Tag: Halloween

The Campus Day of the Dead, 2011

On By Chas S. Clifton
Day of the Dead altar to Marilyn Monroe, CSU-Pueblo
Day of the Dead Altar to Marilyn Monroe

As planned,  I stopped by the Student Center on Wednesday to check out the Day of the Dead altars.

No Vlad the Impaler altar this year! No altars to firefighters or Victorian writers either. Apparently Chicano Studies conformity was enforced, with Catholic Campus Ministries stepping in as a co-sponsor as well. Lots of crosses, “correct” altar decorations, Jesus candles, and Guadalupe candles—even if She is, as we say in religious studies, a multivalent symbol.

The altar to Marilyn Monroe shown above was the only one that broke the mold a little, sharing the “anyone can participate” feeling from previous years.

I drank some cups of colada morada with my Ecuadorian professor friend and nibbled some guaguas de pan. Eating babies—that’s a little edgy, but remember, it’s cultural. (Some pisco would have helped the colada.)

 

Did You Contribute to the Halloween Economy?

On By Chas S. Clifton4 Comments

It is worth more than $2 billion annually.

Not really that big in the overall holiday picture, though.

Halloween’s haul was the smallest, accounting for a mere 2.6% of holiday spending.

But for a few industries, October 31 is the night to shine. According to the National Confectioners Association, sweets-makers reap 8% of their annual sales during Halloween, making it candy’s biggest holiday. Costumes, cards and decorations account for the rest.

M. and I bought one bag of mini-Hershey bars—that was our contribution to the Halloween economy. We had one group (two kids) of trick-or-treaters, which is more than we have had for about the last four years.

Our rural road used to have some kids. They all grew up, or their parents moved them into town so they would be more easily able to attend “activities. Or someone got a transfer, and the house is still on the market two years later.

There is one family left with four little kids, but I think that  they are Mennonites, and it is probably against their religion. But I more respect for that position than for those Christians who turn Halloween into non-alcoholic tailgating.

So the party is over, and now it is time for real Samhain.

Ghost Tales of Cripple Creek, &c

On By Chas S. Clifton

At my other blog, a recollection of my one venture into collecting ghost stories.

And a couple of incidents that did not make it into the book, mainly because they were “too personal”  and not connected with other people’s experience.

And a CNN story on how for “growing ranks of pagans [sic], October 31 means a lot more than Halloween.” Y’think?

Quick Day of the Dead Instructions—And How Things Change

On By Chas S. Clifton6 Comments

Last Monday a notice popped up in my university email: It’s time to build an altar for the Day of the Dead. (And do it in the correct, traditional manner!)

Several professors of Spanish have organized an altar-building event in the student center for a number of years now. But the event takes its own directions. In 2007, I photographed student-made altars to American war dead, to Victorian British writers, and even an altar to Vlad the Impaler.

In 2008, Wendy Griffin of California State University-Long Beach and I presented at the American Academy of Religion about Día de los muertos celebrations at our two universities. I was taken by the sneaky Paganizatioon of the event:

Since the instructions pushed a particular cosmology and an attitude towards the dead, I (Chas) wondered, having taught classes in American religion, if the altar-building could be construed as a classic church-state issue. After all, this was a state-supported university providing very explicit directions on how to perform a ritual—not that anyone followed them precisely! (Incense-burning in the student center probably violates some regulation.) At this point, I approached my colleague, the Mexican-born, Los Angeles-raised professor of Spanish who sponsors the event. “It sounds like tax-supported Paganism to me,” I said.

“Oh no,” she replied, “It’s cultural.” And she resumed laying marigolds on her altar to Frida Kahlo.

I am putting the instructions for the traditional altar below. But I think that I will stop by the Student Center with my camera to see what the American students have done with instructions from an Ecuadorian professor about how to celebrate a Catholic-Aztec Mexican holiday.

Traditions, they are always changing.

*****

The most important thing to place on your Day of the Dead altar is a photograph of the person(s) to whom you are dedicating the altar.
The three tier altar is covered in papel picado – which is bright colored tissue paper with cut out designs. The paper can be either handmade or purchased.  Three important colors are purple (for pain) white (for hope) and pink (for the celebration).
Candles are also placed all over the altar.  Purple candles again are used to signify pain. On the top level of the altar, four candles need to be placed – signifying the four cardinal points. The light of the candle will illuminate the way for the dead upon their return.
Three candy skulls are placed on the second level.  These represent the Holy Trinity. On the center of the third level a large skull is placed – this represents the Giver of Life.
All bad spirits must be whisked away and leave a clear path for the dead soul by burning in a bracero, a small burner used to cook outside.  Or you can use a sahumerio to burn copal or incense.  A small cross of ash is made so that the ghost will expel all its guilt when it is stepped on.
The Day of the Dead bread, pan de muerto, should be accompanied by fruit and candy placed on the altar.  The pan de muerto is plain round sweet bread sprinkled with white sugar and a crisscrossed bone shape on top. Pan de muerto is available in Mexican food stores and bakeries in Pueblo. You can also add the person’s favorite food.
A towel, soap and small bowl are put on the altar so that the returning souls can wash their hands after their long trip. There is a pitcher of fresh water to quench their thirst and a bottle of liquor to remember the good times of their life.
To decorate and leave a fragrance on the altar, the traditional cempasuchil flower is placed around the other figures.  Cempasuchil comes from Nahuatl cempoalxochitl, that means the flower with four hundred lives.  The flower petals form a path for the spirits to bring them to their banquette.

