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 tridium (wow, big words). In case you want to comment, reflections are always welcome. Spooks, specks and spotless Tomorrow is Halloween, the tradition of scaring the shit outof our souls. Sensational? Well, our title rhymes with the colorful sibilants,doesn't it? Cuss words in English refer to body parts and functions,mostly to that part just below the belt, the section that gives so muchpleasure that the puritans and pilgrims of old were horrified at the excitementthey derived in the exercise thereof, giving it derisive meaning. Sexual terms are taboo. We use puritans and pilgrims in the lowercase to indicate that we refer to the early New England Americans as a metaphorrather than as a specific group of people. The looseness of our tongue flowing into the fluidity of ourpencil reveals a relationship of the day to ghosts and goblins, inhabitantsmore on the world of the imagination than the tangible doorsteps of ourapartment complex. Not to my neighbor though. More than a month before Halloween, the flying broom and theaccompanying ghastly creatures of the moonless night grace her abode'sportals. Some of the creatures andJack-o-lanterns on her door manage to get blown to my side of the walkway, andthat might be an alert that the kids will "trick or treat" on thehallowed evening. The weekend is actually a tridium of religious observances that evolved through theyears. There was the Celtic tradition ofghosts and goblins. Then the RomanChurch, in its wisdom, accented the local celebration, supplanted traditionalmeanings 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 Hallowedevening (thus, Halloween, duh!), followed by exemplary darlings (all Hallows,holy, became All Saints Day), and to be generous and ecumenical, the third daybecame All Souls' Day to encompass everyone. For now, we are into Halloween, a promoted holiday of theChamber of Commerce for the sale events it engender. Of course, with many in Saipan, generators arethe hum of the times; Halloween sales are on all the way to All Souls' Day, byhook at every nook. Korea has incorporated ancestral memory in its Chuseok festival, kept separate inChina's Ching Ming, the latterexclusively for folks to go tidy out the tombstones of those who had goneahead. Late October into November is theChristian's turn to move its head in the direction of the gravestone, firstwith the ghosts that might "scare" us to remember forgottenobligations, 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 favoredwine and brew all night at the CK cemetery. And you thought the medieval mind did not have any practical sense atall! Halloween is when we spook everyone. What is it about being scared that makes ushuman? It must be the aspect of uncertaintyand wonder that overwhelms us in the total scheme of things, the arena betweenemotion and cognition that entails "belief". The specter of death waitsat the terminus. Thus, the tendency to bring in someone to get us out of anypredicament we might have gotten into, often a Redeemer and/or a Savior, anAvatar and/or an Exemplar. Our penchantfor 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 Livesas the World Turns? Ghosts, demons and leprechauns are the goods ofHalloween. They are messy ones, ratherthan the antiseptic and anesthetic spotless specks connoted by the word"spirit". Being"spiritual" is often no more than Merlin the Magician's hocus-pocus thatpromises an illusion of a world other and outside of this world. We go with the world in the midst of this world, a veritablechoice and a rich one. The Earthriseconsciousness permeated the globesince Apollo 8 sent back pictures of the Earth from the lunar horizon, aconviction of the interrelatednessof the whole planet, with its consequent reality of Earthbound commitment thatholds one's self as an integral part of 7 billion some human whole andcreatures native to the Earth. This mysteriousconsciousness is my Halloween. Itrenders my being as active (not passive) totally (not just piece meal) andcorporately (a hard one as we tend to ignore others and drive on our own so weadopt the disciplines of meditation, contemplation and prayer). We openly declare authentic truth rather thanbe secretive; we create out of nothing, exnihilo, beyond just masterful innovation of what already is. We do not do so from a distance but frombeing present in the middle of it all. There lies our integrity, caring for the planet and the humanity thereofwith nothing but sheer effulgence! We are terrifiedand scared by the immensity of our possibilities, and that's probably whyHalloween is part of a tridium that sets apart the saints and all thesouls. Booo! j'aime la vie yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate! in all, celebrate!