Today, we come to understand the world with a reliable trust in logic and scientific explanations, but it hasn’t always been like this. In Antiquity, for example, people approached the world by observing the natural cycles and phenomena which surrounded them and guided their agricultural activities.
By contemplating the world, the Celts distinguished between a lighter half [...]
Today, we come to understand the world with a reliable trust in logic and scientific explanations, but it hasn’t always been like this. In Antiquity, for example, people approached the world by observing the natural cycles and phenomena which surrounded them and guided their agricultural activities.
By contemplating the world, the Celts distinguished between a lighter half of the year and a darker one. Therefore, to mark the translation from one cycle to another, they established important ceremonies and festivities which coordinated and harmonized their life with the natural rhythms of the Earth. Celebrated on 31 October – 1 November, Samhain was marking the end of the harvest time and the beginning of the darker half of the year, the start of a whole new annual cycle.
Evolving from Samhain, Halloween still marks the beginning of the darker half of the year and it’s more or less about light. If in Spring Europeans advance their clocks by one hour, every year, when October almost ends, they move clocks back one hour and shift to winter time, a period of natural decay, with shorter days and longer nights.
If in the past people believed that the border between our material world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits to pass through, today science can explain the causes of darker and colder half of the year and and the effects generated by the lack of natural light on human psyche, which triggers a chemical imbalance in the brain.
These days, when October ends, we have the opportunity to bring darkness to light, understanding the essence of Halloween and enjoying this celebration without forgetting its roots.
Photo by Jim Thompson via Flickr
Halloween lighted pumpkin.
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