*The following websites will assist you with ideas as you prepare your altars*
http://www.diademuertos.net/
http://fwww.ladayofthedead.com%2fhistory.html
http://www.ladayofthedead.com/history.html
http://www.dayofthedead.com/

Altar decorations and materials are the property of those setting up the altar, any damage done to the altar during setup, the celebration, or at take down is the responsibility of the entrants and not the responsibility of the Dia De Los Muertos committee or CSU-Pueblo.

A Parent’s Choice at Halloween

On By Chas S. Clifton5 Comments

On one side, the “Occupy Halloween” movement, advocating for free-range trick-or-treaters, whose spokeswoman, Lenore Skenazy, reminds us that—urban legends to the contrary—no kid was ever deliberately poisoned by homemade candy.

But that idea isn’t just wrong,  it’s corrosive. Start thinking of your nice neighbors as potential killers ONE day a year and how are you supposed to trust them the REST of the year? It begins to seem just plain prudent to treat everyone as evil, especially where our kids are concerned.

Result? A society where we don’t let our kids roam the neighborhood, interact with adults or do much of anything on their own. It just seems “too dangerous.” All adults are creeps and killers until proven otherwise.

On the other side, nanny-state government. Big Sister wants you to know that your costume can kill you, your neighbors can kill you, your treats can kill you . . .

And, because it can never be repeated too often: There are no verified incidents of poisoned candy, and no reported serious injuries from razor blades, pins, or needles in candy despite at five decades worth of annual scare stories.

It’s the safest day (or night) of the year. So take back the night. Celebrate Halloween.

Does Halloween Fill a “Spiritual Vacuum”?

On By Chas S. Clifton1 Comment

The “Halloween season” keeps starting sooner, and its economic impact increases.

Not everyone is pleased. Bloomberg News columnist Amity Shlaes reacts against its “paganism.” She is pleased to see the violence of “Mischief Night” fading but continues, ”

Unmask Halloween, however, and you’ll also find some disconcerting features. Christmas and Easter may be secularized these days, relative to their past, but they remain Christian holidays. People value Halloween, like Valentine’s Day, because they can tell themselves that it’s not merely secularized but actually secular, which is to say, not Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Muslim. . .

But as much as we’d like it to be, Halloween isn’t secular. It is pagan. There’s nothing else to call a set of ceremonies in which people utter magical phrases, flirt with the night and evoke the dead.

She appears to think that there is something religious going on here—something outside the traditions of Middle Eastern monotheism—but cannot quite say its name.

Feed Them to Samhain

On By Chas S. Clifton2 Comments

I mean, really, if you get lost in a corn maze and you are such a hopeless loser that you call the police to come get you, shouldn’t you be fed to “Samhain, Lord of the Dead“? But then Midwest Chick offers another possible solution.

Sort of related: I passed by this commercial corn maze / pony ride / pumpkin patch northeast of Denver on my recent road trip, only the sign said “Corn Maize.” I am still wondering if that was a brilliant pun or just semi-literate spelling.

Green Halloween?

On By Chas S. Clifton4 Comments

First of all, I took this photo on August 26th. Is this what the new Pagan future will look like? Everyone complaining that it is not even the equinox, but the stores are full of Halloween merchandise?

This building used to be a Toys “R” Us store in Pueblo, Colo., until that chain suddenly contracted. It has been empty ever since, except that the Spirit Halloween party company rents it some years for the weeks leading up to Halloween.

Months ago it got the “Green Store” sign, supposedly for a thrift store, but that business still has not opened. (There were management problems, for one thing.)

But plastic skulls and sexy-witch costumes still sell well, at least for two months of the year!

In other news, my absence from blogging was due to a trip to Yellowstone, M.’s and my first real vacation of more than a long-weekend’s length since last November.  I am posting about our trip at Southern Rockies Nature Blog.

More Pagan than the Pagans

On By Chas S. Clifton1 Comment

Two videos that surprised Pagan bloggers by their Pagan feel, despite their sources.

1. Via Hecate of Washington, DC, a link to a Vimeo slideshow of the “Rappahanock Halloween Festival” sponsored by the Summerisle Old Dominion Hunt in northern Virginia.

She comments, “How many Pagan Samhein [sic] events have you been to that even come close to this? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how often we Pagans ‘skip’  the elements of ritual that appeal to Younger Child. Maybe we, in the words of the LOLcat posters, R doing it wrong.”

2. From the House of Vines, a link with the comment, “This music video gets it more right than most of the Pagan rituals I’ve been to.”

When I worked with Evan John Jones on the book Sacred Mask, Sacred Dance, I found a passage in the book Ritual Animal Disguise by the British folklorist E.C. Cawte about how school children introduced to masked mumming immediately absorbed the parts of Stag and Dog and so on. It’s all there, just waiting.