All Hallows Eve
Once upon a time, our distant ancestors were animists who believed in the innate divinity of all things. Spirit was a property of matter, and all things possessed it: not just plants and animals but also rocks, clouds, lakes, wind, places, and every natural thing and process. I said all things possessed spirit, but that isn't quite what the original animists believed. Spirit was not something separate from matter, to be possessed or not. Matter was inherently spiritual.
As the human realm gradually separated from the natural (in perception if not in reality), we began to separate spirit from matter. The first step away was to believe all things to possess spirit. This is the belief that characterizes the pagan religions. In ancient Greek religion, for example, everything from the ocean and the sky down to the smallest shrub or stream had a divinity associated with it. The ancient pagans still lived in a fully enspirited world where everything was sacred.
As time passed and the mentality of agriculture tightened its grip, the human and natural realms separated still further and we began to believe that some things possessed spirit and others did not. Spirit became increasingly abstracted from matter, culminating in twin developments at the dawn of the modern era. On the one hand, Protestantism reduced the participation of divinity in the world to the sole figure of Jesus Christ, replacing the Catholic pantheon of saints with a single divine individual, just as the saints had replaced the even more participatory pagan panentheism. On the other hand, scientists like Galileo, Descartes, and Newton reduced Creation to a single event as well in their conception of a clockwork universe, created and wound up by God to tick on, mechanically and everlastingly, henceforward. In the equations of Newton, the ongoing participation of a divinity in naure was no longer necessary.
The late stone-age people and early agriculturalists that we call pagan recognized, perhaps unconsciously, this progressive desacralization of the world. They knew that the separateness of the human realm is an illusion, that we too are bound by the laws of nature and that it is necessary sometimes to remind ourselves of that. It is necessary sometimes to remind ourselves of the sacredness and divinity of all things. It is necessary sometimes to reconnect to the Wild. Rituals developed to meet these needs. Some cultures recognized this explicitly, such as the Yurok of the Pacific Northwest who, in the words of Joseph Epes Brown,
"believed that, in the beginning, the world was inhabited by the wo'gey, or Immortals, who knew how to live in harmony with the earth. The wo'gey departed when the humans arrived. Yet, because they knew that humans did not always follow the laws of the world, they taught them how to perform ceremonies that could restore the earth's balance." [1]
Halloween originates in the same spirit. The holiday we celebrate today has roots in the ancient Celtic holiday of Samhuinn, which, in the words of Philip Carr-Gomm, was
"a time of no-time. Celtic society, like all early societies, was highly structured and organized, everyone knew their place. But to allow that order to be psychologically comfortable, the Celts knew that there had to be a time when order and structure were abolished, when chaos could reign. And Samhuinn, was such a time. Time was abolished for the three days of this festival and people did crazy things, men dressed as women and women as men. Farmers' gates were unhinged and left in ditches, peoples' horses were moved to different fields." [2]
The agricultural mindset divides the world into two parts, the domestic and the wild, and seeks to maintain and expand the former as it conquers the latter. The domestic is good, the wild is bad. The corn is good, the weed is bad. The sheep is good, the wolf is bad. The orderly is good, the chaotic is bad. But the pagan farmer recognizes that this division is not the ultimate reality, and seeks to maintain a healthy connection to the underlying panentheistic truth, lest she forget that she too is governed by nature's laws. For she knows that to forget this spells doom -- the very doom we are facing today as we seek to maintain a system in flagrant violation of that primary natural law of cyclicity: that one being's waste must be another being's food.
The Samhuinn that Carr-Gomm describes is precisely such a reconnection. Here the order of the separate human realm was thrust aside. The inner Wild expressed itself as an abandonment of social structures, while the outer Wild was allowed to usurp the ordering of the land into domesticity. Animals were let loose and gates were ripped down. This was a time when all the wild spirits once again roamed free, wreaking mischief on the human realm.
The ancient farmer still believed in these wild spirits and knew they had to be propitiated. Can you see how the ceremonial offerings to the spirits became the goodies we offer trick-or-treaters today? These offerings were once an affirmation of our debt to the wildness of Nature, all-providing, as well as a token reminder that Nature's wild spirits must be respected lest they wreak havoc. How did these offerings devolve into mere candy?
Under the Catholic Church, divinity retreated from "all things and processes," but still resided in a wide pantheon of saints and holy objects that more or less corresponded to the original nature spirits. Samhuinn became All Saints Day or All Hallows Day, but people still believed in a colorful bestiary of spirits and magical beings. The Protestant Reformation removed divinity still further from the world, as science and the Machine completed the desacralization of nature. Ghosts and goblins, fairies and vampires, became mere children's toys, nothing adults took seriously. Halloween became a game arranged for children.
Why do the spirits we associate with Halloween have the reputation of being evil? The Church's effort to vilify pagan religion is only part of the explanation. In fact, the very concept of evil only arose with agriculture's division of the world. Before then there was no such thing as an evil spirit. Each being enacted its role to perfection in the harmonious operation of a greater whole. But when a separate human realm grew that needed to be maintained, with great effort, against natural forces that seek to reduce a field to weeds and a house to ruin, then the Wild indeed became a foe: a source of trouble, mischief, and even death. Tempting it is, then, to see Nature as an enemy to be dominated and conquered. The pagans, understanding the disaster inherent in such an attempt, therefore enacted rituals and festivals to keep their own connection to the Wild alive.
