Patience Redux

Patience Redux

by | Jan 12, 2025 | Living

Some life lessons we are meant to learn. . . over. . . and over again.

Not long ago I wrote about patience.  I quoted a one-time client, who didn’t take well to my advice to “Be Patient.”

“Patient?! Alan, the world was not built by patient men!”

I went on to note that high performing entrepreneurs and inventors were not known as the soul of patience. Neither, I suppose, are military leaders. It is hard to imagine General Patten, Napolean, or Genghis Khan, being described as patient.

I have in my life been patient, sometimes with children, sometimes too much with people who were behaving badly towards me. One thing I have learned about myself: I am NOT a patient patient. By reasons of my upbringing, it takes a long time for me to concede to see a doctor. When I finally do, I expect miracles, instantaneous miracles, or faster, if possible, please.

I am not patient with my own body, which  (who?) I sometimes accuse of, and demean for, letting me down, even when I have been abusing it (him?). Separating my body from myself and anthropomorphizing that part of me as separate from me, is an artifact of my upbringing too.

For most of my life, I have been fortunate to be extraordinarily healthy.

At seventy and seventy-one, my patience as a patient was tested when I fell running and did some damage to my cervical spinal cord. I wrote how helpful I found Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer:

“Lord, please give me the serenity to accept those things I cannot change,

The courage to change those things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.”

A surgeon performed a minor miracle on my neck. I am extraordinarily grateful. I wasn’t patient. I pushed myself in physical therapy (PT) and I recovered use of my disconnected body double. “Good job, body, ole pal. Took you a while, but you got there.”

Now I face another challenge.

As a child my mother reacted to an ugly face I made. “Don’t do that. Your face will freeze that way.”

A week ago, my face froze. Or, at least, the left side of my face stopped working and drooped. Thankfully, my problem is not one of the more disastrous causes of such an effect, stroke, brain tumor, or meningitis. I have an attack of Bell’s Palsy.

Bell’s Palsy is an overload of cranial nerve number seven, which controls facial movement and expression. The cause is “idiopathic,” which is to say that medical science has no clue why it happens. It sometimes happens in response to a virus, or bacterial infection, stress, or multiple minor issues.

Recovery time is indeterminate, five days, three weeks, three, six, nine months. A few unfortunate sufferers need surgery to recover; fewer still fail to heal, smile crookedly, but live otherwise normal lives.

“So, lighten up Alan,” my estranged bod might rightfully respond. “Yeah, drinking coffee through a straw is a pain and you have to remember to chew on the right side so the food stays in your mouth. But quit whining! There are too many people in Greater Los Angeles whose everything has been consumed by fire, and too many in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan who live with bombs falling on their heads, and too many injured, ill, or hungry, who may not live to see the dawn.”

“Suck it up. Rest. Get through the effects of Prednisone withdrawal, see the neurologist. Do the PT.”

“Yeah and I can practice the lines of side-talkers throughout history:

  • WC Fields: ‘my little chickadee,’
  • Edward G. Robinson: ‘Tough guys don’t dance, see. Tough guys’ guts cut and bleed in a knife fight.’
  • Edward Teach, Jack Sparrow, Pegleg Pete: ‘Arrgh, Matey’ (Actually, I won’t be eighty for three years –  hopefully this’ll be over by then. Arrgh, Matey, I’m 80 – get it?).”

“STOP! Send some money to relief efforts!”

“OK body, bud, I’ll be a more patient, patient. You know we ought to work together more. Integration. That’s the ticket.”

“Yeah? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men”

“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men”

by | Dec 28, 2024 | Living

This post will send in the wee hours o’ New Year’s Eve 2024.  Here, in the good ole US of A, New Year’s Eve is amateur alcoholics night, when teetotalers, and even those with a serious drinking problem, know to leave the roads to those idiots who binge drink once a year, loud-singing the Robert Burns anthem, “Should auld acquaintance be fergot an’ nev’r braught ta maieend, . . .” followed by sloppy kisses and hugs.

The still slightly sober may ask, “What the hell does “Auld Lang Syne” mean anyway?” To which a more pedantic tippler-friend may answer, “Old long seen, or days and friends long gone, in short, the ‘good-ole-days.’”

