When I was growing up, my mother often courted hardcore fundamentalist Christianity. I could write volumes about that, but for now I'll just say that perhaps because it is a somewhat extreme religious view, our experiences were extreme too. It brought us in contact with some of the best but also some of the worst people I've ever met, ushered in some of the most beautiful and loving encounters but also some of the harshest and most hurtful.
When I was a kid, one of the hot button topics in those religious circles was Halloween. It seems like every year I overheard parents debating the holiday and a lot of those kids weren't allowed to dress in costumes or go trick-or-treating. Every year, my brother and I squeaked through to enjoy the holiday -- probably due to quiet words from my moderate father.
Flash forward a few years. In college, I started babysitting for a woman who loved Halloween. She invited me to her annual party, but this was a different sort of gathering. There were costumes and pumpkins and autumny food, but the main event was reading Ray Bradbury's 1972 novel The Halloween Tree aloud. It is a short book -- 145 pages of largish print filled with quite a few illustrations -- but still it took all evening to read. No one minded. Each person took a turn reading Bradbury's delicious, vivid, poetry-like words. As the candles flickered, we followed eight boys on a tour of Halloween-related celebrations around the world and through history. From America's heartland in present day, we ventured to ancient Egypt and Rome, the British Isles in the times of the Druids, the Dark Ages, and modern Mexico during the Day of the Dead holiday.
As a kid, I knew the objection to Halloween wasn't just the pranks. Halloween brings up a host of unsavory architypes -- monsters, demons, witches, and the like. The roots of Halloween are religous yet before Christianity, so that makes it Pagan and unacceptable. During that college party, though, suddenly The Halloween Tree made me love Halloween for those very reasons.
Halloween is a perfect time to stop and remember all the changes civilization brought (and continues to bring) both for good and for ill. As for the Christian, the balance of All Hallow's Eve followed by All Saint's Day is actually a beautiful way to remember and be grateful. Darkness gives way to light. Death gives way to life and resurrection. Harvest time means stark winter is coming, yet it reminds us that spring and the growing season will return again. Halloween is a lens to see how far humankind has evolved but also to see the indomitable spirit in us all that longs to integrate our innate darker side with our more polished side, longs to heal rather than cover up.
Halloween now reminds me of this quotation: "I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.” (Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem)
Halloween is our society's way of keeping on nodding terms with what it used to be. On a personal level, it is an excellent way of safely acknowledging other sides of ourselves.
It is still many years away, but in Eli's later childhood days, I look forward to reading The Halloween Tree out loud with him and discussing what we find in the story. But even when he is still fairly young, I will teach him that for us Halloween is about remembering so we can be truly grateful for what we have. And each October 31st, we can pause to remember that we have the power to change who we are through our everyday choices.
Comments