Halloween - bah humbug

[James Deuce]

Never suggested you were, just saying that there is no returning from where we've gone. This site is about the only community I've found for a while.

Seige mentality? No, just the world is a lot nastier than it was 30, 50, 70 years ago.

[Virago]

......Seige mentality? No, just the world is a lot nastier than it was 30, 50, 70 years ago.

Couldn't agree more. There was a time when children could approach their neighbours and talk to them......

Nah, I just decided that the Halloween culture couldn't be beaten, so I've accepted it. And we get a real kick out of it now.

Must be time to move south Jim. We actually speak to each other down here!

[James Deuce]

Oh they speak to us alright.

I've wanted to live in the Sth Is. for years. Just need to find the right job and I'm off.

[jrandom]

I've wanted to live in the Sth Is. for years...

Whenever I look, they's plenty jobs going in Chch. I bet you're not actively bugging recruitment agents for a spot, are you, eh? Eh? Go on, put some backbone into it and pick up that phone. You know you'd be settled down there within six months. Probably with a salary increase.

Me, I can't do the Chch thing; I married an asthmatic. Anyway, I like Orcland. I like my house. I like the northwest coast of the NI, and the goats and deer running around the Kaipara just waiting to be efficiently mowed down and roasted with olive oil, rosemary and garlic.

Dunno why anyone would want to live any further south.

[mstriumph]

...........I've wanted to live in the Sth Is. for years. Just need to find the right job and I'm off.

at the risk of being hokey .... if you REALLY wanted that, you'd be out there making it happen?


- i've always wanted to VISIT the South Island ....... somewhere to bunk whilst down there would be GREAT !!

[mstriumph]

bling me that bling you almost blunged and I will. I'm all about the bling.

you HARLOT you!!!!!

[James Deuce]

at the risk of being hokey .... if you REALLY wanted that, you'd be out there making it happen?


- i've always wanted to VISIT the South Island ....... somewhere to bunk whilst down there would be GREAT !!

Just started looking today. Interesting concept. There can't be anyone left down there because there are everything from sit at your desk picking your nose type jobs, to we'd like someone to annoy Bill Gates regularly. No seriously. Here's the next year's 1st class plane tickets.

[mstriumph]

You must spread some reputation around before giving it to Jim2 again.

[Paul in NZ]

Just started looking today. Interesting concept. There can't be anyone left down there because there are everything from sit at your desk picking your nose type jobs, to we'd like someone to annoy Bill Gates regularly. No seriously. Here's the next year's 1st class plane tickets.

Nose picking you say? I have a MIGHTY fine hooter and fat fingers - as long as it's a volume job and not a fiddly one I'm your man...

Paul N (the original boogey man)

[scumdog]

Just started looking today. Interesting concept. There can't be anyone left down there because there are everything from sit at your desk picking your nose type jobs, to we'd like someone to annoy Bill Gates regularly. No seriously. Here's the next year's 1st class plane tickets.

Not sure what the above really means, you had better learn Sarfisland Speak before you move down here, we don't cotton onto that Norfeyeland Lingo.

If you get down here we'll have a peter'n'plate night at my mates crib nestled in the bracken eh?

(BTW If you move further south than Oamaru you had better remember to add the letter 'r' to every word - sometimes twice - to be understood)

[Skyryder]

Not sure what the above really means, you had better learn Sarfisland Speak before you move down here, we don't cotton onto that Norfeyeland Lingo.

If you get down here we'll have a peter'n'plate night at my mates crib nestled in the bracken eh?

(BTW If you move further south than Oamaru you had better remember to add the letter 'r' to every word - sometimes twice - to be understood)

And the love of that tartan music is a must.

Skyryder

[Skyryder]

It was once an English custom also. The eve of November 1st has been a time of celebration (and fear) for thousands of years, being abandoned in England (and Scotland) only in comparatively recent times.

Originally the Pagan New Year (Samhain), and still celebrated as such by Pagans, it was appropriated by the early Christian church (as much else) and become All Hallows Eve, when the souls of the dead were released for an evening to walk again in this world. And on that evening, prayers may succeed in releasing the soul in Purgatory to eternal rest.

Rightfully a time of dread, and prayer, and reflection on our own mortality, I know not how it became a candy-fest and mockery.

With the rise of the enlightened society, and the drift from the countryside to the factories of the industrial revolution, the myths and superstitions that plagued the peasent population slowly receeded from the urban psych. But it was never completely forgotton. This distant memory became enmeshed in the American tradition due to the Scots, Irish, Welsh and other European immigrants that made up it's population that, had since from Pagan times, followed the tradition of Haloween. The correct and earlier spelling is Hallowe'en a shortened version of All-hallow-even and is the eveing before All Hallows Day. This became All Saints Day.

The candy associated with Halloween is in part due to the National Candy Corn Day. This is the day before Halloween, October 30th. The pumpkin that is associated with Halloween is symboloc for the end of summer and is now the icon for Halloween. The pumpkin and associated family of plants became the one of the staples of colonial America.

Creatures associated with Halloween are night roamers. Witches, bats, owls zombies etc.

It is one of the wonders of the American way that a country so steeped in the Christian tradition can turn what is essentialy religouse day into one of 'candy fest and mockery.'

[mstriumph]

..............................
Rightfully a time of dread, and prayer, and reflection on our own mortality, I know not how it became a candy-fest and mockery.

putting a veneer of civilization over the old way doesn't obliterate it - and people often mock in company or in sunlight at what rightly chills them alone and at dusk

scratch most new religions [yep - she called christianity a 'new' religion ] and there's a pagan lurking underneath ........... aware and trembling

[James Deuce]

Don't forget that All Hallows Eve and it's preceding pagan celebrations marked the Northern Hemisphere's transition from Autumn to Winter. If you hadn't put enough food away for your family to survive for 3 months, you died.

I think that is behind the somewhat sinister implications of this particular celebration.

[moko]

You`re right Jim,Easter and Christmas were famously swiped as well,both still riddled with remnents of old Pagan customs,Easter`s even named after a European Goddess,and eggs and the Easter Bunny,actually a Hare at the start were both fertility symbols and it was all about fertility and the start of Spring in Europe way before Christianity`s "2 planks and Jew"logo was ever copyrighted.Likewise Christmas,both the tree and mistletoe are age old Pagan symbols and if you want to really go into it take a look at this little lot,interesting if you look beyond the manic ranting and skip to the "Odin as Santa" bit,quite a commonly held view in Europe,where Paganism is making quite a comeback incidentally.
http://www.av1611.org/othpubls/santa.html