Friday, October 28, 2005

Halloween

It's amazing to think about the evolution of certain things like holidays. All Hallow's Eve was a time when the veil between our world and the other side was weakened, when ghosts and goblins and ghouls and witches had to be placated to prevent nasty things from happening. A close relative to our Halloween would be the Mexican Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos), which happens on the 2nd of November. Whereas ours is rather morbid, the Day of the Dead is a festive time, celebrating the lives of those that have died, and the continuation of life as embodied by the children. In the US, Halloween has been subverted by three main forces; the Catholic Churches organization of All Saint's Day, the many fundamentalist churches attempts to outright ban the most pagan of holidays (Christmas is a pagan holiday too !), and by the ho-ization of the holiday by the rest of the population. But I do have to say, I do like the third force.

And my announcement that the hibernation of the boobies is a bit premature. I saw some excellent specimans (Boobicus Giganticus even!) last night at the Halloween party I went to last night. Ah yes, the hardy ones are still going strong, and that gives me hope!

and yes, my girl T. does know I'm writing about boobies on my blog. She hit me and just accepted it as part of who I am, a dirty youngish boy-man-child.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

actually all hallow's eve is part of all saints day, just like christmas eve and christmas day. i think you are confusing all hallows eve and samhain... they are quite similar.
the mexican day of the dead is the same as all soul's day... although they do celebrate it way better.

Lonely Coyote said...

Samhain (Gaelic: summer's end) is the correct holiday that I was referring to, I do stand corrected. In 835, Pope Gregory IV moved the celebration for all the martyrs (later all saints) from May 13 to November 1. All Saint's Day is on Nov 1. All Soul's Day is on the 2nd. I believe he did this to take subvert a pagan holiday and make it a Christian one, just as Yuletide has become Christmas.