Celebrate the Light

With each passing year, Halloween becomes more and more special for me. Of course, it’s my own personal new year’s eve – my birthday falls tomorrow on November 1 – but as the psyche of the world splits and moves away from organised religion – or collapses back into it again with a warlike vengeance – I mark October 31 in my own mind as a spiritual festival, a global celebration of the release of darkness in preparation for the dawn of a beautiful new light on All Saints Day.

We all have ghouls and ghosts in our pasts. We all have fears and anxieties. But we also have the power to be mindful of the light in our world, to focus on the good in ourselves and in others and to hold that light true in the coming year. The only way to deal with the darkness is to stare deeply into it … and to realise that it can allow us to see stars. I believe human consciousness has the magical ability to change things, to take each test – whether it’s the surreal threat of a global ebola pandemic or the beheading of good men in a desert far from home or the blind folly of Russian tanks trampling the Ukraine – and change the future by imagining a better one with a clear and unblinking eye. As a species, we created this situation … so how are we going to change it? Can we begin to do so in our own tiny corner of the world by being tolerant, compassionate, understanding and gentle – by working to change the imbalances in our relationship with each other and with nature – and then strengthen that light by joining it with the light of like-minded others? Can we pragmatically set out to accept that co-operation and kindness rather than competition and jealousy is the key to the wise use of resources in the future? Can we make a sun of this changed attitude so large that darkness itself begins to lose its very force?

As every terrorist knows, nothing confuses more than fear; nothing creates chaos more quickly than a sense of collective horror. Just the naming of the evil Voldemort in J.K. Rowling’s wonderful Harry Potter books was enough to send otherwise sensible people backsliding into a state of irrational panic. So today, of all days, let’s teach our children not to be afraid of the dark. Don a witch’s hat, smear on some fake blood, cover yourself in cobwebs and team up with a zombie for a fab-filled night of the living dead. Take off on your broomstick! Release your inner funnel web! Be every bit as intense as some black and brooding thing before the dawn. And have a great laugh at the expense of suspicion, fear, paranoia and hatred. In the war against darkness nothing is more powerful than the battle cry of joy 🙂

Celebrate the light:) I know I will.

Susan Muranty, October 31