And so my witches, what shall we do for Halloween this year? How do we celebrate the high holy Days of the Dead in this year of of death?
You likely know all this, but it bears repeating.
October 31, Halloween or Samhain, the witches' New Years Eve, when we get on our brooms and fly. My wedding anniverary.
November 1, All Saints in the Catholic tradition, the celebration of the holy ones, the anointed ones, the bodhisattvas.
November 2, All Souls, Dia de los Muertos, the day we visit with our beloved departed and feed them wine and sugar skulls.
November 3, Election day.
Talk about a powerful conjunction.
Late stage capitalism has conspired to drain all reverence and mystery from our high holy days. Halloween has been commodified. Super Stores are filled with cheap wigs made by slave laborer. Costco is lined with shipping pallets full of candy but I haven't had a trick-or-treater in years. Who takes time to greet the ancestors, much less feed them? Young people hit the bars and drink till they puke, old folks turn off the lights and go to bed early. Only a very few set up altars to the ones who have crossed over. Very few of us spend time contemplating our own mortality.
Too many have crossed over in isolation and panic this year. It is not the right time to hit the bars in a sexy kitty costume. Trust me, I have spent more than one Halloween engaged in epic debauchery, I have no problem with a sexy kitty costume. But, it won't do this year, not when death stalks the land and our future hangs in the balance. It won't do.
So, I ask you again: what shall we do for Halloween this year?
In my mind, I see women in black lining the main street of my town. I hear a great wailing and gnashing of teeth. I join my voice with their's and cry out against the darkness. We wail for the needless, preventable death and suffering, we rage at the crimes against humanity. We howl over the theft of our future committed by the elite few against the vast masses. And as our voices lift and surge, I feel a cone of power spiraling around and upward. I am become light shining up and out, light shining in the darkness.
This is what we must do, my witches. We must shine more brightly than we have ever shone before. We must light the way for our beloved departed. We must drive out the darkness.