Early in the flow of whiskey-wine-and-beer, some may ask, “Got any ‘New Year’s Resolutions?’” In these settings, the answers range from the “Nah, don’t believe in ’em,” to “Oh, the usual, exercise more, spend more time with friends and family.” When I was in with this crowd, I did not encounter any who were truly serious about the annual self-improvement ritual.

In my experience, most New Year’s resolutions spring from the New Year’s Day hangover and timid step upon the bathroom scale, ignored “over the holidays.” It is why the single biggest sale days for gym memberships are January 2nd and 3rd.

The earliest recorded New Year’s resolutions were made around four thousand years ago, in the Babylonian festival of Akitu. This was held around the spring equinox, the beginning of planting season. Babylonians reflected on any of their behaviors, which might have offended their gods, and resolved to change those behaviors so the right amounts of sunshine and rainfall might bless this year’s crops. New Year’s resolutions were serious business, and while I imagine there was some partying in the 12-day long festival of Akitu, the resolutions that were recorded were reaffirmation of loyalty to the king, return of items borrowed, and repayment of debts. These were promises to the gods and probably not made lightly.

For much of history, the New Year, whenever it was celebrated, was a time of religious reflection and rededication. Julius Caesar, in 46 BCE created the Julian calendar, with the first month, January, named for Janus, the two faced god of thresholds and gateways. It was a time to reflect upon the events of the past and to look forward across the threshold into the future.

John Wesley, English founder of the Christian Methodist Church, created the Covenant Renewal Service for New Year’s Day in 1740. Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is a fall celebration of the creation of the world, the beginning of the Days of Awe, ten days of reflection culminating in Yom Kippur, days of atonement. The Hijiri, the Islamic New Year, is observed in June to commemorate the new beginning when the Prophet and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE. The Hiriji is a time of prayer, and reflection, and time with family. Some Muslims make resolutions for the new year.

World New Years throughout the year

 New Year’s celebrations that are part of religions are celebrated at a time that makes sense for that religion and culture.

These celebrations are reflective and may or may not include a tradition of resolutions.

If there is a resolution tradition, however, it is conscientious. The faithful who make a public declaration of a future action tend to keep their commitment.

In the ole US of A, such faithful achievement of New Year’s resolutions is more the exception than the rule. Gyms and health clubs are full in January, but empty out by March. Every year in December pollsters ask a sample of us if we kept our resolutions from January 1; on average, seventy percent of us did not.

 

This year I read an analysis that categorized the areas of most American’s resolutions:

  • Spend time with family and friends
  • Find ways to stay active
  • Learn something new
  • Help others
  • Renovate, or clean up our living space
  • Read more
  • Eat better

I have no idea about the survey methodology, but I truly believe if Americans did these things we’d be happier and healthier. Not to be negative, but survey says, we do not, or at least seventy percent of us admit that we do not.

Change isn’t easy. Self-improvement is hard. You have to realize that the current state is unacceptable and reject it. Then you have to have a clear vision of the end state and goals.

The human resource, learning and development mafia have drilled into my head that goals must be S.M.A.R.T.

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Time Bound

I don’t disagree, even though I rebelled against such goal-setting dogma when someone was trying to manage my personal performance to meet corporate goals. These are good criteria for self-improvement goals. They’re just insufficient.

If I haven’t rejected my Dad-bod, then I’m unlikely to say no to the Häagen Dazs that creates it. If I only have one measure, 165 pounds, then I have no way to track a trend. If my time frame is four months to lose twenty pounds and I don’t break that down to a pound and a half a week and have a maintenance program for month five to forever, it may not happen.

Control and correction: If I want to spend more time with my sister, or my grandchildren or my wife, what does that look like? If I find I didn’t do that in January, what am I going to do in February and March?

I’m not saying, don’t set New Year’s Resolutions; I’m saying set them judiciously, religiously, with an eye toward being in the thirty percent who actually achieve them. Cuz as Robert Burns intoned “To a Mouse On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.” The best laid plans o’ Mice and Men, gang aft agley.”

And I hope you know, I am not preaching at you; I’m preaching to myself.

I am the only person who I have any right to expect might listen to my sermon.

Have a healthy, engaged, connected New Year, where you learn what interests you, do what you’ve been putting off, and help others. Or whatever kind of New Year makes you happy.