What began with agriculture accelerated with the ascendency of the Machine. From the perspective of the Machine, wildness is evil. Chaos, unpredictability, individual variation are at odds with the values of the Machine: uniformity, regularity, standardization. Modern religion, as servant to the Machine, abets its values by associating the divine representatives of nature's wildness, nature's infinity, nature's superiority to man, with evil. Saturn, the Devil with his horns and ram's foot, and numerous other mythic figures representing evil started out as deities from matriarchal nature cults, and became symbols of evil as nature became man's foe.
Halloween was not the only festival that attempted to maintain a connection to the Wild. Christmas and May Day were two other times when the Lord or Lady of Misrule took over and presided over the festivities. Christmas was very merry indeed: common surnames like "Prince," "Lord" or "King" are traces of the illegitimate paternity of children conceived in the merry Yuletide revels. On May Day, various pagan deities were fit onto the personas of characters from the Robin Hood tale. Madness reigned: "mad-merry marriages 'under the greenwood tree', when the dancers from the Green went off, hand in hand, into the greenwood and built themselves little love-bowers and listened hopefully for the merry nightingale."[3] Surnames like Johnson, Jackson, Robinson, Dobson, Hudson, Hobson, and so on remain with us as evidence of these revels, during which the usual social mores and civilized rules of conduct were suspended. During these times, the figures representing the newer patriarchal gods, representing order and control, were ritually overthrown, and the earlier matriarchal gods and goddesses took over.
Although patriarchy was well-established by their time, the ancient pagans understood that the shadow side, the uncivilized, out-of-control side of the human being, must not be completely suppressed. A society in which order over-dominates cannot last; nor can a farm that ignores ecological principles. Some wildness has to be let in, some chaos. When we lose this balance, then sooner or later Nature will provide a correction. The stricter the repression of the wild, the more violent that correction. When the wild breaks out today it can be violent indeed, whether in its human or environmental aspect, yet we respond by tightening its repression even more. More curfews, longer sentences, school lockdowns; higher levees, more pesticides, higher fences.
From this perspective, Halloween begins to look like a mere imitation of a holiday. Every vestige of wildness has been excised from it. No longer an interlude of chaos to reconnect us to the reality beneath our civilized forms and structures, Halloween has been made safe and orderly in every respect. No longer a "time of no-time," today even trick-or-treat takes place between the official hours of six and eight. In my own lifetime I have seen the last stage of this transformation. When I was a child, parental supervision of trick-or-treating was unheard of. We left home right after dinner, or even before, returning and going out again until we grew too tired to continue. Today I see children as old as ten or twelve walking up to each house as their parents wait for them at the end of the driveway or follow them around in the car. Needless to say, the pranks and vandalism of Mischief Night are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
Halloween, All-Hallows Eve, a celebration of the holiness of all, has become yet another occasion for orderly consumption and profit. Like other holidays, it has become almost entirely a purchased celebration. The homemade costumes of my childhood have given way to bought ones, often of television and movie characters. The same is true of yard decorations: pumpkins, bales of hay, spooky dolls. Homemade treats are viewed with suspicion; only store-bought candy is acceptable.
I am not telling you pagans and animists out there to keep your children inside on Halloween night. I want you to know, though, that you are participating in a sham. The pagan roots of the holiday don't validate its present incarnation. They show us instead what has been lost. Lost to what? To the insatiable world-devouring machine, driven by usury, that cannot and will not stop until it has consumed every last vestige of natural, cultural, and spiritual wealth. Forests and seas, customs and traditions, stories and songs, communities and cultures -- all are grist for the machine that takes in beauty and spits out money.
Nothing can save or reform that machine, but as its furnaces consume the last bits of our heritage capital, it begins to sputter and stall. You can hear it choking already if you listen. Soon, from amidst the cold, dead hulk of its wreckage, a new culture will grow. Its seedlings, too, are visible already to those who care to look. They are the recovery of our lost connections. Through them, our animistic and pagan connections to a fully enspirited world will blossom into a future where control-driven technology retreats to its rightful place as one of many modes of creativity. In that future, our spirituality will, like that of the Samhuinn celebrants, function as a frequent reconnector to the Wild within us and around us that is the true source of all wealth.
In that spirit, let us not attempt to redeem today's commercial parody of a holiday that we call Halloween. Let it sputter on toward its final demise as we create something new alongside it. Something that truly invokes the deep-buried, paved-over Wild within us and around us. Something to remind us that the structures we have created are but temporary artifices, castles of sand aside an ocean of being. Better not lose ourselves in attachment. All will be swept away one day. As in the ancient traditions, death is an appropriate theme for the new Halloween. Death. The other side. The spirit world. The shadow. The unseen. The scary. The unknown. All that the temporary structures we have created exclude. We need occasions to remind ourselves that these structures are not the whole of reality, and indeed that the part they exclude is infinitely the greater. Whether it is inspired by the ancient traditions or something entirely new, let us find a way to go Wild this All-Hallow's Eve.
[1] Joseph Epes Brown. Teaching Spirits, Oxford University Press, 2001. p. 17
[2] Philip Carr-Gomm, The Druidic Tradition, Elements Books, 1996. Cited by Isaac Bonewits, http://www.neopagan.net/Halloween-Origins.html
[3] This quote and the argument of the paragraph are from Robert Graves, The White Goddess, Farrer, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 1948. pp. 396-8.
- 10-27-08
- Charles Eisenstein's blog
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On this side...
Interesting stuff. Here in the UK, things are a little bit different:"trick-or-treat takes place between the official hours of six and eight." Here, there are no official hours. It could be any time after sunset and before about half past nine. I heard that in Germany they have 'official' hours for Christmas parties though. Although American and European society is mostly so similar that you can get away with just calling it Western, it's in these sorts of minor things that you find the differences.
