The Halloween Spirit May be on Life Support But Isn’t Dead Yet


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Yes, you read that right.  The spirit of Halloween is on life support.  Most adults today just don’t want to be bothered to put a bunch decorations up in their yard during the cold season.  I don’t know about where you live but here in Minnesota it gets a little chilly around Halloween.  Remember when we were kids and streets on Halloween night were full of all sorts of ghosts and aliens even a few monsters here and there? Around here if you go trick or treating around your neighborhood you’ll see that one Avenger far off in the distance almost to the horizon.

 

Where’d they go you might ask? the mall most likely, it’s safe, inside in the warm air and you could do some shopping while you’re there.  While I understand the feeling safe part, isn’t that loosing just a bit of that Halloween spirit?  Isn’t Halloween supposed to be at least a little scary? Just a tiny bit? Isn’t that part of the fun?

 

Yes, I’m aware of the origins of Halloween and how it’s evolved into what it is today and the original intent was to signify a harvest and was originally and is still  called Samhain.  Halloween is now a separate entity all together.   Now it’s about people’s love of being frightened, dressing up as something or someone you’re not, and having fun with it, or free candy.  There is no pagan ritual, there’s no devil worship, there is some debauchery involved but that’s all in the fun.

 

christmas tree at shopping mall (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Retail stores are pushing the bigger holidays earlier and earlier every year.  This kind of over shadowing is pushing out Halloween and Thanksgiving while also over hyping the Christmas season to the point where when Christmas comes around, you’re already sick of the whole holiday.

 

So yes, the spirit IS on life support, but it’s not dead, no, it’s undead.  It’s coming back.  I know, I’ve felt it. I’ve used it. Yup, this weekend while costume shopping for the family I got that spark.  I don’t know what else to call it except that one moment of inspiration. We were at Party City, my wife was trying to help our youngest with their costume and I wandered off in typical Loomis fashion and saw a women’s Gothic accessory.  I started putting together a costume for my wife that would be dark. I had an image in my head and I was in a zone.

 

Like a madman I couldn’t form complete sentences. I was grabbing accessories that I would hope worked. Once we left there we went to this Halloween store that is open all year round.  Oh yeah, baby. That’s right! Daddy’s got a new hobby

Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

store now. Annnd we’re all a little creeped out now.  Anyway, I was like the Doctor on Doctor Who, more specifically Matt Smith‘s Doctor.  I even had to attempt to form a broken sentence to one of the store’s many helpers.  She just smiled and pointed me in the right direction.  I probably wasn’t the first one to say, “Women. tops. black” after being ask if she could help me find anything.

 

After running around back and forth in the store usually saying to myself something like “Head piece. dark, not cutesy.” or “something dark. Dark. Need dark.” Over and over again, I finally had most of it together and I was bringing myself back out of the zone with a clearer picture of what she will look like.  Now that little spark made me just a little excited for Halloween again.  There were a lot of people in the store,  some were there for the fun, others were there cause they must have a costume for some party. I do know one thing, I’m starting early for next year. because now I have more time and just a little more money to make next Halloween even more frightfully scary.

 

People love to be scared, in that spirit somewhere deep in the shadows is the Halloween spirit’s heart faintly beating but slowly thumping away, getting stronger. In all of us is a dark side, we control it, we need it, it;s part of who we are and this one day it’s okay to let it creep out even just a little.  Feel that Halloween spirit and let it flow. You might be surprised with what you can do with it.


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Just a Few Helpful Safety Tips for Your Halloween

Jack-o-lantern (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every Halloween, it never fails, there’s always news reports about someone who gets hurt or killed because they weren’t thinking about safety.  So I came up with a list to help you out a little.  The last thing I want is for you to be unsafe and get hurt or maimed.  So in no particular order here they are.

