Halloween has been a holiday for longer then Christianity has existed. It has had many names, but it represents something that many have forgotten.
Most think of it as the irritating time of year when our heating bill goes up, and whent hey need to scrape the windows of their car in the morning for frost.
Our ancestors knew a different winter.
Though our ancestors didn't have our technology, they still knew that Halloween was the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.. Without sealed pots or freezers, they knew that soon they would be hungry. Without electricity, they had to hide in their homes and sleep under as many blankets as they could find. It was a time of death.
So on the longest day before winter, everyone gathered for a great feast. They knew they wouldn't have enough food in the winter, so they slaughtered their cattle and ate them.
They cast the bones of the great fire they gathered around so it would burn many colors, and this bone fire became what we call a bonfire today. Most of the wine and beer they had prepared in spring had finally fermented. They nourished themselves with food so they would be prepared physically, and they had a great revel to keep away the fear.
Many people say that this is merely part of our past, but they are wrong. Not only do our traditions live on, but many of us know the same winter our ancestors did. When they see October coming to a close, they know fear.
After not being able to see his doctor for nine months, someone I know lost access to his medication and lost track of where he was. He was finally seen by his new doctor, and has been put away in the State Hospital.
It's a terrible place that he fears, but I was glad that he had been committed because he no longer has a roof over his head. There are no free beds left at the mission, and if things had not happened to work out this way, he would soon be dead. A man his age would not last long on the street. I doubt they would even have given him a funeral. They'd just burn him down and leave the ashes in our local Potters field. I wouldn't learn what happened to him for weeks.
Although he has escaped his fate so far, I know others who won't. I'm expecting that when spring comes, some of the people I have known will be gone. The safety net is not merely crumbling, it's worse then that.
When I went to a halloween party for the mentally ill today, I realized then that these people do not live in the same age that the wealthy do. I live with one foot in their world, and one foot in the digital age. It happened when I watched one of them after the other ask if they could take food home with them.
Then several asked to use a clinician's freezer. They lived in one room each, and had no access to a kitchen. They have a hot plate, no stove. They had nowhere to store their food, but they knew they would need every last crumb. Before the party we decided to bring less candy and more healthy food, and I'm glad we did.
Even getting to the store is no picnic for them, because they have no cars and the bus system is a joke. One has to walk a mile to get to the bus stop, and getting to the store and back will take two hours of his day. He could leave the food outside to keep it cold, but it would be stolen.
For the wealthy it's an age of spectacle and wonder. They walk from their home to a car in their heated garage without ever having felt the cold, and ponder what they will buy others for Christmas. They live in different neighborhoods, so they will never be reminded that anyone I know even exists.
In America we believe the lie of trickle down economics, but the truth of the matter is that our economy flounders specifically because too many have too little, and too few have too much.
As the economy grows worse, we take more from the poor. Every time we do, the great mass of people who pay rent and buy food have less money to spend, and the economy slows further.
Every day the top few percent take a little more, and yet our government responds as if there weren't enough capital available. They didn't spend what they made in the last few years, and yet we assume that if we keep improving things for them at the expense of the poor, this time it will be different?
When I watched the party, I saw what it must have been like for people a thousand years ago. It's just an excuse for one more party for the rich. But for the people from another era who live just down the block, it's the last party that some of them will ever have.