"When I was a child, parental supervision of trick-or-treating was unheard of."Well actually there was an episode of the sitcom Bewitched, from the 1960's, set in New York, where parents went with their kids around the neighbourhood. Such supervision does not occur in the UK at all and would probably be laughable.
"children as old as ten or twelve walking up to each house as their parents wait for them at the end of the driveway or follow them around in the car." In the car? That's sickening. Around here, you get teenagers trick-or-treating as well as children. I'd guess that the average age is 13 or 14 (but it's hard to tell when they're dressed up).
Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!!!!
There’s always a treat, and when there’s always a treat there’s always a thank you…
Thank you all!!!
Speaking about Halloween in Cincinnati and in the World this Friday? I’m in.
Today, I walked under the Cottonwood Tree and there was Cardinal’s head. The Pigeons, I like to call Doves, were scattered around half eaten.
I found a Hawk feather also today near the Cottonwood Tree where the dead birds were. What did this mean? I walked away with a Hawk Feather in my hand and when I looked back there were four Crows parched high in the Cottonwood tree.
“Halloween is four days from today”, I thought. “I’ll bet you anything you like that something so beautiful is going to happen this Friday. And anyway, I walked to where I had to go with that Hawk feather with me. The feather may be just for me, I thought, but It wasn’t as I gave the feather to someone that I told my story to.
He replied, “Well let’s hope, Peter, it’s something beautiful. We’ve had enough bad news lately”
I agreed as I told him about the headless pigeon that I saw last week. “It’s going to be a wide opening of peace from the heart.” I said then continued, “The Cardinal reminds me of the religions of the God of Abraham – to much head and not enough heart.”
We then agreed on something that was good to happen this Halloween.
To: The Celts who live and breathe and make a living finding Halloween to be a day of Thanksgiving!!! They showed us sacredness on the end of a fall day that deserved a good feast that honors ancestors and relatives in Thanks and in Spirit -- and Spirit is Everything.
This song also goes out too to those who live in the Spirit of Abraham… The Ram,,, When is the fighting ever going to end? It’s time to just sit down this Halloween and relax and enjoy life as it is. Enjoy those that you help and who help you and love each other and me too. Please?
From Syria, to Iraq, to America, to Ireland, to Jerusalem, to China, to the Philippines, to Germany, to Canada, to Mexico, to Chile, to wherever a human being lives or breaths. I am sorry if my Native Country ever hurt you. Forgive me… Man wouldn’t it be great if all the leaders of the world would say that this , this Halloween?
To the People of the World… this Halloween will you please forgive me for being merely human as a Common Native? I celebrate with thanksgiving all who have come before me in Spirit and all who shall come after in Spirit. You’re included… I wish you and you’re families health and wellness… Pass it on this Halloween and every day before or after it.
Peace to the Common People of the World!!!!
Peace!
Four Crows in the tree, a found Pigeon and Hawk feather, a Cardinal’s head, a good dream of Thanksgiving, a Peaceful Heart that needs to be shown. Under a Cottonwood Tree, on Halloween I will be sitting there talking to a man I gave a feather.
World Peace this Halloween…
Did I forget Russia?
Did I forget England?
Did I forget The Congo or Nigeria?
Did I forget Syria?
Forgive, this Halloween. Play your drums, sing songs, bring others over for a feast.
Reach out!!!!
Forgive!!!!
Thank you, for the treat.
Freedom!!!!!
Don’t tread on Us or Them!!!!
Peace Again!!!!
And you know… I owe Sinead O’Conner an apology. I was upset with her for a long time when she ripped up a picture in her hand. But now that I’m older I see I was in the wrong. And her songs of forgiveness fared surpassed any other song that I tried to block out.
Forgive me, Sinead. I was in the wrong… Cheers!!!
From my heart to the world!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj_xKA5C2vU&feature=related
Thanks for the song!!!!
The Veil between the Worlds.....
Halloween has always been about Death. The monsters representing the decaying forms of the flesh. Coming at the end of the Harvest season it is the flipside of Beltane( May 1st) six months earlier. In the ancient times it is the time when Winter began, as Beltane was the beginning of Summer. It is the time to honor all that has come before, as well as a reminder that all of us will one day become ancestors as well. So go and Dance with the Dead as you too will become one...sooner than you think.
I have always found it interesting that Halloween is also the beginning of the new year in the Celtic tradition. That the time of the lifting of the Veil between this world and the "other side", i.e. Death, is also the time of the New Year. This time at the end of the growing cycle is ruled by the sign of Scorpio, the sign that governs the sexual organs.(Sex and Death, every Scorpio's favorite things!) I personally believe that this holds the secret to the mystery of Halloween. In the end of life there is the erotic pull to regeneration. So as Beltane celibates the beginning of the erotic pull of the material World, Halloween celebrates the pull into the Spirit. The Light of the conscious "Masculine" of the Solar, into Dark unconscious of the "Feminine" Lunar. Life making Love with the Dead, Death making love with Life. Yin and Yang dancing wildly through all of eternity.
From that perspective, we have never left our connection to the natural order. Yes we have been living in a so-called Patriarchal period, but can you also not hear HER calling us into the great night, the great mystery. Dancing with the shadows of the Goddess, all she wants is to be listened to and be loved in all her terrible and seductive ways. Balance will always happen. It is happening now in the crumbling institutions, the veil is lifting, perhaps we are in a time of Halloween 24/7.
