ORIGINAL POST DATE: October 28, 2005

Many of the Halloween traditions celebrated in the U.S. originate from old Celtic traditions, so Irish immigrants must have brought many of the common symbolic elements with them to this country. One of the big ones, carving Jack-O-Lanterns, originated with the tradition in Ireland of making an effigy of a head from a turnip. There are not so many turnip carvers around nowadays, especially since pumpkins are far better suited for the job. The general idea is the same though, a scary face with a candle inside, and it hearkens back to the ancient Celtic fascination with severed heads, the details of which I will skip here.

The one ancient Celtic tradition that is most commonly celebrated today is dressing up as otherworld creatures: ghosts, goblins and other frightening monsters. This tradition originates with the ancient festival of Samhain and how that celebration reflected the Celtic concept of time and the calendar. Samhain was one of the four major celebrations during the Celtic year, and is the point in the annual cycle where one year ends and another begins - sort of an ancient version of our New Year's Eve. The Celt's concept of the daily cycle provided that the old year ended at sundown on the last day in October (as it corresponds to our calendar), the New Year began at sunrise on November first. This resulted in a gap in time between sunset and sunrise which belonged to neither the old nor the new year - a time outside of time. This physical break in time was seen as a doorway through which beings from the otherworld could leak into the real world - similar to the concept of the Hell Mouth in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fires were lit to keep malevolent spirits at bay, and dressing as one of them would disguise your mortal aspect, preventing the terrifying possibility of being dragged into the otherworld by the evil spirits.

I find this idea very compelling, that the calendar year could have a gap in it between ending and beginning again. Our contemporary year moves with very little interruption, and even the general idea of holidays has eroded with businesses being open through all the holidays in the year: 24-7-365. That there exists this concept of a time outside of the regular cycle of time, that the year has to stop for a while before it can begin anew, is something we could do well to embrace, even in small ways. Imagine a time outside of time; something magical that made the phone stop ringing, the internet idle, and had people staying home for some quiet contemplation; just as a reminder of the end of one important cycle, the beginning of the next. It is something almost impossible to think of today - a collectively ritualized secular experience of time - but it is an interesting concept nonetheless. Heck, even the ancient Celts had to have the frightening aspect of otherworld demons to reinforce the Samhain ritual to make them stop and pay attention. Perhaps then what we need is a renewed belief in otherworld monsters to get us to slow down a bit, for one evening at least.

Choose your costumes accordingly and have a great time out of time on Halloween!