Just please don’t drink and drive.

A Community of Light

A Community of Light

by | Dec 21, 2024 | Living

It is the Winter Solstice. In the cold we huddle around the fire, joined in our communities. At the dark time of year, when the days are short, we celebrate the light. During this time I often imagine ancient peoples in their shelters, with a roof smoke hole above the fire, bringing evergreen boughs inside, so the green reminds them that spring will come again. I even wrote a song about this fantasy called Deep Winter’s Night.

I was encouraged in this fantasy first by the Megalithic monument Stonehenge oriented towards the Summer Solstice. I felt that these people in 2500 BCE were quite attuned to the interaction between the light of the heavens, and the earth on which we still walk. I was amazed at how, what I thought of as a primitive people could orient such a large monument to the sun on one day per year.

When I saw the older Megalithic Passage tomb at Newgrange north of Dublin Ireland, built in 3200 BCE I was further gobsmacked. There is a transom window over the entrance and on the Winter Solstice at sunrise a beam of sunlight comes through the transom and illuminates the altar on which cremated remains were placed. The sunbeam, archeologists speculate, was believed to enable the passage of the spirit from one plane to another.

This fit with my fantasy of the hope of light at the darkest time of the year.

Then I had a “flat forehead moment,” so-called because I have repeatedly struck my forehead with the heal of my hand over the years exclaiming, “Duh!” or “Doh” (like Homer Simson). What prompted this epiphany of blindingly obvious perspective dissonance?

In Australia, New Zeeland, South Africa, Peru and Antarctica it is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. So my annual fantasy is a completely Northern-Hemisphere-centric viewpoint.

Apologies to those who live south of the equator, who may say –“Wha?” And people who come from around the equator where the days are the same length year round, and in most places around the equator one will not be huddling around a fire and bringing conifers inside.

Moreover, this ancient Winter Solstice fantasy is probably a Euro-paleo-centric perspective representing a narrow slice of all the ancient ancestors on the planet.  I have trouble imagining this behavior among Aleuts and Innuits at the Arctic circle or the Navaho, Kiowa, Osage, Chickasaw, Choctaw, or Calusa in what became the United States.

Duh!” Or I think I’m gonna go with “Doh,” because I feel as clueless as Homer.

Here is the story of the triggering of this realization.

As I started my annual rumination on our Winter Solstice and the many festivals of light at this our dark time of year, I observed that Hanukkah, the eight night Jewish celebration, starts on Christmas night this year. It moves dates on the Gregorian calendar as result of the six thousand year old lunar calendar used to fix dates of religious celebrations.

I wondered about lunar calendars. Did hunter gatherers use the phases of the moon to track the movements of animals and know which plants yielded edible food? I dunno. My parents would have sent me to the Encyclopedia Britannica in our living room. “Look in up.” And I still do, though on the Internet version. It turns out that lunar calendars are very old. Archeologists have found some evidence of lunar calendars in caves in Southern France that may be as old as 32,000 BCE.

In the third millennium BCE the lunisolar calendar emerged, lunar months and solar years. In addition to Hebrews, the Sumerians, Assyrians and ancient Egyptians had a lunisolar calendar.

“Ah,” I said. “the growth of agriculture?” The moon in her phases pulled upon the waters of the Mediterranean, the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile nourishing the plants that the Mother brought forth. Perhaps with the growth of astronomy in Egypt and Greece solar calendars came to the fore. The distant Sky Father, seeming larger than the Earth, was entrusted with man’s invention, Time.

Lunar calendars now are really lunisolar calendars because there is always an addition of a month every two to three years to maintain accuracy with the ubiquitous 1582 Pope Gregory XIII sponsored DayRunner. China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Banks Islands, part of the nation of Vanuatu in Melanesia in the South Pacific, are all on a lunisolar calendar for cultural celebrations.

It is also true that many religions, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism  schedule religious festivals according to lunisolar calendars

This brought me back to a puzzle I have always wrestled with. Christianity adopted the pagan Winter Solstice celebration, light at the dark time. It appeared that Judaism did too, Chanukah (traditional spelling). But Diwali, Hindu festival of lights is in the fall. And Islam celebrates light  at Eid at the end of Ramadan in the spring.