So relax Charles, Halloween is still here...stronger than ever. Look at the symbols around us, from a slightly sideways view and you could still see the myths being played out. I suggest if you are in NYC go to the Halloween day Parade, you might be surprised to know that the organizers are very conscious ( i spoke with the woman in charge) of bringing in ritual to such a mainstream event. Bringing in the Ghost into the Machine. BOO!!!
i like this article
Remembering the ancestors...
The fires are always lit...all the dead wood gathered around the farm,a big tidy up after the harvest is done,Samhain has its place mythologically as remembering the dead and offering up prayers for endings and new beginnings that will follow with the Winter solstice and the light returning,the mushrooms are out to be gathered and the veil is very thin,the portals are there to be accessed...in my childhood we spent days gathering for the fire and on the night itself would go mummering,telling tales and singing songs in exchange for whatever we given,we were thankful to feast around our fires with our goodies!!! It has indeed been hijacked by commercialism and there is profit for some,i thank you Charles for highlighting this sham..if we do one thing this friday,try and educate the innocents,give treats where treats are due and trick...where tricks are due...The wisdom of the dark nights ensue,don't let the messages be shrouded in darkness,for the light is following the dark...Tis a good time to sweat!!!!
Solas
Constipated Consciousness
Nicely done, Charles.
I believe that the remnants of an ancient consciousness suggested by Halloween should remind us that consciousness continues to evolve. It would be way cool to have a festival that projects our state of being into the distant future. Spending a weekend intoxicated by a future state of being...
While we are certain that it’s coming (and some believe perhaps sooner than we might think), and while we can imagine that it will be some combination of self-reflective and cosmic consciousness; a blending of our most recent journey into individuality (separation), and our long forgotten primitive experience of unity, it’s reality is still too foggy to picture with enough confidence to create a celebration out of it. But wouldn’t it be cool?
I learned a new word while reading The Secret History of Consciousness by Gary Lachman. The word is Anthroposphere. It’s the very narrow sphere of daylight consciousness created by modern human society. It seems to be narrowing and contracting; limiting our awareness more and more as time goes on. ...Being reduced from mind into matter; from consciousness into currency.
I agree with you that at times of the year such as this, we need to remember how constipated our opinions of reality really are!
To those of you who may reach some form of enhanced consciousness this weekend, engaging in an experience of time with no time (by whatever means you are accustomed), happy Halloween!
"everything means something"
spooky
when the Poe curtain is drawn back,
and black cats arch their backs,
the moon rides the night a flashlight from the otherside,
when the otherside floods through,
and there is nothing left to do
and all over the creepy town are heard cries of boo,
when the haunted factories seeth a greenish glow
the feint memory of all hallows flies on the breeze
that makes leaves into masks and the dead trade
places with the living a tricky treat or sweet sexy candy
stand here with your bag at the door of forevermore
do all you little goblins and gouls come in jest
from your graveyard eternal rest
witches and willowy ghost and great wonderful draculas
with fake blood or real who would know or care
now dead president heads the most grotesque scare
when i remember as a tad walking the spooky streets
as the hobo or bum i always felt i was the freaky best
as bum i come and bum i go with grave dirt
on my fresh face i beatnik bum i will stay
with my psychedic future i would ware
another costume then with raggedy salvation army
duds and long saintly hair i grin and bare it
bells and beads are now the chains and rattle
i am always ready for halloween in my black robe
that i wore to the hoodwink party and the lick
of candle flicker wick though the great pumpkin ball
when there are more zombies of living dead
then true dead that come to show us the way
then this day when we pass the thin sheet between
All Hollow
Hollow fear, plastic pumpkins and fake glowing bones,
The ageless, playful dance with darkness
Reduced to a marker in the retail year.
Hollow joy, sugar hype, children starving for meaning,
Shortchanged by executive candymen who plot
The vampiric seduction of ads,
Sucking archetypes dry for purchase on soft brains,
Selling eternal youth and beauty
In a dumb Dracula costume kit.
Hollow werewolf masks
Bought by exemplary fathers
Whom a white house haunted by the ghost of glory
Turned into hideous mechanical warriors
In a foreign desert.
Hollow earth, Halloween’s deep roots of sanity
Pulled out to pave a parking lot,
Nourishing shadows dying in the glare of omnipresent screens
Monsters, ghouls, golems, exiled from their ancient homes in us
To the efficient shelves of our soothing malls
As real, humorless terror cements our numbness.
Letters to my Brother and Son
To patrick:
Telling someone they are arrogant and condescending just may mean your words hold that power too.
And we all have the ability to hate just as much as we do to love... to hurt as to heal... we are all human that stumble thru the darkness sometimes. And sometimes the world can become so loud that you just can't hear what is truly being said and in what manner.
There are sometimes acts of kindness that are made to look selfish by others... you know we all have a point of view. We think but not always alike.
I've just reached a point in my life where words or opinons of me go thru me like the wind... they come as easy as they flee. Believe me when I say that I have had my share of fingers pointing at me in trying to figure out the best solution that can fit everyone in the state they are in. That to me is not arrogence but courage as you are placed in the parlor to dance your song... life is life.
You know today when you said that you didn't know me I needed to remind you of how I new you and to me it was all good. I always felt I accepted you and loved you from the bottom of my heart. I try to show it at times and so did you...