1. Do not accept candy from strangers without a pulse.  I know it shouldn’t have to be said, however every year some body without a pulse hands out old, expired, stale and really hard candy that you can chip a tooth or get really sick from.  So the best rule of thumb, no candy from people without a pulse.  If you’re reading this and you don’t have a pulse, sorry but you’ll have to pedal your weak attempt recruit more pulseless people somewhere else.
2. When someone offers you a hand, don’t take it.  Most of the time this is a practical joke that will go one of two ways; either you will have a clapping audience, or the second you grab their hand it will fall off and you’ll have a bloody mess all over your expensive costume.  Either way their going to laugh at you so just don’t accept it.
3. If you see someone with their eye dangling out of their head, never and I repeat NEVER try poking it back in with a stick! It never works out well.  One of a couple of things will happen.  Either you’re going to poke out their real eye (because they had REALLY good makeup for their costume) or the stick will go right through their eye which will just piss them off more and they’ll try to eat your brain that they might have left alone in the first place.  Seen it dozens of times.
4. While trick or treating always be polite. This should be obvious, but just in case.  Remember that these are most likely your neighbors, so if you piss them off they may fly into your room at night and suck out all of your blood and replace it with liquid nitrogen thereby solidifying your innards and your body as a whole so that when the police arrive the next day, they’ll think your family is crazy because they insist that the glass person in your bed wasn’t glass yesterday.  So again be polite.  Plus it’s just a nice thing to do.
5. Do not let anyone tell you that your costume is too revealing.  Ladies this one is mainly for your safety. Ladies I cannot tell you how many times that I’ve read about a woman who was found with bite marks all over her  the day after Halloween but had no marks on her costume.  So please for your safety show the skin so that us guys (your protectors) can make sure that you’re alright.
6. Just because you’re wearing a Van Helsing or a Buffy costume does not make you a Monster Hunter.   No matter what movie you may have seen or books that you may have read, monsters are dangerous.  It’s best just to stay away.  Hell the professional monster hunters can’t even keep these things from coming back.  How many times has Dracula, Freddy, Michael, or Jason been killed?  No, I’m asking, I lost count.  Anyway, it’s pretty safe to say that people just need to stay away from monsters.
7. Zombies you can kill.  Unless it’s those fast mofos that have been popping up lately.  Those guys are insane.
8. Clowns are no longer safe costumes.  Sure it’s a great costume to scare people with even with that ridiculous smile painted on your ridiculously white face, but too many people now have an aversion to them, and they might just shoot you before they realize that you’re not some hideous creature from the depths of Hell’s fire pits in the darkest region of damnation.  Plus clowns aren’t funny, just creepy.  Unless certain people are funny when they’re creeped out in which case more power to you.

 

So these are just a few little safety tips to help make your Halloween a safe and joyous event.  HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Ouija Boards are Niether Good Nor Evil.

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In the spirit of Halloween, I thought I’d interjects a little thought-provoking common sense.  The history of the Ouija board is really inconsequential.  It’s like the history of a screwdriver, who cares.  It’s a tool.  A better analogy would be a walky talky, it’s a communication device.  The only difference is you’re asking the spirits to take over a part of your body to communicate.  I should mention at this point, I don’t like the term “Witch Board”. It invokes some condemnation on Wiccans as if they were all satanic and immoral.

To some it’s a cute Parker Brothers game to break out at parties.  To others it’s a Hell born concept bent on dragging souls to Hell.  Parker brothers bought the patent to the board decades ago when seances were at the height of popularity.  God Bless them for helping move the economy along.  Christian religious zelics swears the boards themselves are evil.  Again, in my humble opinion, it’s just a piece of cardboard with plastic pointers.  That’s all.  Now, the use of them, on the other hand, can be very precarious.

Truth is, you don’t know who or what is actually coming through.  It could be your Great Aunt Sally, or your dad.  It could also be Earthbound spirits, angry spirits, or even demons themselves.  Earthbound spirits, in case you didn’t know are those spirits who are, simply put, stuck here.  Just roaming around without a clue as to what happened to them or why they are there.  They will lie to you just to have a conversation.

None of these spirits are stupid.  They need your energy to move the plastic pointer.  The more people on it the better.  The more it’s used the more control they have over you and eventually you may need an exorcism.

The point I’m attempting to make is that there are much safer and better ways to communicate with the spirit world than allowing something outside your body to control you.  Again, the board is not the problem.  It’s the use of that board that is.

How Far Back Does Halloween Go?

We all know what Halloween is, and we’ve all heard about the pagan rituals that it derived from.  Have you heard where those rituals came from? In my research on the history of Halloween I learned about Samhain, where druids would go on a hill that was named Tlachtga (Gaelic for Earth-Spear, also now known as Ward Hill) and light a fire signaling the end of summer and the beginning of the new Celtic year.

Why that particular hill you might ask? It’s supposedly the spot where the daughter of the Druid Mogh Ruith, a blind magician who was not liked by the church of that time and taught his daughter everything he knew.  They traveled all over trying to learn from other great druids.

This lead them to Samaria, where they met a wizard named Simon Magnus (from the New Testament),  who had the villagers thinking he was a god.  Irish writers of the time found the similarities between Simon and Mogh’s magic.  It’s been told that the three of them constructed a flying “wheel”  named Roath Ramach, a vehicle to fly in the air demonstrating that they have more power than the apostles.

According to Irish lore, Tlachgta brought the flying wheel with her to Ireland and it was said to be made from two pillars of stone. She made the Rolling Wheel for Trian, the Stone in Forcathu and the Pillar in Cnamchaill (Cnamchaill means bone damage). These devices were dreaded by all and stories were told for generations that anyone who touched them died, any who saw them were blinded, and any who heard them were deafened. Some speculate that these stones were lightning rods and the dread associated with them a result of bolts of lightning conducted upon them.  Sounds a little like radiation poisoning.

Tlachtga died on Samhain giving birth to Triplets fathered by Simon’s sons. Yes sons, three of them who raped her.  When the Roman Catholics caught wind of this, they attempted to overshadow it with All Saints Day or All Hallowmas. The day before it was called All Hallows Eve. Eventually it came to be known as Halloween.  In the 19th century it started to become less secular and more kid friendly.

Today the ritual of Samhain is still happening, kids still get their treats, teens still have their tricks, and adults benefit from the candy that looks “suspicious”.  I think it’s a win all around.