All Hallowed Things: Culture Lost and Found Again

kinda metal idk. Wish I had enough money to buy pearls so I could clutch them

Two Expressions of Fervor

This past October, I noticed many people observing Halloween on the Hill in Boulder, doing everything from dressing up as a Sexy [Insert Noun Here], to drinking, to partying, to trick-or-treating to giving out candy, performing in Halloween shows, watching halloween films, and all the rest. And these are all good appropriate things I suppose (I did all of those to various degrees throughout the season).

But there was another group of people who decided to chant the Litany of the Saints while holding candles and processing from an All Saints Vigil Mass to a graveyard on the Hill. They looked and sounded equally spooky, perhaps apropos to the whole scene, though they nonetheless stood apart.

But though there may not be explicit or aesthetic tension between these two expressions of fervor, there still remains a disconnect. And this disconnect arises from a culture which is existentially unaware of itself.

Ask nearly any American what Halloween is or means and they will balk, give a simple answer (dressing up and getting candy), or avoid the question. Why is this? Most other holidays have retained a lingering vestige of their origin, maybe a story or a history, some cultural meaning most Americans have managed to remember, albeit dimly. What is Easter about? Jesus (and Capitalism). What is Christmas about? Jesus (and Capitalism) Thanksgiving? (Some federal propaganda about corn and first nations peoples and the Mayflower) And arguing with your uncle. Valentines? (ooh that one's almost as tricky as Halloween) (But yes, capitalism plays more than its share a role.) St. Patty's Day? Being Irish or something. The dude who talked about clovers and cast out snakes? Hmmmm......

Why do we continue to celebrate such a holiday? A caviat and two reasons.

First, a caviat - Some Evangelicals, homeschoolers of all varieties (it's okay I can say it because I was homeschooled for a bit), Pentecostals, and Independent Fundamentalist Baptists, among others, might condemn Halloween for being too ______ (pagan? Witchy? Catholic? Commercialized? Make up your mind! Actually, it really could be all of those things together tbh.)

But for everyone else...

1. We all love and desire a socially acceptable time to masquerade as someone else, maybe even as a means of honoring, parodying, or emulating that character. This is self evidently fun. Halloween gives us this opportunity in spades.

2. Yet there's another impulse, one which resides naturally and deeply in the human person, which sees the leaves changing and falling and yearns to meditate, however subconsciously, on death, or even life after. So Halloween (And more essentially, though less broadly understood in the culture, All Souls Day/Dia de los Muertos) fills this role brilliantly with a macabre flair, and so on one level, perhaps the origins don't matter, because however it has arisen in the collective consciousness of humanity, we have given ourselves a time to process the passage of time and our eventual demise in a way that can, at its best, verge on profound. 

[3. Candy (just kidding but not really)]

A Referendum and three responses: Deep, Casual, or Countercultural?

But how many of us truly get to that level of meditative processing of one's death or life hereafter? Is that desire being satiated fully, or do you have to wait for a death in the family for the realization of your own mortality to blindside you like a 16 wheeler on the i-70? Is Halloween working for you as best it can? Conversely, does it really need to do all that, or am I just reading into it too much? 

I think it's really up to you whether you want to nerd out, or float on the surface of holidays such as these. But for me, nerding out is more fun, and more fulfilling. Because if there is one thing that all holidays exist to do, it is to mark time, and we mark time fundamentally by contemplating the meaning of time's passing.  

If we have a choice, why not choose to embrace a season, a holiday, at its very roots and suck the marrow out of its meaning? I think we owe that to ourselves, especially in a society of cultural blandness such as the US, where superficiality and reification is the law of the land. 

Wait wait wait - what about being countercultural? Well first off, the term "countercultural" only has weight within a real culture, so even culture's opposing forces read anemic in such a place and time as the US in the 21st century, where there really isn't much culture to begin with. One countercultural possibility which I've only been able to see rarely is the choice to create one's own culture. For instance, there's Reformation Day on one end, and whatever inauthentic reconstructive paganism that can be found on the other end. Or you could just make up a holiday or some newfangled observance with your friends. But these expressions can be just as anemic and are not rooted enough to be viable outside of niche circles and times in which such things are "In vogue". But maybe that's enough for us to live on for a while, nonetheless.

So fine, Halloween exists as a possible mainstream fullfilment of these various cultural needs- maybe even a stopgap for our subconscious.  What can we know about it, and why does nearly everyone continue to celebrate it (or rail against it) with gusto?

All Hallows Eve

It's debatable, but certainly the most prevalent and concrete origin to which we have evidence is from the name itself.

Hallow (Sacred, holy, Saint) + Een (E'en -> Even -> Evening.)

It's simply the vigil for All Saints' Day, which most higher-church Christians celebrate in honor of all the people -known and unknown, canonized and otherwise - who've made it past the Pearly Gates into paradise.

There are really thousands of years of tradition associated with this day, and if we choose to, we can tap into it all. It's just sitting there waiting to be rediscovered, and we don't really need to work for it either. My roomies made me a soul cake. I can go to Mass or visit a graveyard to pray. I can take a silent day and actually do the work of processing mortality in an intense, but albeit, healthy way. These types of observance automatically link us with about 1.7 billion other people living on Earth who also happen to be celebrating this way, and I think there's a real power there, a profound opportunity for community.

Perhaps this can be a rare moment where a phrase like "Live Free, Don't Join" rings hollow. Don't you want to join the party? Could the act of joining in this party make you more free? At least more expressive, and less left out. At least more holistically involved in the project of life. Because perhaps, you or your children may be missing out at something in equal parts deep and fun and meaningful. Can't knock it til you try it.

Touchpoints

I wanted to write specifically about Halloween, because it's a touchpoint with a low enough cultural bar of invitation to where almost anyone has a point of entry. Christmas and Easter have their own baggage. But Halloween has been so forgotten and decontextualized as to serve as almost a blank slate, upon which we can gradually begin to draw the rediscovered ancient runes once more, if we so choose. But this goes for all holidays (holy days). Why not celebrate the passage of time as deeply and as lively as we can? If there's meaning to be had, why not come off the sidelines, the cold monochrome bleachers upon which we have begun to numb, and play and dig deeper within the cultures which we happen to have received?

Again, perhaps we won't know until we have tried.

Further reading on the origins of Halloween