Where we became lost? I don't know or care but you have always reminded me of Cardnials. Cardnials remind me of leaders, the ones who have good minds if they use them with heart. And today under the Cottonwwod tree there was the red head of a carnial, just the head, and by it were torn up pieces of doves, missing heads. The tree was full of crows.
The cottonwood is a tree that is at the firehouse I'm working at. I go out there a lot to just think. Well with all those bird parts around I thought I'd give them a proper burial. I walked back into the firehouse and grabbed a shovel & rake.
I dug a hole with the shovel and picked up the bodies of the doves. I then picked up the Cardnial's head and carried it to the hole where the doves stood. I placed the cardnial's head on top of the body of one of the doves. On the body of another dove I placed a strand of my hair. I then buried it all over and grabbed the rake and began cleaning up around the picnic tables.
When I was finished and placed a rock on the grave only one Black Crow sat alone in the cottonwood tree and he cawed and then he flew away. I stuck a cottonwood leaf between the burial and rock and then went back into the firehouse and someone had given me a hatchet but I called it a tomahawk. The laughed and argued with me about it. I then announced to my fellow workers that someone would be getting the tomahak at my Shaman picnic this Halloween, which is Friday. I'm even making the sandwiches.
I just came in the door after dropping off John's birthday present at the house and eating some of the birthday cake Colleen had made for him... it was good.
I never said I'm sorry... It just wasn't time. But I will now because I have been forgiven and my apology can be accepted.
I'm sorry. As Mom's last words to me were, "You gotta do what gotta do. I try my best, believe me.
All is now forgiven.
Let's always leave it there.
To John:
Happy Birthday!!!!
And just "Thanks" for everything.
I wrote a letter of apology today to my Brother Patrick. I stand forgiven. A Good Birthday gift was given to me too. I was reminded of a song by Cat Stevens.
Today you mentioned being 18. I just thought of this song by Cat Stevens and I think of you now and how proud I am to be your Father... I thank your Mother for You.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cpX1ZjuaiA&feature=related
Peace.
Be patient -- 18 will come soon enough. And all is merely passing thru.
Love ya.
To: Everyone Else including my Relations,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJer7-eAy3o
Hope you are enjoying this time of year.
You are all invited to my picnic.
Maybe the Children of Abraham will be there too. Maybe the Children of Anyone who cares for the Next Generation. I can only hope. So much pain in the World that comes about over misunderstandings of what's in a book.
Look around here on Earth for your Heaven... Sometimes it can be found under a Cottonwood Tree, sometimes above or below it, sometimes within.
Halloween is only two days away...
Hope it to be a treat.
Peace Again!!!
To: All
Peace again and again!!!!
Great article, Charles!
After reading this, my first thought was how much I've come to appreciate Charles' work and how much it resonates with me.
In this particular article, of course I found the historical information presented fascinating, but when it really started hitting home is when he talked about how much Halloween has changed just in his lifetime. I think I am a similar age to Charles, so I started thinking back to when I was a kid. When we were younger, usually we went out trick or treating in big groups. By the time we were teenagers, we'd trick or treat, but usually later when most of the kids were home. We'd sometimes get scolded that we were too old, but most people appreciated our "service" of taking their excess candy off their hands!
Flash forward a few years and Halloween became the ultimate time of mischief. Our favorite game was "gourd" bowling, where we'd take some pumpkins from a local supermarket and then drive my VW van to a hill in my town, open the sliding door and "bowl" them down the hill. Ultimately, it was relatively harmless fun (save for a few broken fences), but I'm sure we would have been punished had we been caught. However, in today's punitive, unforgiving climate in the States, I fear that teenagers doing the same would be in a lot more trouble than we would have been. Society has gone overboard in so many ways, seemingly forgeting that the punishment needs to fit the crime..
Anyway, even though I am now a "responsible" husband and father of a 3-year-old boy, this article has inspired me to do something chaotic this Halloween. I am not sure what it will be, but I shall certainly enjoy finding out. Thanks again, Charles, for another awesome piece!
"To go out of your mind at least once a day is tremendously important because by going out of your mind you come to your senses." - Alan Watts
huh?
We are nature but not its
went out of sight out of mind
My Halloween was keen on seein all the way,
down that endless elm street
those rows of A-bomb tract homes
all marching off into gigantic shadows
that appear as October skies behind
great illusions of musty myth and danse macabra
as the bread and circus does a waltz with our senses
we whistle while we work and sing in the hard sucker rain
we paint out faces with www webs and glitter the matrix
rain of code keys falls harder as we bob for apple
and like the knowers of good and evil become
Dostoevesky's Idiot and do a crazy 8 step around
the little skeleton suits and walking scare crows
Torn From Wings
Swaying on the breeze
From the Feather Cottonwood tree
Today I rake fallen brown leaves
And pile them behind some bushes
Flocks of doves rise in large groups
Just inside a train yard
Workmen in white helmets
I watch them as I hear a cawing
One lone black bird in the tree
Do you crow for all and all
All the time it catches my notice
And you fly away again
As I do too
Where a saying is shown to a man
The Earth don't belong to us
We belong to the Earth
The place of the picnic
So now ready and cleaned
And so is the green and red hatchet Everyone is invited
Watch a Hatchet Dance
Maybe tomorrow
We'll hatchet just one
Maybe tomorrow
We'll hatchet them all
Maybe we'll just bury the hatchet
Trick or Treat
For who knows... Halloween
Or how many feathers are hung
But yet they dance and sway
In a free breeze
As you read this
Yes they are
Found feathers from doves
White and Black they are
One tinged in Red
Float on strings
From one branch
Hanging over
Tomorrow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONLr-zweXH0
Cheers Dublin!!!
