Okay, so this post was fuelled by frustration. As you all know by now, I am an avid Halloween fan. A passionate lover of all-things-Samhain. A few days ago, while at yoga class, I happened to be dressed head to toe in my Halloween best (as you do). The woman on the exercise mat next to me eyed my spooky leggings and T-shirt with a nervous eye and quipped, “you must love Halloween?” to which I replied that, why yes, I do love Halloween and have so many Halloween outfits; enough for every day of the month. She then went on to say, “You must have Christmas outfits too?” to which I responded that I happen to have one dress.
Later, after the class was finished, the same awkward woman happened to enter the ladies toilets as I was about to leave. She saw me, smiled, and backed out, murmuring that she would use the “other bathroom as I’m in a rush”. A likely excuse. It was obvious from how her roving eye perused my clothing that my choice of Halloween attire was the real reason why she so needed to find another restroom. Cue eye roll, forehead slap, enough said.
Or not. Why, the expletive deleted, do some narrow-minded people consider Halloween to be Satanic? That is the only reason I can possibly think of for that woman’s reaction – and she’s not alone. I often receive a multitude of suspicious and fearful looks when I wear my spooky favourites. It seems that some folks see Halloween as a sign of Devil worship. Oh dear. Are some folks really so uneducated about the origins of Hallowmas, or Samhain? Satanic rituals have nothing to do with it. Don’t take my word for it; here are two articles you can read on the topic, one from an academic perspective at the Open University and the other from a religious point of view.
Samhain, to put it simply, marks the end of summer and the start of the darker half of the year, when people would gather their harvest and honour the dead. Traditionally, people would have worn spooky costumes in the belief that spirits would not have bothered their own kind since they believed that the veil between worlds was at its thinnest on All Hallows’ Eve.
What on earth has that to do with Devil worship? Precisely nothing.
Roll on Halloween!
Leilanie Stewart 