How I Learned To Love Halloween

The ancient people of my native land had a concept of time that I have begun to appreciate more and more as I have grown older. The wheel of the year, starting in the frosty, decaying embers of Autumn, passing through the deep darkness of Winter, bursting into life in Spring and basking in the abundance of Summer, has a poetry that countless artists and thinkers have utilized as they described existence.

 Even other cultures that formed the cradle, not just of my physical existence, but the root of the beliefs which have shaped much of my life, have an understanding of a calendar that cycles round and round, always returning to the same themes. Tellingly, the Hebrews from which Christianity eventually sprang had a view of beginnings which I find very similar to the Celtic wheel of the year.

 In Jewish understanding, the day starts, from our western perspective, the evening before. Basically, each new day begins in the darkness, and a restful night is necessary preparation for the activity which follows. The Celtic Wheel follows the same principle, which is why it starts at the end of October, when the harvest is in, and thoughts turn to the long nights of Winter and all the contemplation that takes place during that bleak time.

To begin by remembering is a profoundly important thing on so many levels for human beings. We honour the people we have learned from, we think about their successes and failures, we acknowledge that one day, we will be dust too, and what we accomplish in our lives may well be simply a memory. This humility and a determination to hunker down into a season of hibernating and contemplating what is to come is a very healthy perspective, be you Christian, Pagan or Secular.

I used to dislike Halloween, and sought out alternatives, because I saw it as a cartoonish observance that trivialized evil and death and had no sound roots. If all you see in Halloween is a plastic parade of fake blood, pretend spider webs and sweeties at the door for kids, and gory horror movies for the grown ups, then I can certainly understand why you would reject it outright.

But it doesn’t take much to dig beneath that ridiculous veneer and find a time of contemplating our own mortality and remembrance as we dive into the cold heart of Winter. I now find it the wisest way of preparing myself for the abundant joy of the Advent and Christmas season. What better way to begin a run up to celebrating the incarnation of Christ than to remember that He was incarnated to a physical world of seasons, to reconcile a people who are part of this physical world but who are finite and die and leave memories behind?

 I genuinely think all people, be they theists, atheists, got-too-much-else-going-on-to-worry-about-eternity-ists can find something of worth in looking so much deeper than the critiques of Halloween, which are often as plastic and artificial as what they are purporting to debunk. Modern humanity talks past itself all the time, and real communication seems to be vanishingly rare.

 The modern secular world has forgotten how to rest – we are disconnected from the created world because of artifice, some of which has benefitted us, but often has simply driven wedges between communities and individuals, and caused untold mental and physical health problems. By embracing Halloween as the beginning of the wheel of the year, I’ve discovered the power of embracing my own mortality, gestating plans and dreams in the deep quiet of Winter, and being ready to blossom in the warming light of Spring.