only tricker treat you junkies can write
razor blades in apples little apple
cheeked children with hands out
makes poets of us all dress as Poe
or a bad clown with great big plans
with any luck them floppy shoes
will be good for another year
that kid around the corner
puts a paper bag over his head
with cigarette burnt holes for eyes
his daddy let his mind roll along
and made the burn holes for the boy
to look through at the spook filled world
only tricker treat junkies can write
like the monster mash
a graveyard smash
and all them kids like cash in the bag
all that crappy corn candy
give ya a belly ache oh they were already on the take
little hoods dressed for the part right from the start
with any luck they will grow up and get a job
but most of those kids would become cannon fodder
and the girls will all be movie stars or just like mom
the drug is the sugar rush is the big yellow moon ball
in your mouth now dripping with ghostly delight
maybe make through this haunted night
and that one in the devil costume with his little hot stuff
pitch fork to teach the brats how to get the fix
oh its all about the tricks nobody cares about the treat
the howls and the hoots in the dark remind of forbidden
words that the little gang are learning as they pass in the
inky dusk the cute ones in their witch hats cackle and
scream and raise some hackles and cheap thrills
on the sidewalk that talk like grown ups its a narcotic
feeling to go door to door with blood running down
your head or the one with the cardboard box suit
thought they looked like a martian that other one looks
like a bled and dead spitin image of a bad guy on TV
this kid will grow up to be a bum a poet like the one
he saw at 12 in that horror spoof movie with beatniks
Bucket of Blood the bearded guy recited a poem
from memory after that i always went as a poet bum
Under The Evergreen
“The food is delicious,” someone said under The Cottonwood Tree.
The feathers of the Doves made it thru the night and not one was taken. I danced thru the hatchet dance and nobody came out hurt. Everyone seemed full today. The weather was perfect and not many crows around. I saw four pigeons fling high and a couple crows too. But pretty much they all left us alone and just allowed us to enjoy our time together outside.
At the end of the picnic the green and red hatchet came with me and so did all the leftovers. I asked each and every one at the picnic to hold the hatchet and think of the worst thing a person ever did to them. I asked them to place it in the hatchet.
When I came home my cousin had written my family telling us that people in New York are being sliced by a gang who call themselves the Bloods. My cousin is told to be afraid for her life. I guess I did the same thing to others… in the end the only slicing I saw was the slicing of the strings of the prayer feathers that hung from the Cottonwwod tree, and branches that sat low and could poke someone in the eye or head, and I saw the slicing of cake.
So I say to those that wish to do harm to others… “Peace to all even you” and just a couple of things more. I’ve been there and that’s not a good place to be. Sometimes we feel so low and worried that we wish harm to others to feel as low and worried as us. Believe me, I’ve been there, but like it’s been said before, “It’s not a good place to be… being mean and vicious.”
Bury the hatchet! It’s what I’m going to try and do tonight. Just one more dance to go and I’m going to do a dance for those I love and the world, and those to come, and tonight especially those that have gone before us. I already dug a grave. It’s now time for the Bury the Hatchet Dance. It will be under an Evergreen Tree that’s sits in a neighbor’s yard. And when I bury the hatchet, I’m also going to think about First Americans some call the “R word”. I am a Native American with what I call a seed of the First Ones before me.
The First Americans, My Ancestors were scalped for a bounty!!! The skins that brought the bounty hunters money were the skins of my Ancestors and Relations. People of the world hear, if you can, and if you can’t then please listen. They are your Ancestors and Relations too and still are today -- Yours are mine. I believe that somehow we are all related in the end and now and where we came.
“Be not afraid,” I said today then someone mentioned that it’s the most quoted part of their scripture. Well then we all must agree on something -- we must not fear each other or cause fear in each other. We are all common people and at the same time we are royalty! For the blood that flows now in the veins of all humanity is interconnected. Respect this and respect to each other… remember the heart of it all. Beat your drums into goodness and charity and equality. I once heard that trust is sometimes greater then love. Blood Relative, near and far, I agree with this.
To: All My Relations, All my Ancestors, All My Siblings
Peace again and again and over and over and again and again and over and over. Pump it in and pump it out.
Grandfather, help us all.
I hope to write about tonight tomorrow. But who knows? And please don’t ask me to use a pendulum to figure this out. Obama is speaking in Cincinnati, Sunday. I’m going to attend as I never heard him speak before. I want to be able to tell how it goes. I want to meet him. I want to meet him without any cameras around. I want to tell him about my vote. There will be only one question that I will ask him. His answer will be off the record if he wishes. But he says he’s open and so I believe he will let me write about his answer.
Maybe I’ll be able to tell him a story too about my own struggles in life because they include so many that stand around me. So I’ll try to talk plainly about my common roots and relations. I don’t have the best memory but I’ll try to remember the important parts. Who knows?
Here comes the night…
Happy Halloween!
Tonight I’m going to be dancing, not as good as this man, but I’m going to try my best!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l89xJPi2U_Q
Hey I made!!!
And I hear now that the New York gang slashing was a rumor!!!
I hope it is and nobody got hurt there either!
Blood?
I also buried the hatchet!
And then did a dance around it.
The Spirits danced with me.
Beautiful!
Good Spirits we made it...
You are all Saints to me today...
Even the Whitetail Deer...
I thank the Great Spirit for you all
And accepting a prayer of gentleness.
To All My Relations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-NRriHlLUk
P.S. I should be back Monday to write again -- I hope.
