Boys and girls of every age,
Wouldn’t you like to see something strange?
Come with us and you will see,
This our town of Halloween. – Danny Elfman, “This is Halloween”
Technically, the Celtic festival of Samhain (SOW-en) is tomorrow, November 1st, but its most important festivities began on the previous evening and, like so many pagan holidays, it was later transformed into a Christian holiday. Many cultures traditionally honored their dead in autumn, but once the Church established All Hallows Day those other festivals (such as the Aztec festival for the goddess Mictecacihuatl, Queen of the Dead, which was originally held in August) shifted to the time of the official celebration. Indeed, Pope Gregory III (731-741) even suppressed the earlier “Holy Martyr’s Day”, which until then was celebrated on May 13th – the old Roman festival of Lemuria, at which the restless or malevolent dead (lemures) were propitiated and exorcised from houses. And though the Catholic Church later split All Hallows Day into two observances – All Saints Day on November 1st (dedicated to those in Heaven) and All Souls Day on November 2nd (dedicated to those in Purgatory) – October 31st retained its name of All Hallows Even…or as it is usually abbreviated, Hallowe’en.
This holiday has always held a special significance for me, and not merely because I was born 45 years ago tonight, nor because I lost my virginity 15 years later on this same night. As I said in my column of one year ago today:
…I was always a strange and moody child…[and] Halloween…was a special, magical night not only because of the treats and the opportunity to get up in costume, but also because it was the one time I was allowed to run wild like the little witch I was, my tangled hair streaming behind in the chilly October breeze as I crept from house to house in the dark, always alone, making sure no other children were nearby to interrupt my solo appearance at each door.
Though we don’t see Trick-or-Treaters out here in the country, I always carve a Jack o’ Lantern and bake a Halloween cake, and we celebrate by watching a horror movie and reading a scary story. But while you’re out and about today and you see all the commercialized, tamed and neutered symbols of this once-dark holiday, spare a thought for your ancestors and all Those Who Have Gone Before, and remember that since you and everyone else around you will follow them in the merest of moments (on the cosmic scale), death is nothing to be afraid of; what’s important is not when we die, but how we live.
Happy Halloween, Dear Readers, and Blessed Be!
Happy Birthday Maggie!
And have a wonderful Samhain!
Also … new “Woman In Black” remake due out early next year in HD. Stars the Harry Potter guy …
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596365/
Happy Birthday you Hawt-Harlot you !
🙂
Happy happy! Happy Birthday!
Thanks, all of you! I did have a very happy birthday today! 🙂
I’ve known about Samhain for years, but I never knew how it was pronounced until now. I was way off.
Can anyone make sense out of Gaelic spelling?
Not I, said the cat. 😉
So true, keeping a wider perspective on life helps considerably.
Belated birthday greetings, Maggie.
Belated happy Birthday, Maggie!
Happy Birthday, Maggie! Sláinte!
Thank you all! 🙂
Happy, happy birthday, Maggie,
Yes it’s true we call you “Maggie,”
Our favorite educated whore,
For a year now and some more,
Educates and entertains a vast readership.
We all remember,
The fictional interludes:
The vampire hunter,
The summoned demon,
And cool biographies too.
Thank you so much, Sailor! 🙂
On another note, after knowing Middle Sister for twenty-one years, this Halloween we finally went to bed together. We turned down the lights, got into her bed, and we… watched a really dumb slasher movie. If I had to depend on that girl for sex, I’d still be a virgin.
And from on, I’m going to call Middle Sister by the name “Tracy,” because that is her name, it’s common enough that it doesn’t give away who she is, and she said I could.
Happy Birthday and a Blessed Samhain!
Maggie, Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday and Samhain, Maggie.
Too many parents were taking their kids trick-r-treating in the daytime, I noticed. Made me shake my head in disgust. I’m sorry, but that’s not the way. I did it either. We went after dark when I was little. However, some parents had the good traditional sense to do it at night like they’re supposed to. Only a few unfortunately.
Thanks, Tonja, Marla and Susan! It was good to have my husband home for the day; he has a little more travelling to do this year, but not much compared to what he’s been doing for the past year.
When I was married to Jack and we lived in suburban New Orleans, I’d give candy to very small children (the ones who could barely walk) if they came before dark, but was prepared to lecture older ones if they tried it; in those days, nobody ever did, and even with the small ones it was rare. But that was 20 years ago; I shudder to think what it’s like now. 🙁
In fairness, Monday is a school night. Still, it gets dark early; Tracy and I hand out candy mostly in the twilight to nice and dark.
Happy .45 baby. 😉
This would be my first year in this house, which I rent with others, and happens to be near our downtown area. Apparently a year ago, it had a reputation as a crackhouse (it’s certainly not now: new owner, new renovations, new tenants) so I wasn’t expecting that many trick-or-treaters. We did get a few groups though…
The little ones of about age 6-8 came first in a group of four, were told to take one each out of the bowl, and immediately grabbed as much as their little fists could hold. I’m telling them to stop but they don’t even pretend listen, and their parents standing on the street just laugh while I’m trying not to use swear words at their brats.
(I deeply miss the days when parents actually raised their kids instead of paying strangers to do it. I understand that’s an economic decision for most, but the end results are getting more disturbing year by year. >.>)
Later came some older groups, middle-schoolers and younger teens. The one pair of older girls whom I might have said were “too old” compensated nicely by conducting a food drive while they Trick-or-treated. So, they got a lot of non-perishables for the Food Banks and, to my ever-increasing admiration… exactly as many little candy bars as they were offered, no more.
Those girls were awesome! Restored a fair bit of my faith in younger people these days! I may be able to postpone buying a rocking chair and a shotgun and shouting “Giddoff muh lawn!” for a few more years. 😛
This generation of teenagers is awesome. Granted, no generation is quite as fucked up as their elders like to think that they are, but from unwed pregnancy (down) to violence (down) to drug overdoses (down) to volunteerism (up), THIS generation is pretty cool.
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