This is Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

And

Merry Meet

In celebration of one of my favorite holidays I thought I'd share with you links to a couple of explanations of the Origins of Halloween. This one is a little more neutral and is a bit contradictory of the first but none of the histories line up and agree with each other completely. Probably the most widely held belief is that Halloween, like most of the modern religious holidays, has predominantly Celtic Pagan (which originally meant "country dweller", by the way) roots. In this case it is based on the end-of-harvest festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). It's the time in the cyclic wheel of the year that signifies the dying off of the crops and the dying of sunlight (shorter days of winter). People were intimately tied to nature then and this time of year when the world seemed to die, of course came to represent death itself. It was believed to be the time of year when the veil between this world and the world of the dead was the thinnest. The dead souls of family and friends were thought to be able to cross over to visit in this world for a short time and so it was an important time to remember and honor those who you had lost. Because of man's (and woman's) connection and dependence on nature, the equating of this time of year to death was common in early cultures and similar observances were held all over the world. If nothing else just come away from this knowing that Halloween has nothing to do with the devil or evil. That's modern religious bullshit.

Enough history. For a little Trick or Treat here's Marilyn Manson's version of "This is Halloween" from The Nightmare before Christmas.

Have a safe and happy holiday!