From now till the end of the month, I will be using photographs to explore the emotion of “fear” – to be exact, the fear of the unknown, especially death. I think this a good time to do that, then, after all, Halloween is just around the corner. You can see the images here.
As we celebrate Halloween, we need to remember the origin of the festival and its essence.
Halloween comes from the Celtic festival called “Samhain”. It was celebrated from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1 and marked the end of the light summer and the start of the darkness of winter. It marked a time when the boundary between this world and that of the departed was removed and the departed could visit our world and the Celts could confer with the spirits of the dead.
Then came the Church and Christianity and disrupted a lot of customs in Europe and all over the world. As you can imagine, the Celtic custom of Samhain was not spared either.
In AD 609, Pope Gregory moved the All Martyrs Day from May 13 to Nov. 1 and renamed it All Saints Day. Then in AD 1000, Nov 2 was named All Souls Day or All-Hallowmas and Oct. 31, All Hallows Eve. On All Souls Day, the celebrations were just like the old Celtic rites of Samhain – big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils.
Soon, All Hallows Eve became “Halloween” and the celebrations of the Celts on Samhain had been appropriated.
Yet, the underlying meaning of the day does not need to be lost. The dead can teach us about living. Their mistakes, triumphs, achievements, and regrets are all things that we can learn from.
In most African societies, Death is feared more than Americans fear the IRS but I argue that we needn’t fear Death.
A most important exercise then should be an exploration of why we fear death so much.
Is it because of a fear of not knowing what lies beyond or is it because we fear we won’t be ready? Do we fear we’ll be snatched in our prime or before we see our kids grow into adults?
Those are questions I ponder often and hence the images. I seek to point out that instead of wasting our emotions on being afraid, we should rather seek to live in such a way that we’ll have no regrets when the time comes. That times like these should remind us that Death is just around the corner and our Time is finite. The images are thus “Memento Mori” symbols to remind you all that the clock is ticking so love, create, eat, dance, sing, hug, make love…like there is no tomorrow.