All Souls
“That’s a good sign,” I said to Colleen. She agreed and told me all about the day that we both saw bucks on the same day and it was the first buck she had ever seen. I remembered the day and took the buck crossing our path as a sign to acknowledge our relationship to each other.
We pulled up to my apartment and I drove to the back yard and picked up the shovel I dug the grave with. Colleen sat in the front seat of the truck as I walked to the back of the pick-up and grabbed the hatchet I had at the picnic on Halloween.
“Boo!!!” I said with the hatchet in my hand.
“What are you doing,” she asked looking at me in a weird way.
“Take the hatchet,” I said and place in it the worst thing anyone has ever done to you, the worst thing that you ever did to yourself, the worst thing I ever did to you, and the worst thing you ever did to me.” I handed the hatchet to her and she thought for a while with it in her hand and then she handed it back to me. I placed my wrongs I needed to too into the hatchet, also.
I asked Colleen to follow me to the Evergreen Tree with the grave under it. Earlier in the day I had dug that grave. I raised the hatchet as she looked at me. I struck the sharp side of the hatchet deep into the in the grave of the Earth and then buried it over.
“The Hatchet has been buried.” I said.
“Good.” She replied.
I then drove her home and returned quickly back to the place the hatchet was buried. I danced around the buried hatchet with no weapon in my hand with the Spirits that came to join me. There were some good vibes flowing. When finished I walked into my apartment and drifted off to sleep.
When I awoke the next day I took a deer skull off my wall. It’s only been about a month and a half since I received that skull. It was given to me by a neighbor that had moved to Cincinnati from Colorado. He had a mound of antlers in his basement and said I could take what I wanted. And so I grabbed a couple Elk antlers, and a Mule Deer antler, and at the bottom of the pile lay the skull of an eight-point Whitetail Deer. I felt as though I needed to free him from the pile also. The skull has been with me ever since. And after placing a leather band around the forehead of the skull, I then hung it on a wall in my living room. From time to time since then I have placed found feathers in the skulls leather headband when needed. The skull came with me to today to pick up Colleen, Catholics call this day, All Saints Day. And we just thought we’d take a ride on such a beautiful day. I knew where to go.
We took a ride to where my friend, a Lakota, lives. I was first greeted by a man that told me that the Lakota had gone out with his daughter, and that Colleen and I could wait with him and his wife. They were a nice couple. And as we waited we talked, he was Christian and he spoke mostly about Jesus, and Heaven, and Hell, and waste, and void. He was missing a pinky finger. His wife was hard of hearing. But we talked as best as we could until the voids become bigger and I just felt it was time to go.
Colleen and I walked back to the pick up truck, I grabbed the skull, a two stick candle holder made of deer antler, two white candles, and a rubber band to ponytail my hair. A path then led us back to the Lakota’s sweat lodge in the woods. I found a tree, I placed the two candles in my pocket, and set the candle holder down to the ground. I lifted the skull to the sun and silently said a prayer to the Great Spirit ending with “To All My Relations”. I placed the skull down behind the candleholder and it leaned against a tree be. I then said to the Whitetail Deer as Colleen stood next to me, “You are free.” My Lakota friend then suddenly appeared and I asked him if I could light the candles.
“No problem.” Said the Lakota.
I removed the candles from my pocket and placed them into the two empty seats of the candleholder. I then tried explaining to Colleen why the Lakota prayer always ends with “All My Relations.” I told her that she could still say “Amen” if she wanted. I gave her a lighter and asked her if she would like to light a candle and say a prayer. She lit one and her prayer was silent. I then lit my mine. My prayer was out loud, “May we be gentle to each other… All My Relations.”
Colleen and I stood there for a moment more in silence, and I blew out the candles and then placed them in my pocket. Last night we burnt the two white candles by the fire pit at her place. I lit hers and she lit mine. We then did a deer dance around the candles as we invited only the good in. The vibes were all good. Afterwards, we drank martinis while we watched the white candles and logs burn.
Today, is the Day of the Dead in Mexico, they call it All Souls Day in The United States. And this morning I made breakfast for Colleen. I asked her if she wanted to come with me to see Obama speak tonight. She said no. I asked one of daughters and they said no. I still need to ask my son but if he says no I’ll go alone or still ask someone to come along. Today, I read the Cincinnati Enquirer and it quoted Obama , “I feel a righteous wind blowing at my back” it read. I thought about that for a moment and then I changed the question I going to ask him if I could.
Tonight, who knows? I still have not changed the way I’m going to vote but I have changed my question. It’s All Souls Day and tonight I’m just going to be able to stand or sit and just listen. And tonight, a song will be heard, listen… All Souls… You are your own! Hopefully, another good gathering!
P.S. I’m glad I found some time to get this in.
Peace to all… Happy Souls!
Tonight, I will try to sing the words your song…
To those who have come, came, or are where they need to be today – Souls among the living.
And to the good words I hope to hear…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XwSRzNCYIA
A Righteous Wind that blows steady and calm.
Cheers!
The Gentle Blade and Flute
Yesterday afternoon, I threw a pumpkin on the still smoldering fire from the night before. I looked at the smoke from the pumpkin as good prayers being offered up. It laid out a heavy smoke at the house and throughout the neighborhood at Colleen’s. The night before Halloween, Colleen and I had carved that pumpkin into a Jack-O-Lantern. After the carving, we both then placed are hands on it, and we said good prayers of good thoughts for each other. So, I figured, the smoke was coming from the point of creation -- a good prayer.
