Divinipotent About Halloween Spooks

"There are nights when the wolves are silent
and only the moon howls."

 ~ George Carlin

Halloween is one of Divinipotent Daily's favorite days of the year. To be a child on this day, dressing up, traipsing through dark and chilly streets in a parade of other costumed children, ringing doorbells, shivering as you pass spooky old houses cloaked in immense dark trees, collecting candy and then, later, eating said candy while watching scary movies...what could be better? Those ever-so-slight brushes with what John Milton described as "calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire, and airy tongues that syllable men's names" open a child's mind to a different dimension — a place that temporarily lifts coddled young Americans from their shallowness.

How sad that fears of fates unspoken have ended traditional trick-or-treating in many areas, replacing the door-knocking with parties at schools and community centers. In some areas, objections to Halloween's pagan past, with its witches, goblins and ghosts, restrain the celebration even further.

For unfiltered memories of Halloweens past, Divinipotent Daily commends you to "Celtic Memories — Whispering Hope from the Past" a lovely essay by writer Maura Mulligan on the Mr. Beller's Neighborhood site. She writes about her Irish childhood and the stories she heard from her grandfather about the traditional celebration of Samhain (SOW-in). The Celtic harvest feast that is celebrated on All Hallows Eve, Samhain is the night when ghosts come out of their graves and the living carve jack-o'-lanterns from turnips to "light the way for the visiting dead."

The New York Public Library, which is a lot more fun than most people probably realize, offers another excellent way to pass a few Halloween minutes: check out the collection of vintage Halloween cards on its Facebook Page. When you're done, go here and  enjoy still more vintage postcards while listening to the great Lambert, Hendricks and Ross sing "Halloween Spooks."

"'Tis now the very witching
 time of night,
 When churchyards yawn 

 and hell itself breathes out
 Contagion to this world."
  ~ William Shakespeare

Go out and scare somebody. Happy Halloween!