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| Wunder Budder dressed as a ghost. |
I love Halloween season.
It's my favorite.
For so many reasons.
The air feels fresh and clean... I can wear leggings and boots... It's Chider (chai + cider) Season... People walk around in costumes all month long... the town smells like a carnival... I love cartoon ghosts, skeletons, monsters... colored leaves, striped socks and fried dough. The excitement and the energy in the air...
Salem comes alive like no other place for Halloween. It's a month long celebration, all leading up to
one
day.
(or two or three)
All Hallow's Eve, Samhain, The Day of the Dead, Trick or Treating,
it all blends together for me...
I just stick with Halloween.
I lived in New Mexico for a while, and one year I attended a festival for the Day of the Dead, or Día de los Muertos. I don't know if my memory of this festival was blurred, and after spending lots of time looking it up, I never found an explanation, but this is what stuck with me... Whether factual or twisted and turned in my imagination, this is how I hold Halloween deep inside:
There was a giant puppet in the middle of a field close to the center of town... a crudely created puppet, as tall as a house...
it swayed and moaned...
the image and sounds will stick with me forever.
The puppet represented the year gone, all events of the year, all gains and loss, all emotions...
the good, the bad, and everything in the middle.
At the end of the festival, the puppet was burned... a sacrifice to the universe... and as it went up in flames
we all let go of the past
to make room for the future.
I enjoy the whole month of October. The superficial things that make me happy during this season are just as important to me as the spiritual depth of the culmination...
it's the celebration of life and fun,
followed by the release of the past,
the internal growth of winter,
and the rebirth of spring.
the reminder that I'm part of the
whole,
the family, the community, the country, the earth, the universe.
And that is why I love Halloween.
XoXo,
Lisa