Here comes the flat forehead moment.

In the home of these religions, what I thought of as the Winter Solstice, cold, snow, seemingly dead deciduous trees, sprinkled with some evergreens, short days, dark time of year, needing to see the light and be hopeful, wasn’t really like that.

“Doh!”

It is however more than a little interesting that these religions have their own festival of lights. So the timing matters less than my Northern Hemisphere, Euro-paleo-pagan genes would indicate.

There is a cycle of dark and light, of fear and hope, of individual independence, joining hands in community and peace.

We may celebrate that cycle at different times of the year in different seasons, but we all celebrate. We all long for community to wrap us in love. We all hope and feel peace in our hearts.

So whether you celebrate at this time of year or not, whether there is a tree in your living room or a shrine, whether there is a fire or candle you gather at, reach for those you love and those you barely know, and share your hope for the light, and your love.

Peace be upon you, and all of us.

The Grey One’s Gift

The Grey One’s Gift

by | Nov 30, 2024 | Living

The young one had a map of sorts, mostly a list of turns drawn on birchbark – arrow left at the big oak, right after the log bridge, and so on. The path was long for one so young, winding through a deep hardwood forest, crossing a rushing stream on a fallen log, then climbing through fir-filtered sunbeams almost to the tree line.

Finally a small clearing opened to the sky, where one could see up to the first ridge of the mountains and down to the village below. Across the clearing, nestled into the hillside was a cabin, so covered with lichens and mosses it seemed a part of the wood. Before it sat the Grey One, carving a stag from a small piece of wood. The horns of the animal were still blocky as was some of the body, but a near perfect hoof was raised as if the buck would prance off at any moment.

“I am sorry to disturb you, Grey One,” the young one said. “Wind sent me up this path to talk with you.”

“Ah, in trouble with the Elders?”

“No. Well, at least I don’t think so. The village is busy laying up grain and roots for winter, Maybe I was in the way. I ask a lot of questions. Wind just said “Go, it is your time.”

“I see. And what have you been asking about?”

“Oh, everything really. About the stars, and the animals, and where babies come from? Why some things grow and why other things die?”

The Grey One chuckled. “Yes, I see why they sent you. Did you have trouble finding me?”

“No. Wind gave me this drawing of the way.”

“Hold onto that. Come sit by me on the ground and lean your back against this tree. Let us see if we can answer some of those questions.”

The Grey One listened patiently. It seemed to the young one there were more questions asked than answered.

“And what do you think, young one?”

Towards the afternoon, the Grey One served warm soup retrieved from the cabin. After they ate, the Grey One said “I have a small gift for you, something you must practice. Sit with me upon the ground again.”

“Now close your eyes. Breathe softly, in through your nose, and out through your nose.”

After ten breaths breathing together, the Grey One said, “this is the Earth Breath. Through this breath you feel the Earth. Keep breathing as you listen to my voice.

“Breathe in through your nose, and out through your nose. Feel the ground beneath you, each grain of soil, each wet leaf and pebble. You are a part of the ground. As you feel your Connection to the Earth, think also of your Core. Become stronger of body and open of mind.”  Be humble and grateful of spirit. The earth will guide you as you grow and improve your Core.”

Several silent moments passed. Then Grey One gave the young one an apple. “For your journey back. Use the bark drawing, backwards this time. Practice the gift of breath until we meet again.”

Seasons passed. The young one grew, and met the Grey One now and again in the wood near the village. The Grey One always asked “Do you practice the Earth Breath?”

“Yes Grey One.” This young one was diligent, grounding and growing.

Winters later, Wind said, “It is time to visit the Grey One.” The young one still had the birchbark and made the journey.

The Grey One asked. “What gives you joy? Do you sing? Or work with your hands?”

The Grey One listened, then shared a new practice.

“Practice this gift after the Earth Breath, still protect your Core, the health and fitness of your body, mind and spirit, and grow your connection to the Earth.

This is the Fire Breath –  in through the mouth, and out through the nose. The Fire Breath is for your passions, your gifts, talents, your Capability.  Nurture and grow your Capability the way we blow upon the saved coals from yesterday’s hearth to cook today’s meal.”

