Halloween holier than Christmas

Today is Halloween, this being the Netherlands that’s not saying much. Oh sure, some shops at the mall decorate in orange and black and some of the shop’s personnel actually do put on something of a costume, but other than that it’s basically watching the Halloween episodes of well known American t.v. series.  So no trick or treating or company “who’s got the sluttiest outfit contest” here. Samhain and Dia de los Muertos are next to unknown for anything other than plot devices in horror movies and I believe 90% of the world has lost most if not all religious significance to all hallows eve. At least consciously.

I love Halloween and all the related celebrations because subconsciously it manages to at least confront us with that little bit of spirituality most uf us do have, fear of dying and the unknown. And nothing pushes people towards spirituality more than fear of the hereafter. Christmas may have been a spiritual celebration once, but it’s nothing of the sort for most of us having our minds occupied by family- or company get-togethers and returnable gifts. Now Halloween and it’s sibling celebrations like dia de los muertos, with all it’s commercial success, confronts us with, ghosts, zombies and other dead and undead, forcing us to think about our mortality and therefore… what comes next. Watching skeletons, sugar skulls and gravestones fill the landscape seems to be yelling at us, you’ll die one day, better be ready!

So when you’re bobbing for apples, out trick or treating or flirting with your boss in that skintight naughty cat outfit, in the back of your head you are busy contemplating your demise and how you fair on Anubis’ scales. I’ll bet Christmass, Easter and many other holy-days are jealous as hell of that.

Poem

Behind the masquerade, a whisper chills

as shades of dark slowly fills

my soul with fear

while corpses stir

and children’s breaths go still

Tortured spirits, almost seen,

ghouls and ghosts and undead fiends

temperature drops

and heartbeat stops

my God I love Halloween….

Happy Halloween, Dias de los Mueortos, All Saints Day, Samhain!

Halloween Tarot readings at Auryn and the brilliance that is starbucks

So here’s a short little blog post about last Sunday. A longer more elaborate post will follow later with pictures and all kinds of interesting stuff. However, I thought I’d share a bit before that since I had so much fun.

First of all, wow I’ve seen some great, creative and hot outfits and especially make-up looks, those who entered the dare contest really blew me away. And the atmosphere with the mist maker and all the decorations was as Halloween-like as one could wish for.

As I have noticed before at events, when you are planning to do light, entertaining short readings, you often end up doing readings with a lot more body, heavier subjects and rarely end up under ten minutes. At Auryn last sunday this was also the case. I met some very interesting people and did some interesting readings, it’s great to get that short look into someone’s life and to be able to give, if but a small piece, advice to help someone achieve their potential in life. In many cases I wished I had more time and a more private environment to dive deeper into subjects and make a more substantial impact. But at a party among al those beautiful and interesting people this was neither the place nor the time.

I want to thank Linda of Enchantra for being a great host, Robert for once again playing (in this case undead) taxidriver and all the people who let me read the cards for them, I had a great time!

BTW: I made a very important discovery, Crème Brule Macchiato, is the best drink ever invented, thank you Starbucks for enriching my life…. 

BTW2: Having good travel company made the trip of aproximately 7 hours fly by, thanks Linda en Agnetha, I actually enjoyed the ride.

Thank you, gods of cafeine