Happy Samhain

With Halloween so close I thought it would be only appropriate for me to write an article about the infamous holiday that many celebrate so blindly. I find it quite amusing when I see the same mothers who protested The Golden Compass and Harry Potter dress their children up for a little Trick Or Treating. Perhaps these people do not realize where Halloween originated, or they choose to ignore it because the day is just, let’s face it, so damn fun!

As I am sure most people know (or hope that most do) Halloween originated as a Pagan holiday, or festival. With a little research I dug up some more about it.

“The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.” Find out more here.

I have no gripes about the origins of Halloween, and quite honestly, I am totally down with drinking in the Celtic New Year with some beer and wariness for evil spirits, but come on America! If people are going to be against witchcraft, sorcery, and anything not Christian and “innocent” in origin, please by GOD be against Halloween too. If you want to embrace ignorance, do it 100%, or not at all. It does not matter to me if you dress your child up as the Holy Virgin herself and only allow her to Trick or Treat for Holy Communion, it’s still hypocritical and I still want to hit you a bit for it.

So your kids wouldn’t understand if you didn’t let them dress up? Well, here’s a crazy thought, maybe they don’t understand what is so wrong with Harry Potter either. Children are innocent and do not judge things as wrong just because they are different, learn a little from them parents out there.

Since I doubt no parents actually read this blog, for those of you twenty-somethings out there—take heart. Perhaps when our generation reproduces we will be a bit more tolerant of both literature, popular culture, and the history behind things in our world. (I doubt it however). I am quite sick of everything that isn’t Christian being evil, and people only allowing the “fun” things like Halloween to sneak through their ignorant cracks.

So, go drink, dress up, be slutty (or not), and enjoy the ancient Celtic festival!

Happy Samhain my friends, Happy Samhain.