Book of Days

Tonight’s setting sun brings us Halloween. We celebrate all day, of course––folks in costume at work, parades of costumed children in elementary schools––but really it is the night that belongs to Halloween. The holiday’s name itself incorporates this fact, for the word Halloween is derived from its original monicker: All Hallow’s Eve, the eve of All Saints Day. Eventually, folks began calling the night Hallowe’en, with an apostrophe taking place of the V, and even the apostrophe fell out of favor eventually.

Not only is Halloween a good example of the fluid, living nature of language, it’s also a good example of the fluid, living nature of traditions in the seasonal round. Our celebrations have changed a lot over the centuries, but most everything about Halloween––from the costumes to the tricks or treats to the fascination with the macabre and death––takes us back to its original beginnings as Samhain, the Celtic celebration marking the passing of one year and the beginning of another, on this night. It was one of a few nights each year when the portals between worlds, be they worlds of the living and worlds of the dead, or worlds of mortals and worlds of fairies, were open and easily transgressible. A night charged with magic. And if you’ve been reading the Book of Days for a while now, you know how much we love to conjure magic through ceremony.

As you carve your jack o’lantern tonight and as you don your costume and as trick or treaters knock at your door, keep this distant and old magic in mind. The costumes and jack o’lanterns––which, by the way, were originally carved from turnips––were meant to keep evil spirits at bay; the giving of treats as offerings for the souls of those who had come and gone before us. The same and yet so removed from what we do today. And yet if there is magic to be found in crossing through time, there it is in traditions that are handed down from time immemorial.

I was up late last night putting the finishing touches on the annual Convivio Dispatch for Hallowe’en, which has become a bit of a tradition itself, and while I would not go as far as to put the Halloween Dispatch on par with Bailey White’s annual Thanksgiving story on NPR or Charles Dickens’s annual readings of A Christmas Carol, there are a whole bunch of people who seem to look forward to each Halloween’s special Convivio Dispatch from Lake Worth. If you didn’t receive it in your email inbox late last night, that means you are not subscribed for the Convivio Dispatch.

The Dispatches are separate and distinct from the Book of Days Blog; the Dispatches are more about story, and they are mostly about the quirky town I call home. And they come to you as a plain text email, like a little gift. The Dispatch has been like that for years and years and I like it that way: simple, no bells and whistles. If you don’t get the Convivio Dispatch and would like to, send me an email here at the bookworks: mail@conviviobookworks.com. I’ll see that you get last night’s story, as well as the ones that follow. There’s usually one each month; sometimes two. It’s never my goal to clutter your mailbox. As someone who is easily overwhelmed, I know better.

Thank you, and may your Hallowe’en be a spirited one. Keep the fires burning.
John

Image: Two jack o’lanterns on our porch one Hallowe’en night. I love Seth’s jack o’lanterns; they never have teeth.