buried
For years of dead woods and jungles and cities on fire,
can't replace or relate,
can't release or repair -
take my hand, and I'll show you what was - it will be.


["the Obsidian Butterfly"]

music: Warren Zevon, "Werewolves of London" of course ;-)