The young one committed to practice both Earth Breath and Fire Breath building Connection, Core, and Capability.

Seven season circles swirled past.

When the young one next readied for the climb up the path,  Wind said, “Stop by the stream for a few moments and observe; the Grey One will ask you what you see.”

And the Grey One did ask.

“The water moves swiftly in some places; it eddies and pools in others. There is no holding it back. It fills in the spaces among the rocks, moves around them, or over them, it is always there and always moving.”

“Well observed, young one. Now Water Breath, in through the nose, and out through the mouth, can be added. With the Water Breath you connect with others the way the water adapts to the shapes around it. The stream rushes to a river, which glides along the loam banks to the sea, where the tides first hug and then push back from the shore.

Water is the essence of change and the Water Breath shows us how to adapt. Water connects to rocks and the shore, but is always water. So too, your Core connects and adapts to others, and may change with Love, but remains – you. The Water Breath is the first practice where breath leaves your mouth. Take care with your speech.”

“As a young one,” the Grey One said, “I was quick of mind and word, able to see solutions that eluded others. I spoke my mind, but was at times poorly received. I saw in a glass that I have two eyes and two ears, but one mouth. I learned, what is help is not mine to define. Now I watch and listen, but speak less.

Many winters travelled into memory.

Wind was now gray too. A kind face, formed in deep lines traced from years of smiles, spoke to the young one, now a new parent. “The Grey One feels winter’s breath and cannot make the journey to the village. Go now before snow closes the path.

And so this new parent, who practiced Earth, Fire, and Water Breaths, made the journey with no need for the birchbark map.

“I have one more practice to share, the Air Breath, in through the mouth, out through the mouth. It is a breath we all know from being winded; “out of breath” we say. The Air Breath is everything that unites us as people, as animals, and even vegetation, for do not the very trees breathe life into us. So the Air Breath is our beginning and our end. I have taught you this pattern.

Earth breath first, the Connection between your Core and the earth. Fire Breath,  second, burn bright, as you blow on the coals of your gifts and passions. Water Breath third, your Connection through Love to others, never losing yourself. Water reminds us that Change is the primal law of all life. The first three breaths teach you to grow and build upon Core, Connections, and Capability.”

Now the Air Breath, is the symbol of your connection to all life, and bids you share your Contribution. Teach your capability to your family and friends, and with love to the stranger.”

“Breathe in, inspire. Breathe together, conspire with love. Breathe out, expire. You have naught to leave here but your gift to the world, your Contribution.”

A light snow began to fall. The former young one walked slowly back to a new family gathered around the hearth, and was grateful for the Grey One’s Gift.

 

 

Picture above is “River Dave” Lidstone near his woods cabin in Canterbury, NH in 2021  Original photo by Jodie Gedeon via AP

The Culler Curse

The Culler Curse

by | Nov 18, 2024 | Living

Disaster!

Off and on all day yesterday, I puzzled over what to write this week. Some weeks the words flow like a fast stream onto the screen.

Then there are those other times, when Billie says, “You know, none of your subscribers will show up at the door if you miss a week.”

R–E–T–I–R–E–D? Isn’t that how you spell it? Why have I turned my avocation into a job with DEADLINES?

So yesterday was one of those days where I struggled with not being able to decide what to write and being anxious about it, and rereading everything I’ve posted in the last three years so as not to duplicate.

Then, OMG, It’s 5:30! I’m cooking tonight, and I can’t remember how to cook the shredded chicken with gravy. I’m late, and I haven’t defrosted the chicken, and now Pip, old black lab with diabetes and a UTI, needs to go out.

Now that’s done, where’s the recipe, oh yeah, tucked into the front cover of Lynne’s cookbook. I reached for the shelf in the cabinet to the right of the stove. . . .

Brrrraaaangcrraceenkrashareenkingrakingingingtinkletinkle! An explosion. Glass everywhere, everywhere, glass shards, slivers, and splinters all over the counter, and the floor, and the table across the room.

“What was that?!”    

“Broke the spare coffee pot . . . no wait, both, coffee pots.”

We store the spare Melita pour-through pot next to the cookbooks and I had evidently pulled it airborne when I snatched the cookbook and it had tumbled onto the part-full coffeepot below, breaking off the spout and rim.

