Are your kids hanging out with Pagans?
Just a suggestion if you forget to buy the candy. Yes, Halloween–also called “Pooky Night” in some parts of Ireland–is really just a faint shadow of ancient seasonal celebrations of the mysteries of the cosmos: life, death, renewal, Keith Richards, Clarence Thomas. Things we see and sense but cannot explain.
In fact, the entire last week of October offers very old harvest and life-death cycle observances with Pagan, Celtic, Roman and even Christian variations. While some cultures commune a bit more seriously with the spirit world this week, U.S. kids of course love it for its costumes and candy. But for many it’s just a sign of Fall. John Keats (1795-1821) was taken with the season, too:
1
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom”‘friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch”‘eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er”‘brimmed their clammy cells.