It wasn't until a t.v. show talk host in New York with southern Baptist roots said to her audience last week that Halloween was about "evil" that I realized how many Americans (and many people around the world) probably have no idea what our holiday is really about. My Arabic friends from Jordan working the convenient store on the corner only further confirmed this for me, as purveyors of goods that feed the demons in their twilight consumptive world of gambling, smoking, and alcohol available for purchase 24/7, in a town that often shuts down around 8 on a late night.
The roots of many Catholic traditions are pagan. It's something we openly talk about, because it is so written in the Bible, and therefore it is not a taboo topic of conversation that we shun like the devil. In fact, Holy Roman Catholicism is designed (as it was from the very beginning) to coincide with humanity's most ancient festivals and feast days that featured the seasons and their transitional time periods. The gods themselves were the elements of nature immortalized, as man stood at the core of the earth's tremendous power in witness to it, from our very first stirrings of a higher consciousness.
For children of the northern United States, the change of seasons still mark every major holiday we have on our Roman calendar, almost exactly as it would have in ancient times, because we have four distinctly separate seasons that last exactly three months each, in a perfection of harmony and time existing between man and his environment. With the immigration of our ancestors from Europe came the link between the crops of America's "New World" (that we celebrate during Thanksgiving) and the recognition that this world is still very much with us no matter where we may go on the globe, as we brought along religious traditions tied to our non-monotheistic pasts.
For me, this connection is felt even keener in a town with strong Celtic roots like Pearl River: a place that can seem just like your quaint little village overseas on most days, squinting as you might be in the brighter New York daylight. Carving out traditional Autumn crops like turnips and squashes to place a candle within is both a prayer and a warning for us, at the same time. During the Gaelic harvest festival of Samhain (pronounced "Sah-win"), it is believed that the divide between the living and the dead is thinner than any other time of year, as the trees shed their leaves for the long winter sleep, to awaken again at the beckoning of a warm springtime sun.
So then did our holy masses quickly follow suit during this time devoted especially to All Saints and All Souls*, in recognition of the stronger powers of divination in this season of giving, now shown as holiday table centerpieces sold in American catalogs every year as the "horn of plenty" cornucopia that gushes out the richness of the earth in its astonishing variety of crops every year: G-d be willing praised, and G-d be praised. It is the crux behind our northern Indo-European wishes of goodness and plenty that we happily bestow upon one another, starting with our precious little ones in their adorable costumes first, when we ask them if they'd like tricks or treats before handing over the candy. We already knew the answer, my sweets. Be safe. Have fun. Happy Halloween.