“I know just what you did. Culler Curse!” said Billie as she went to order new Melita pots and I went for the broom, dustpan, and vacuum cleaner.

Thanksgiving

Things to be grateful for:

I wasn’t cut, or hurt in any way. No one else was in the kitchen, so no picking glass out of the dog, or the wife, or grandchildren’s eyes. Miraculously, the part-full coffee pot on the counter only lost its rim so no mopping or repainting the walls required. Melita coffee pots are replaceable, even if they won’t be delivered till Friday. I hadn’t started to cook dinner yet, so no throwing away a glass littered half-cooked meal.

We are all still alive, mostly vertical, and as healthy as late seventy-somethings ever are -technically the dog is in her human-year eighties, and is showing her age, but is no worse for the glass-splosion in the evening kitchen, caused by the Culler Curse.

The Curse

It was my eldest sister’s late husband, also called Alan, who observed that “Culler’s are all clumsy.” We did tend to trip around my brother-in-law, and bump into door frames, and drop breakables. He would laugh, shake his head, and mutter, “Claaah-um-see!”

I began to wonder how much of our ineptitude was endemic and how much was the anxiety produced by Alan’s ever-present judgement. Were my sisters and I, and my children just performing up to his expectation.

At family gatherings though, when the subject would come up, we’d find that “the curse” showed itself in all our lives at various times even when my brother-in-law was nowhere to be seen.

“It’s just that you’re kinetic,” my kind wife tells me. “You have an energy about you. It’s why electronics so often malfunction around you. And your body is always moving, sometimes in ways that bear no relationship to what you are doing at the moment.”

I don’t know who coined the name the “Culler curse,” but it clearly stuck. The curse is passed down genetically. Not everybody has it or at least has it equally. Most agree that my great niece, Lauren, Alan’s granddaughter, has the curse, but her brother and sister not so much.

My children have the curse, though in varying degrees. My late cousin Jeannine, who sailed around the South Pacific, said “it visits me occasionally and with a vengeance when it comes, but the curse isn’t always there.”

The curse comes in cycles. Today I talked to my sister, Lynne, who told me, “We have a coffee pot that doesn’t fit the maker because, I have broken not one, but two recently, setting them down too hard on the counter. I also talked to my youngest daughter who regaled me with the story of the burn on her hand, injured because she decided she didn’t need the hot water she’d just boiled to mix with her espresso, but then reached for her coffee placing her hand into the steam stream from the kettle.

I remember my mother asking, ”Alan where did you get that scratch on your leg?”

“I dunno”

“Oh Alan, Honey, you need to pay attention.”

Absence of Mindfulness

My mother called me “accident prone,” and said the many minor scratches and cuts that I got as a child were from “not paying attention.” She was right.

If we look at this example, I grabbed for the cookbook, oblivious to the fact that the spare coffee pot was next to it. I was anxious, about not writing, about being late, about not remembering how to cook the dish. I was in my head, and that part of my head was out of touch with the part of my head controlling my body.

I needed to not be on autopilot, to pay attention to what I was doing at the moment, in short to be mindful. The absence of mindfulness sets the “Culler curse” free. When the curse is free, however, it can do things that cause people to say “what are the chances?”, like tumbling one coffee pot out of the cabinet and hit another on the way down.

“You couldn’t do that again if you tried.”

“Yep, Culler curse.”

Of course, we could also look at anticipating the Culler curse. I use the cookbooks, so maybe find a new place for the spare coffee pot.

One more thing to be grateful for. I didn’t break the entire second pot. Coffee is very important in this household and the replacement isn’t coming till Friday. (See the second pot repaired with duct tape above.)

Now what could go wrong with this picture?

“Yep, Culler curse.”

Halloweenophobia

Halloweenophobia

by | Oct 27, 2024 | Living

“The creepy spiders need to be lower. Kids are short, They need to turn their head and be looking directly into those red eyes.”

“You are normally such a sweet person. What happens to you at Halloween?”

“Being scared is what Halloween is all about?”

“I thought it was about the candy.”

“Nah, it’s about conquering your fear. The candy is just a side benefit.”

