Halloween
is creeping up. It's behind you. Feel the cold wet corpse breath on the back of
your neck? The bloodless fingers on your paralysed shoulder? The hot flush of
urine that steams in the icy crypt air? Mwahahahaha!
I
love the festival of Sowhain, most popularly known as Halloween. The dead
return to visit with you, and you prepare yourself for the travails of
mortality. Death is part of life, that's the short form of the message. The
contrast of it is what makes life so valuable.
Further
psychological probing of the festival reveals a need for self-communion.
At
the death of summer days, we have to turn and face the nights. Unless you make
like a swallow and migrate, I guess, but that journeying isn't easy either.
Sooner or later there'll be something uncomfortable lurking in your in-flight
socks. Integrity demands you deal with it.
My
worst monster is mankind, for evils perpetrated against everything; lowest of
all, cloaked in ideology; and for the fear that binds resistance. Every other fiend
is a caricature of human aspects. But however deep in the night we hide, there
is always that redemptive pulse of light, waiting. So mankind is my best
monster too.
What is my monster? That impulse which lurks within that says everything we love or even like is mine.
ReplyDeleteEven if it was once yours, if I love it it's mine. You aren't really human or don't deserve it for some other reason I'll make up and convince myself I believe.
Mine. Not yours. Me vs You. The light? That sometimes, just sometimes, we stop ourselves and think...'I and Thou'. Ours.
A friend of mine recently sent me a link to an All Souls' Day sermon she attended last year. It was delivered by a minister who preferred funerals over weddings and he went on to mention some of the things you mention here. I liked the way he articulated it and I like that it is being reinforced by your words.
ReplyDeleteI also love the words, 'my best monster.'
Sending you bits of admiration and esteem, this morning, best cauldron stirrer.
Light is an amazing gift to us! Those jack-o-lanterns are so well carved.
ReplyDeleteMankind is, absolutely, the worst of the monsters...
ReplyDeleteLovely post. :-)
Pearl
Indeed, two aspects of humanity. And for every monstrous aspect, we like to think there is that balance of the monster that seeks the light, the hope.
ReplyDeleteAs Penny the Jack Russell dog and modest internet star, now evidently, a superstar, would say, "Happy Howlloween!"
Does this site have a page on Facebook?
ReplyDeleteMuch response here- much interest in monsters I think! Jacqueline- 'I and Thou,' that is lovely :-)
ReplyDeleteSuze- Thank you :-) That's the kind of sermon I would appreciate- what splendid funerals he must preside over. My children are charged with decorating a cardboard coffin for my cheap cheerful send off, they will have much fun with it.
Stephanie- the pumpkins, I carved. As children, pumpkins were rare and expensive- we carved turnips here. With spoons. After that a pumpkin is a joy, and now I'm allowed a sharp knife- just wonderful!
Thank you very much Pearl- your posts were very enertaining, I will be back for a giggle soon :-)
Gary- Penny is a superstar, that I am sure of! The human experience is astoundingly broad, but I am sure that animals differ too. Hence Penny's star quality :-)