Halloween may look a little different this weekend with social-distancing rules and bans on trick-or-treating in some areas, but many are finding small ways to celebrate. Where I live, neighbors have outfitted their front lawns with skeletons, ghosts, pumpkins, and spiderwebs. Most seem to have gotten more serious about their Halloween decor this year, making the streets a fun and spooky sight. The Halloween we know began as Samhain, a pagan festival that signaled the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. It celebrated the introduction of darker days ahead and marked the time of year where it was thought the veil between the physical and unseen world was the thinnest. In Mexico, Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, celebrates those who have passed on. Families encourage visits from the spirit world by setting up altars for their departed loved ones, decorating them with photos, offerings of favorite foods, and flowers. In Buddhism, there too are Halloween corollaries to be found in unseen beings, multiple realms of existence, and even hungry ghosts. There also exists a deep respect and understanding of death as one of the greatest teachers of all. As the three stories below will tell you, Halloween brings with it the opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the darker side of life. Beyond costumes and candy corn, it reminds us of the delicate balance of life and death, light and dark, and as Ira Sukrungruang puts it below, “the necessity of both.” Happy Halloween! —Lilly Greenblatt, digital editor, LionsRoar.com |
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