Skulls and skeletons
Line the autumn sidewalks-
Last Echinacea dies.
It's that time of year again, when skeletons and monsters and witches appear cartoon-like on the lawns and in the windows of our neighbors and storefronts. Last year I began to wonder most seriously about this strange holiday, which I haven't much celebrated for years now, being a bit out of the "drunk and wild on State St all night" loop, and not particularly interested in costumes. I used to love Halloween, dressing up in disguise, both as a child and as a drunk twenty-something, and that affection remains, though it was, for awhile, underground.
Increasingly I have become aware of Dio de Los Meurtos, and the way this celebration traditionally sets off the spooks and fright of American Halloween. I referenced a whole Wikipedia article about what I discovered about the history of Halloween last year, so I won't get into that now, but suffice it to say that I find it fundamentally fascinating that Mexican culture puts aside a day to really be with the dead and celebrate their lives, and we have a day to scare the shit out of each other and put up representations of monsters none of us could survive coping with in real life.
Skeletons and skulls are one thing, but bodies crawling back out of graves? Death itself? Ghouls and goblins completely enraged and ready to eat your head off? I have no commentary for these, just a sudden peaking fascination with these occurences, symbols, signs. Wide open curiousity.
For my part, I am working up to celebrating a more "Day of the Dead" kind of fall. That seems good for the soul. In the meantime, keep watching Flickr - I made a trip to a huge Halloween Express shop a couple of weeks ago and the pictures I took! Wow...
No comments:
Post a Comment