The Pagan In Our Midst

Halloween is, quite simply, my favorite holiday.  Relatively unstructured, does not often require much in the way of family get-togethers or lengthy meals, very imaginative, and it involves large amounts of candy.  But the thing that intrigues me the most about Halloween is the fact that it is the most universally celebrated Quarter Day of the year.  What's a Quarter Day, you ask?  If you picture the earth revolving around the sun (as it does once each year) it becomes clear that the Solstices and the Equinox days divide the year into four equal parts...the Quarter Days further divide each of those blocks of time between each solstice and each equinox.  Of those days, Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh are almost completely unknown (at least in the US)....but the last day, know it or not for its name, you probably celebrate it....Samhain....also known as Halloween.

In Celtic tradition, Samhain marked the end of the year.  The harvest was done, and the Northern world turns into its time of darkness and hibernation until the winter solstice, at which time the light will begin to return again. This time of the year was considered to be the time when the bridge between the living world and the dead was easily crossed and spirits of the departed could find their way to the afterlife, or return to cause disease and havoc among the living.

Samhain (pronounced 'Sah - win') originated amidst a pastoral society, they followed the ebb and flow of nature's cycles and celebrated each change of seasons.  Samhain was the time of year when the animals that had been ranging on pastures were brought in and housed for the winter or slaughtered for food.  The harvest was completed and stored.  Bonfires were lit and celebrations where to be had - nothing evil or sinister... no devil worship - just a celebration of death and all those who we love that have departed this world for the next.  But in the year 601 A.D.,  Pope Gregory III decided that they should try to wipe out the pagan holidays and instill, instead, the Catholic days of worship.  Rather than abolishing it completely, they co-opted Samhain into All Saints Day in an attempt to transfer the worship focus over to November 1st.  October 31st became "All Hallows Eve" ..."Hallow'een"....Halloween.

Superstitions, however, run deep.  People would leave bowls of food and wine out on Samhain for the wondering spirits of the dead and would wear masks outside after dark to confuse those spirits that might seek to haunt them.  At some point in history, the practice of passing out "soul cakes" to people that came to call on Samhaim was actually endorsed by the church since the cakes were given in exchange for the visitors saying prayers for any family members that had passed away during the course of the year - hence 'trick or treating' was born.

So, tonight, when the masked trick-or-treaters make their rounds and candles and bonfires burn, know that this day marks another quarter turn on our annual trip around the sun.  The harvest is over for the year....the darkness has begun.

Happy Samhain

Killing Frost

Death comes in on little cold feet, and strikes down the last of all that is green and growing.  Halloween was previously known as, more aptly, The Day of the Dead, and for us in the Midwest it is true to form.  The potatoes have been stored, the tomatoes have been canned, the beans are picked, the garlic is buried deep in the garden to prepare for its resurrection in the spring.  The garden is done for the year and now it is Death's turn to rule for a while.

People generally fear death.  It is a common enough thing really, but no one is ever completely prepared for it when it does come. We try our best to avoid it, we mourn when it happens and we share our grief with others in the form of funerals and wakes.  And always it remains a mystery - what happens when we "shuffle off the mortal coil?"  It does give us pause.

Being a member of the medical field as a veterinarian, I have had entirely too much association with Death.  We are the only medical professionals that are routinely allowed to take a life, and not only allowed, but sometimes required to.  It can be a very heavy load to carry at times.  Death starts to take on a new guise - almost as that of another person you find yourself talking to at odd moments.  There are times when I feel that I gamble for a patient's life with Death as the other player....sometimes Death wins....sometimes I do.  There are even times that I invite Death in as a last and final means of ending suffering and it dawns on me that we are kinder to our pets than we sometimes are to each other in this respect.  I have seen too many people slowly withering away, and am only left with the hope that I either die very quickly, or that by the time of am of an age to be sick and old, that we will have advanced enough to allow directives for a means to end a life with dignity.

As such, I have developed a very weird and twisted view of Death.  It really isn't so bad, nor is it  necessarily to be feared.  Death is quiet and contemplative.  It leaves those around it touched with sadness, love, loss, memories, but mostly it strikes a cord down deep inside that reminds us all that, at some point, it comes for us too, and in the meantime all we can do is live as fully as possible. 

Funerals kind of freak me out though - almost too much pomp and circumstance.  Funerals, in my opinion, are more about doing "what is expected" than about celebrating a person's life.  To that end, I have directed my kids to never have a funeral for me - only a wake sometime after I am gone, and they are to have it at a bar and serve the best whiskey they can afford and play the music loudly and dance.  Clearly, my social graces are lacking, but I come from a long line of people who felt that we are only a mere blip on the radar of the universe and death is only a small moment of that time and then the circle of life rolls around and keeps moving on. 

It is sometimes interesting to talk with people about their pets and their views of death.  They are often more open than they would be if it were a person because the rules of society are very lax when it comes to a pet's death and burial, and yet we often feel as strongly (or, in many cases, more strongly) about the loss of a pet than the loss of a beloved person.  I had one client explain to me that he really hates the idea of caskets and doesn't want to be buried in one.  He wants to be buried standing straight up somewhere near a tree "like a fertilizer stick" he said.  Oh, if only society could be so open as to allow that to happen.

I really don't quite understand the whole casket and embalming thing myself.  When did this become the standard?  We want to be preserved for what? Our wake?  Does our vanity really extend past death?  The arguments that really get me are when people say it isn't sanitary to bury people in the ground without a casket....are you kidding me?  It is worse to put people in the ground with all those chemicals on board and inside of a hermetically sealed casket made from whatever non-biodegradable material we have most recently manufactured so that, at some future date, someone that doesn't know us has to deal with our hideous remains when they decide the cemetery should now be a shopping mall.

Happy Day of the Dead