I cleaned up Colleen’s yard a bit and placed the patio furniture in storage. I thought about the evening and going to see Obama and Nippert Stadium. I asked others to come with me but ended up traveling alone.
When I arrived at Nippert the lines getting into the stadium were long and wide. When I finally arrived into Nippert Stadium, the place was packed with people. Obama took the stage and I listened to his concerns about war, joblessness, health care, voting, and change.
When I left the stadium, I drove to get on I -71, just pass Reading Road, but a Cincinnati Police Officer blocked the road because Obama’s huge entourage was about to enter onto I-71 too, and when they all entered I-71, I followed not far behind them. Eventually they took another direction and I kept going onto 471 South to 275 East thru Kentucky.
I got off at the first exit after crossing the bridge back into Ohio, which is Kellogg Avenue. And last night there was a man standing off to the side of the off ramp. He had a flashlight in his hand and at first I thought he was flagging me down, but when I passed him he quickly shinned his light on a standing Stag that was injured
I pulled over and inquired what was going on. The man with the flashlight told me he just hit the Stag going 60 miles an hour and was surprised the Stag wasn’t dead. I could tell his front leg was busted. I looked at the stag and it was as almost he knew what I had to do. He knew why I was there and why all this was happening.
“We have to get him off the side of the road and into the grass.” I said looking at the man also concerned that someone may get hurt. The Stag could still run back into the road and hurt someone. And so I grabbed the Stag’s antlers with both my hands, one on each separate rack, and he charged me with whatever strength he had in him, and he pushed me back as I pulled until we were both in the grass.
Once in the grass, we began to wrestle, I just needed to get him down on the ground. But he pushed me back hard until we hit a wire fence, he then broke from my grip, one of his antlers then got caught in the wire. I untangled his antler from the wire and he charged me again and I grabbed both of his racks once again and we began to wrestle again. This time I was able to wrestle him to the ground, but it wasn’t for long, he rose back up and we began wrestle again until he fell. When he fell this time I began to choke him around his neck with my hand as he kicked his hooves and shook his antlers at me.
“Wish the police were here so we could just shot him.” The man with the flashlight said.
“Did you call them,” I asked fighting to keep the Stag on the ground with my hand tightening harder around his throat.
“Yeah, I did, they should have been here by now,” the man with the flashlight replied then continued. “I wish they were here already.”
For some reason I just felt that the police would not make it. I was the one sent to put him out of his suffering. And when the Stag was out of breath from my choking grip I stood to my feet and walked over to my truck to see what I could find to take his life.
“We need to kill him, he’s suffering,” I said to the man as I looked thru my tool bin in the back of my truck. The man now stood by the Stag and watched me coming up empty.
“You need a knife,” he asked.
“Yeah, that will do. I don’t have one.” I said as I walked over and sat down next to the Stag. I then asked the man his name. He told me his last name was Siebert and he was from Kentucky. I told him who I was and how I believed this wounded Stag was sent to me. Siebert didn’t say anything as he walked to his truck fetch a knife. While he was away I talked with the Stag. I told him I was sorry about what I was going to do. I also told him that I appreciated him coming into my life. I rubbed his tan fur coat gently. I told him to tell the Spirits wherever he’s going that I said thanks. I told him to tell the Spirits that it felt that the good message had been received by the Great Spirit. The man with the flashlight then walked back to me and still sitting next to the Stag.
“Did you find the knife?” I asked.
“Yep,” he replied.
“How long is it,” I asked.
“About five inches,” he said flashing the blade in his hand. “It’s sharp too.”
He then handed the knife to me. I talked to the Stag once more and said a small prayer of thanks. I then thrust the blade as deep into his neck as I could. The stag began to kick and thrust his antlers wildly. The blade then cut through, I felt the hit, the Stag’s jugular vain burst open and the Stag arose to his feet and gazed at me while bleeding out to the Earth from the side of his neck.
“Looks like you got it!” the man said exclaimed as the Stag charged me for one last time. I grabbed the Stag’s antlers once more but this time held them calm and still, and did not wrestle, we gazed into each other’s eyes again, both of us were breathing heavy, his blood still flowing out of him. The Stag then fell for one last time and I sat next to him relieved and then received a gift from him…
It was gentle and sacred.
I sat rubbing the Stag’s body until he died and I handed the knife back to Siebert with tears in my heart. Seibert folded the bloody knife over and stuck it into his pant pocket. I stood and walked back to my truck leaving Siebert with a fond farewell.
Worn out from the battle, I then went home and sat by the hatchet buried under the Evergreen Tree. And under the tree I gazed up into the stars and then said a prayer which ended in “All my relations.”
I then walked into my apartment and sat quietly while thinking about all that had just happened not only tonight but this whole weekend. My Cree wooden flute sat on a chair in my living room. I picked it up and began to play it… just a song for him. And then I played one for everyone else.
To: The Shamans/Men and Woman
Men and Woman of Good Medicine of The Great Spirit
Today, this day, belongs to you.
P.S. O and I never got to ask Obama my question. My question hasn’t change, and I guess I’ll just have to hold onto it. And if I ever happen to have that opportunity to ask him then I’ll ask him. This morning there was a robin chirping outside my window. “A good sign,” I think to myself. Who knows?
Today is a new day and the sun has risen for me and all.
Think I’ll pick up the flute sometime soon and play a song for one I love.
Be gentle it will be called -- At least give it your best try.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiInSlB2Syo&feature=related
Happy Stag Medicine Day!!!
To: The Great Spirit
All My Relations