holiday

The "holiday season" begins here, appropriately, for Hallowe'en was originally observed by the ancient Celts as the dividing point between those days in which light predominated and the darker half of the year. Their name for it, "Samhain," roughly means "summer's end."

After the one God had killed all the old gods or driven them underground, the pagan ambience of the holiday persisted in its designation as All Saint's Day. Even to this day, those who fear paganism also fear that this prominent day in the ancient lunar calendars provides an opportunity for "unclean" spirits, never entirely banished from either the European imagination or the Christian religion, to enter our lives and make mischief. The Wikipedia article on Halloween tells us that The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. The family's ancestors were honoured and invited home whilst harmful spirits were warded off. It is believed that the need to ward off harmful spirits led to the wearing of costumes and masks.

The Celtic honoring of ancestors foreshadows some modern uses of this time of year. Because Hallowe'en marks the advent of the "darker half" of the year, it has acquired aspects of a festival of the dead, and is so celebrated in many Latin American countries on the first or second of November.

But in English-speaking North America, where a secularized, hedonistic population avoids disturbing or spiritually ambiguous subjects, the holiday has been rendered harmless and relegated to the status of a children's dress-up day and neighborhood lark. This is merely another sign that we are afraid of our own shadows -- and for good reason.