Something occurred to me today, in work, as i was cleaning, in my usual meditative state. I love this time of year, when all the craziness of the summer months winds down and we transition into the dark half of the year, with all it's beauty and majesty, the leaves, the smell of wood smoke, the smell of the earth, coming home to a warm hearth, with a warm meal, gently bubbling away, on the stove. As much as i enjoy the seasonal changes, and the deep breath of Autumn , i am also akin to the modern modality of Halloween. The evolution and transformation of many cultural, folkloric traditions that we now celebrate as Halloween. The echoes of the past, of honoring our ancestors. honoring the cyclic nature of life and death, the turning of the wheel. has transformed into a wonderfully whimsical world of weirdness of spooks, witch's costumes and candy. We now have a celebration, a menagerie if you will, of commercial revelry in all its glory. Deep rooted in our past, of ancestor worship, beckoning back to age where we worked the land and celebrated it cycles and the cycles of our lives. Now with all this revelry. manifest, i still seem to struggle with the notion of death and fear. Granted we live in a different age, and face different struggles from our beloved, which have gone before us, but where did this all become so fear based ? Food for thought, that. It is the most natural thing in the world to honor the dead. our ancestors, our families, our community, and is an inevitability we all will come to face. Time has no boundaries, after all death is the great equalizer. So what is it about death that we so fear ? For me it isn't death itself but the emotional attachment that i have to my dear loved ones that someday we will be no longer be on the physical plane together, and so, we celebrate all that is dear to us, coming together in this wacky, weird, whimsical, world of Halloween, that leaves children vomiting from too much sugary confections, hyped up on candy, spooky stories and adrenal madness. Then there is the wonderful patient parents whose limits have no bounds to helping children experience this night of trickery and treats, leaving us with the sense that perhaps us adults too, are still children at heart. No matter how we choose to celebrate this holiday, lets be mindful of those that have gone before us, those that are here with us, and those that are yet to be born. Have a wonderful, weird wacky Halloween !