I ain't afraid a no ghosts

10/31

My jack'o'lantern

Halloween. Been seeing people in costumes for about a week now. But today it gets serious. 

Three people come in looking to start a day care center. The preaching man in the pork pie hat is out talking to the building again and Marty is back to not talking to anyone at all.

RL

RL comes in with his costume, but is it really a costume? All in black, wearing  a duster like a long rider and his reservation police badge and a gun in a holster at his side. He demonstrates his quick draw spins his pistol and back into the holster. Relieved to find out it was a prop gun from a western movie he was once in.  What follows is a good yarn about a relationship with Mel Torme went south when RL revealed his preference for Remingtons and Torme replied, I’m a Colt man. 

Our neighbor Jen arrives with six large bags of candy. Soon neighbors Susan and Lisa (from Friends of West-Park) arrive. Together we will stand outside the church and pass out treats to passing trick ors.  I love the passing parade of people, children from the neighborhood. Parents. I take the smaller pumpkin and carve the most simple of jack’o’lantern faces. Just had to. Wouldn’t feel like Halloween unless I did. 

Jen and a very scary Green Monster  and a Raggedy Ann

My helpers are also passing out treats to adults passing by and people getting off the bus. The smiles we get back are well worth it. In a couple of hours, the candy is  mostly all gone. I take what’s left over and leave it for the flamenco students.

I’m pondering how the church attempted to take over the Celtic holiday of samhain and tame it, turn it into part of a religious event honoring saints and souls, making the night before All Hallows’ Evening, ergo Halloween. But somehow those like Christmas and Easter and every other attempt to colonize and eradicate the true old time religion, those pagan roots are strong and always show through. The merriment we see around us is the fun in putting on, taking the freedom to be something /someone else while simultaneously poking fun at what we fear. Laughing in it’s face. I ain’t afraid a no ghosts….

Trick or treaters

Lisa and Susan

Churches who try to make it an evil event or turn it into something else unwittingly only honor the darkness and grant it power.  Our ancestors knew…facing it and laughing is the only way to take away its power.

Time to walk with my longrider friend to the Gate and see what kind of collection of spirits are there.

Dead eye