Halloween

The weather today is perfect for this holiday celebrating ghosts and goblins. The air is thin, cold, wet, the clouds hang low and a capricious wind is kicking around the dry autumn leaves as would a bored sprite. I was looking forward to getting out my witches' hat and setting out the bowls of candies for the neighbourhood kids who would come around to trick-0r treat. It is always fun to see all the costumes, from the little bees and fairies, to the werewolves and ghouls. I like to dress up, and I miss the Halloween parties my friends and I would give in graduate school. Dressing up is a fun way to express your inner whimsy and also innocence, and inner child. It taps into the longing for mythology, for fantasy and escape of humdrum of every day modern life. It expresses a longing for a deeper reality, for the invisible being brought to relevance. We can be wizards, and knights, elves, we can be mischievous or noble, gentle or fierce, ugly or very pretty, meek, or powerful. Dressing up allows us to express what remains hidden in our daily attire, that rarely reveals our deeper longings and character. We can be a pirate, a ninja, a mighty warrior, a king, a queen, a witch, a mighty beast or monster. We know it is not real, but the fact that we enjoy dressing up so much tells me we wish it was. The extremes are revealed when we dress up, because what we wear becomes a reflection of inner thoughts and aspirations, be they naive, forceful, scary, inspiring, funny, revolting or sexy and daring. In our daily lives, our faces are our masks, our disguises, that reveal  very little as to what kind of person we are behind that face.When we dress up, our costumes become the signature to our face, one face comes off, to reveal another. So, whether we dress up or not, or like to dress up or not, we are always in disguise. It is only when we agree to dress up that we reveal the mask our face is, and that can be a lot of fun, and very therapeutic,too. It is also a way to bond, to let our friends and neighbours know what we like, and that feels good. If we all dressed up all the time, we might feel closer to each other, closer to our own spirit and heart, and it might also bring to view that we are all connected in the deep longing to be understood, recognized, to matter, to have an identity that can be seen, and that would remove some of the soul deadening anonymity of modern life.