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What's the point of Halloween? /rant/
a month ago
General
Halloween has long been my favorite holiday. As a child, you get excited about the transformation of donning a disguise and romping through the neighborhood with your friends before coming home at a reasonable hour with a good stash of candy. You grow, and the Bacchanal becomes more adult. The costume element is still there, but you drink and mingle, and all the while there is still this sense of the night and the darker, more obscure elements.
I'm to understand that the modern aesthetic is mostly American, even if the themes and the date itself are much older. November 1st is the latter bookend of the traditional harvest season in Western Europe, the start of which is August 1st. The academic Miranda Green also says that November 1st was primarily an event relating to livestock, as opposed to agriculture: it was the time in Scotland where you brought your herds to winter pasture, and this involved the killing of the old and feeble animals that were not expected to make it to next spring. Essentially it's a time of taking stock, and deciding what gets preserved for the year to come and what gets sacrificed. This general logic is consistent with the idea of Samhain being the "Celtic New Year".
I think about these themes a lot, and so, October for me is not just a time for fall-themed fun and to binge watch horror movies, I get very philosophical about it.
Today, I took a long stroll through the cemetery. I watched wild turkeys plod through the shadows of Civil War memorials and thought about the nature of "sacrifice". I think about the things and people I've let go of, and of the things and people I've held on to, and try to divine some logic to my own patterns of behavior. Did I even build up enough in my own life that such a culling is justified? Or, is the sacrifice I ought to make one of time and energy so that, by next year, I can appraise myself as having lived deeper and more meaningful?
I came across a song that embodies some of the things I've been feeling recently. It's not explicitly a Halloween song, but it has a macabre playfulness that definitely fits with the season. Give it a listen; maybe you'll find it amusing. And feel free to comment your own thoughts. 🎃💀
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=uF5NY7KGj0E&si=dj9FfQQeWAF3vXyA
I'm to understand that the modern aesthetic is mostly American, even if the themes and the date itself are much older. November 1st is the latter bookend of the traditional harvest season in Western Europe, the start of which is August 1st. The academic Miranda Green also says that November 1st was primarily an event relating to livestock, as opposed to agriculture: it was the time in Scotland where you brought your herds to winter pasture, and this involved the killing of the old and feeble animals that were not expected to make it to next spring. Essentially it's a time of taking stock, and deciding what gets preserved for the year to come and what gets sacrificed. This general logic is consistent with the idea of Samhain being the "Celtic New Year".
I think about these themes a lot, and so, October for me is not just a time for fall-themed fun and to binge watch horror movies, I get very philosophical about it.
Today, I took a long stroll through the cemetery. I watched wild turkeys plod through the shadows of Civil War memorials and thought about the nature of "sacrifice". I think about the things and people I've let go of, and of the things and people I've held on to, and try to divine some logic to my own patterns of behavior. Did I even build up enough in my own life that such a culling is justified? Or, is the sacrifice I ought to make one of time and energy so that, by next year, I can appraise myself as having lived deeper and more meaningful?
I came across a song that embodies some of the things I've been feeling recently. It's not explicitly a Halloween song, but it has a macabre playfulness that definitely fits with the season. Give it a listen; maybe you'll find it amusing. And feel free to comment your own thoughts. 🎃💀
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=uF5NY7KGj0E&si=dj9FfQQeWAF3vXyA