We get a little carried away at our place in late October, not as much as we did when we had a house with a front lawn and bushes to turn into spider webs and ghosts. We gave a lot of stuff away when we downsized to a condo, but not the creepy spiders nor the orange lights. I still dress up, usually in my wizard costume, hat, robe and staff. I have a wooden staff, but a couple of years ago one of my kids gave me a plastic one with an egg on top that lights up in different colors, which is a hit with the little ones.

The name Halloween came from Hallow Evening, the night before All Hallows Day. Hallows were saints and the European medieval Christian church wanted people to go to church to revere the saints and martyrs of the faith on November 1st and again on November 2nd All Souls Day, to revere all who passed in the faith and commit to living a holy life in their honor.

Most now realize that the church chose this particular day to celebrate the dead to coincide with the ancient Celtic pagan festival of Samhain (pronounced Saw-when in Gaelic).

The Celts were an ancient people spread across all of Europe. They were the Gauls that Caesar fought, the Galatians that Paul wrote to, the Helvetii of Switzerland, and many other clans. The remaining “Six Celtic nations,” where you can still find their cultural influences, and languages, are Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, Wales, Brittany, and the Isle of Man”

The Celts were a primitive pagan people. They were pastoral/ agricultural, raising sheep and cattle and growing fodder and vegetables. Celts divided time by dark and light. Days began and ended at sundown. Winter was the dark start to the year, summer the light. Samhain was the end of the last harvest and the beginning of the dark time of year. It was New Year’s Eve.

Samhain was also a time when the barrier between this world and the Otherworld was thin. The spirits of the dead, especially the recently departed, came home to say last goodbyes. That was OK as reverence for your ancestors. Grampa’s ghost might be a little pale, but he was still Grampa. Other people’s ancestors? Screamy woman? Recently executed murderer? Not-so-much reverence as fear.

So the Celts put out food for their pale peeps and scary decorations to keep the others away. They burned bonfires, danced in the streets, and mastered fear through partying. The Church coopted the reverence for the dead, and tolerated the party, Happy Halloween.

“Trick or treating,” or gangs of costumed kids demanding candy in lieu of getting your windows soaped or your yard decorated with toilet paper was an American invention, now exported to some other places in the world. Just kidding about the  extortion racket part; we do have some scattered  “Devil’s Night” vandalism, but the whole holiday has turned into a neighborhood fancy dress party with parents dressing up and going around with little ones.

Halloween is a time to have pseudoscary fun, meet your neighbors, and overdose on sugar. There was a time when some houses used to hand out fruit or home baked goods or bags of popcorn, but then someone started rumors of razorblades in apples and hippies handing out marijuana brownies and now the only things parents view as safe are prepackaged products of Mars and Hershey.

Costumes are a reflection of pop culture, lots of Disney princesses, Marvel superheroes and Harry Potter characters. My wizard costume predates the JK Rowling classic, but everyone calls me Dumbledore.

There are a few costumes, that are truly scary, home-made zombies asking for brains, vampires with real looking teeth, light gray palor, and bloodshot eyes asking for a “donation,” and teenagers in Jason hockey masks from the Halloween movie series, or Freddy Kruger claws from the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

Some people, like my wife and me, enjoy being scared. Horror movies, and authors like Stephen King exist for people like us. We love a suspenseful story, where the dead come back to life eating the brains of those struggling to get by after the Apocalypse. When the story is over, I look around at our deteriorating world and its problems seem more solvable.

Not everyone feels this way. Billie and I share the experience of emotionally scarring our youngest children by taking them to a horror film with their older siblings, she Cujo, me Nightmare on Elm Street. One of them has forgiven the infraction.

I’m not sure if a love of the horror genre really helps me face my fears.

I do things that stretch my tolerance for feeling uncomfortable, going up in a hot air balloon, parachuting, and mountain climbing for fear of heights. I’m not really afraid of heights, nor even falling from heights. I do worry about landing after falling.

Most of the other things that make me uncomfortable are really easy to rationalize. Getting old? What choice do I have? Dying? It happens to all of us sometime? Not being loved? I am truly fortunate and grateful.

I try to help some others face some of what scares them. So if a very small Spiderman freaks out at our red-eyed creepy spiders, a kindly old wizard is there to say,

“He doesn’t bite. His eyes are red because he’s tired. He would really like it if you pet him, Mr. Spiderman.”