Two images of Halloween are colliding in my mind. The image of the happy mother stuffing two plastic bags full of Halloween candy … "We gave out nearly 400 pieces of candy last year," she said; and the ghastly ghoulish face of a skeleton staring out from a poster on the window of a costume shop.
Over 2,000 years ago, the Celtics celebrated the end of the summer and harvest season, and the start of a long cold winter, with a big bonfire. Home fires were extinguished during the celebration and relit at the end of the community celebration with sticks of fire carried back home by each family.
At the bonfire, Druids, or Celtic priests, made predictions about the future. These hopeful images that would help guide the Celtics during the long winter months were also carried home. Once the home fires were relit, family members would exchange their own predictions about the future. It was a time to acknowledge the death of loved ones, the passing of seasons, and a time to build a fortification of hope for the future.
Has the spirit of the Celtic tradition made it into today’s Halloween celebrations?
Not really. Over the years, Halloween has taken a commercial turn. It seems more about selling candy and costumes … and attending parties where people eat and drink too much.
Yes, the choice of a costume can say a lot about the inner mindset of the person who will wear it … but in the end, riding on a sugar high, will we as a society be any wiser about the future?
So here’s a "Boo" to Halloween. Can we reclaim its sacred core? I’d love your comments on this.
It's really not that big a deal. Should we for example try and reclaim the original spirit of Christmas and who's 'original' idea of it? The pagan celebration, the Victorian notions of Christmas – which covered up the suffering of most of the population, at a time when children did not actually have what we would recognize as a childhood, while the well off celebrated? The idea of reclaiming something original is itself based often on an erroneous assumption.