<font color='black' size='4' face='Times New Roman, Times, serif'><font size="4" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">The second to the last paragraph is unabashedly from the PH terminology, in case, you are curious. It is not slated till the end of October for the religious </font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="4">tridium (wow, big words). In case you want to comment, reflections are always welcome.</font>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b>Spooks, specks and spotless<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Tomorrow is Halloween, the tradition of scaring the shit out
of our souls. Sensational? Well, our title rhymes with the colorful sibilants,
doesn't it?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Cuss words in English refer to body parts and functions,
mostly to that part just below the belt, the section that gives so much
pleasure that the puritans and pilgrims of old were horrified at the excitement
they derived in the exercise thereof, giving it derisive meaning. Sexual terms are taboo. We use puritans and pilgrims in the lower
case to indicate that we refer to the early New England Americans as a metaphor
rather than as a specific group of people.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The looseness of our tongue flowing into the fluidity of our
pencil reveals a relationship of the day to ghosts and goblins, inhabitants
more on the world of the imagination than the tangible doorsteps of our
apartment complex.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Not to my neighbor though.
More than a month before Halloween, the flying broom and the
accompanying ghastly creatures of the moonless night grace her abode's
portals. Some of the creatures and
Jack-o-lanterns on her door manage to get blown to my side of the walkway, and
that might be an alert that the kids will "trick or treat" on the
hallowed evening.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The weekend is actually a <i>tridium</i> of religious observances that evolved through the
years. There was the Celtic tradition of
ghosts and goblins. Then the Roman
Church, in its wisdom, accented the local celebration, supplanted traditional
meanings with the slant that the Church wanted.
Christmas is another and Thanksgiving (harvest festival) are examples,
but let's focus on the three-day religious holidays. Ghost and goblins are the scare of Hallowed
evening (thus, Halloween, duh!), followed by exemplary darlings (all Hallows,
holy, became All Saints Day), and to be generous and ecumenical, the third day
became All Souls' Day to encompass everyone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">For now, we are into Halloween, a promoted holiday of the
Chamber of Commerce for the sale events it engender. Of course, with many in Saipan, generators are
the hum of the times; Halloween sales are on all the way to All Souls' Day, by
hook at every nook.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Korea has incorporated ancestral memory in its <i>Chuseok </i>festival, kept separate in
China's <i>Ching Ming</i>, the latter
exclusively for folks to go tidy out the tombstones of those who had gone
ahead. Late October into November is the
Christian's turn to move its head in the direction of the gravestone, first
with the ghosts that might "scare" us to remember forgotten
obligations, to the memory of the exemplary ones we call "saints",
and the affirmation on all the souls who went ahead. We light candles and imbibe in our favored
wine and brew all night at the CK cemetery.
And you thought the medieval mind did not have any practical sense at
all!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Halloween is when we spook everyone. What is it about being scared that makes us
human? It must be the aspect of uncertainty
and wonder that overwhelms us in the total scheme of things, the arena between
emotion and cognition that entails "belief". The specter of death waits
at the terminus. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Thus, the tendency to bring in someone to get us out of any
predicament we might have gotten into, often a Redeemer and/or a Savior, an
Avatar and/or an Exemplar. Our penchant
for the dramatic leans on the dread rather than the wonder. Everyone longs for drama. How else do we account for the Korean,
Filipino, and Chinese "tear jerkers" on our TV, the Days of our Lives
as the World Turns?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Ghosts, demons and leprechauns are the goods of
Halloween. They are messy ones, rather
than the antiseptic and anesthetic spotless specks connoted by the word
"spirit". Being
"spiritual" is often no more than Merlin the Magician's hocus-pocus that
promises an illusion of a world other and outside of this world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">We go with the world in the midst of this world, a veritable
choice and a rich one. The Earthrise
consciousness<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman""> permeated the globe
since Apollo 8 sent back pictures of the Earth from the lunar horizon, </span>a
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">conviction of the interrelatedness
of the whole planet, with its consequent reality of Earthbound commitment that
holds one's self as an integral part of 7 billion some human whole and
creatures native to the Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">This mysterious
consciousness is my Halloween. It
renders my being as active (not passive) totally (not just piece meal) and
corporately (a hard one as we tend to ignore others and drive on our own so we
adopt the disciplines of meditation, contemplation and prayer). We openly declare authentic truth rather than
be secretive; we create out of nothing, <i>ex
nihilo, </i>beyond just masterful innovation of what already is. We do not do so from a distance but from
being present in the middle of it all.
There lies our integrity, caring for the planet and the humanity thereof
with nothing but sheer effulgence!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">We are terrified
and scared by the immensity of our possibilities, and that's probably why
Halloween is part of a tridium that sets apart the saints and all the
souls. Booo!</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
<div style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px; clear: both;"><i>j'aime la vie</i>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate! in all, celebrate!<br>
</i>
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