Listen, my child, to the silence.
An undulating silence,
a silence
that turns valleys and echoes slippery,
bends foreheads
toward the ground.
(Federico García Lorca-1898-1936), Selected Verse, ed. Christopher Maurer, 2004)
Tonight's Halloween is yet another experiment in navigating the Pandemic while venturing outward, exploring new avenues for tradition as the world rapidly changes. Lately, I have been contemplating the ways in which cultures pass on core values to the next generation, teaching character traits and early concepts of right and wrong that we build on and adjust over a lifetime. Folktales (and Halloween offers many, both ancient and modern) are one way we share our collective history, reinforcing cultural values. Although now in the age of Covid, young children have learned to easily shift back and forth between picture books and computers and phones with animated You Tube storytelling, the classic tales like Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Little Pigs endure. And in all cultures, the power of oral tradition still links one generation to another as teachers, parents and grandparents tell "the stories".
These seem like trivial events when we are facing so much in the way of cultural polarization, the ongoing threat of Pandemic, and climate change. And yet folk tales, along with celebrations such as Halloween and Carnival and other secular and religious traditions, weave a fabric of stability and belonging to humans, even as life demands we change. While tonight is Halloween, tomorrow is All Saints Day in the Catholic tradition. These two days, back to back, underscore the human attempt to reconcile what often seems like opposing forces in humanity: good and evil, right and wrong, the world of the living and the dead, Saint and sinner, spiritual and profane, heaven and earth. Indeed, there are traditions that view Halloween, along with the Day of the Dead, as a time when these divides dissolve and polarities blend, sliding one into another, if only for a brief window of time. If you don't have a plan or tradition for Halloween, this is actually a good time to meditate. A new view of Oneness may await. (Susan Nettleton)
"When you are no longer caught up in the dichotomy of right and wrong or good and bad you can never do anything wrong. As long as you are caught up in this duality, the danger is that you will always do wrong." U.G. Krishnamurti (1918-2007)