A revelation about Halloween and the Southern Hemisphere
Here in Seattle, cool drizzle has moved in, and I was outside just now enjoying it, and listening to Dead Can Dance, and thereby having a delightfully Halloweenish feel to my lunch hour, and that led me to a revelation about Halloween and the Southern Hemisphere:
I have friends in Australia (e.g. writer Dean Mayes) who have expressed dissatisfaction about Halloween; it seems to them just a pointless imported American holiday. And I've always been all, "Noooo, but Halloween is our one truly cool holiday! All the others are tedious, but Halloween's different and spooky and crazy and awesome!" Which I still believe.
HOWEVER, now that I think about it, I bet the problem is simply this: in the Southern Hemisphere, they've got Halloween in the middle of spring. And you cannot have Halloween in the middle of spring. That makes zero sense.
Halloween (or properly Samhain) is all about the decay of summer into autumn, life into death, the veil between our world and the Underworld becoming thin, and all that spooky goodness. You MUST have it on a chilly autumn night with leaves falling off the trees and scudding along the street in the wind. You totally cannot have it among blossoming bushes and greening gardens.
So, see if this makes more intuitive sense, my Australian and other Southern-Hemisphere friends: picture Halloween on April 30/ May 1. Then picture Beltane ("May Day") on October 31. I'm betting that fits a whole lot better. Right? (This blogger has said as much too. I feel silly that this confusion hasn't occurred to me until now.)
Seasons and holidays: sorted.
I have friends in Australia (e.g. writer Dean Mayes) who have expressed dissatisfaction about Halloween; it seems to them just a pointless imported American holiday. And I've always been all, "Noooo, but Halloween is our one truly cool holiday! All the others are tedious, but Halloween's different and spooky and crazy and awesome!" Which I still believe.
HOWEVER, now that I think about it, I bet the problem is simply this: in the Southern Hemisphere, they've got Halloween in the middle of spring. And you cannot have Halloween in the middle of spring. That makes zero sense.
Halloween (or properly Samhain) is all about the decay of summer into autumn, life into death, the veil between our world and the Underworld becoming thin, and all that spooky goodness. You MUST have it on a chilly autumn night with leaves falling off the trees and scudding along the street in the wind. You totally cannot have it among blossoming bushes and greening gardens.
So, see if this makes more intuitive sense, my Australian and other Southern-Hemisphere friends: picture Halloween on April 30/ May 1. Then picture Beltane ("May Day") on October 31. I'm betting that fits a whole lot better. Right? (This blogger has said as much too. I feel silly that this confusion hasn't occurred to me until now.)
Seasons and holidays: sorted.