Sunday, November 1, 2009

WHAT'S HAPPY ABOUT HALLOWE'EN?

Is it just me? Or have we gone completely daffy? I can understand Merry Christmas or Happy Birthday, but what on earth are we doing wishing everyone a “happy Hallowe’en?
Every time there is a special date on the calendar we break out in joyous greeting – signifying absolutely nothing. I am waiting (but I haven’t looked recently so this comment may be obsolete) for the greeting card folks to start printing cards to welcome in Hallowe’en.

I have to bet that not one in a hundred of the cutely dressed up little kids (reflecting revenues in the billions for people who make rubber masks and broomsticks) have any idea what the night is all about.

Quite frankly, neither did I. Well, I knew, but I didn’t recognize what I knew. It was when my wife and I happened to be in Paris one year on November 1st and many of the shops were closed. One restaurant had a skeleton staff. “Why,” I asked naively. The person serving us seemed a bit taken aback: “Mais Monsieur, c'est Toussaintes(I’m not sure I've spelled it right.)
“Of course,” I said, faking forgetfulness.

In France, where the anticlerical movement has a long history and where Descartes and his early Existentialism overshadowed the Divine and led generations of Frenchmen in another spiritual direction, one would not expect so much religious observance.
But here it was. Of course, if the night for goblins and ghosts and witches is actually All Soul’s Day night and the following day is All Saint’s Day, then the day has meaning.
But I suppose the “celebration” is as misdirected as the fact that the Easter Bunny has replaced the Cross as a symbol of Death and Resurrection. Perhaps it’s the overriding pagan influence on religion. The bunny is a sign of sparing and, being a very fertile, fecund creature, a symbol of re-birth. I’m not quite certain why the Danse Macabre of Hallowe'en is pagan, but it probably is.

Having just finished reading (in fact - trudging through) The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, I developed a larger understanding of the relationship between ancient wisdom and present-day religion. Brown, once he establishes his patented method of suspense, embarks on a tedious, lengthy, preachy look at “The Word” and the wisdom of the ancients and how it has transmuted itself into modern beliefs. (I find that to be an oxymoron - there is nothing “modern” about some of the things people believe so devoutly.)

While I’m at it – how come so many Canadian TV news people call it “Hollow e’en?”
Oh well, they are part of a generation that has grown up being educated by watching
U.S. TV. “Hollow” and “Hallow” I think, are still two different words.

Aha! In one gestalt moments I see it all. The truth is revealed. In fact the American pronunciation reflects the truth: the day and it’s meaning have become quite “hollow.”

So to you – Happy Hallowe’en. Happy Labour Day and Happy Ides of March.

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