Let's write about ancient roots of Halloween rituals

Op-Ed: Halloween’s Celtic roots are a lot spookier than witches and candy bars:

Samhain, halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.

This interesting history about the roots of celebrating Halloween was published in The Los Angeles Times with The Conversation. 

"As the light of summer fades and the season of darkness begins, the ancient holiday of Halloween arrives to celebrate the dead mingling with the world of the living, as it has for thousands of years."

As Halloween approaches, people get ready to celebrate the spooky, the scary and the haunted. Ghosts, zombies, skeletons and witches show up in yards, windows and stores. Festivities revolve around the realm of the dead, and some believe the dead might actually mingle with the living on the night of Halloween.

Scholars have often noted that these modern-day celebrations of Halloween have origins in Samhain, a festival celebrated by ancient Celtic cultures. In contemporary Irish Gaelic, Halloween is still known as Oíche Shamhna, or Eve of Samhain.

In 9th century Irish literature, Samhain, halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, is mentioned many times as an integral part of the Celtic culture. It was one of four seasonal turning points on the Celtic calendar, and perhaps the most important one. It signaled the end of the light half of the year, associated with life, and the beginning of the dark half, associated with the dead.

Archaeological records suggest that commemorations of Samhain can be traced back to the Neolithic period, some from 6,000 years ago. Neolithic Ireland had no towns or cities, but the people did craft huge architectural monuments, which acted as seasonal gathering spots and housed the remains of the societies’ elites.
These megalithic (“big stone” in Greek) sites would at times host huge numbers of people, gathered together for brief periods around specific calendar dates. Archaeological records reveal evidence of massive feasts yet little to no evidence of domestic use. If people did live year-round at these sites, they would have been a select few.

Data from animal bones can reveal approximate time periods of the feasts, and additional data come from the monuments themselves.

The monuments are not only situated in key places in the landscape but are also celestially aligned to allow the sun or moon to shine directly into the center of the monument on a particular day.
These sites connect the landscape to the cosmos, creating a lived calendar, scripted in stone. The UNESCO World Heritage monument of Newgrange, for example, is built so that a shaft of sunlight illuminates the innermost chamber precisely on the winter solstice.
Less than 30 miles away lies the hill of Tara, another massive megalithic site. The Mound of the Hostages, the oldest extant megalithic structure at Tara, is aligned to Samhain. Tara is known as the traditional spiritual and political capital of Ireland, and here too archaeologists have found evidence of mass seasonal gatherings of people, with the remains of feasts and great bonfires.

Samhain ghost art

According to early Irish literature, as well as traditional folklore collected in the 19th century, Samhain was a time for people to come together, under a command of peace, to feast, tell stories, make social and political claims, engage in important sacred rituals and, perhaps most important, commune with the dead.

The traditional, pre-Christian realm of the dead was referred to as the Otherworld. The Otherworld was not somewhere far away but, rather, overlapping with the world of the living. The Irish beliefs about the Otherworld were detailed and complex. It is full of magic, of witchcraft, of speaking with the dead as well as seeing into the future. The dead were traditionally believed to continue to see the living, although the living could only occasionally see them. The most prominent occasion would be on Samhain itself, when lines between the Otherworld of the dead and the realm of the living were weakened.

There were not only particular days that one might encounter the dead but at particular places as well: the megalithic sites. These sites are known in Irish Gaelic as sí sites, the word sí meaning the spirits of the mounds. This word is often translated into English as “fairies,” which loses a great deal of meaning. “Fairies” in Ireland are spirits deeply connected with the realm of the dead, the mounds and, perhaps most especially, Samhain.

The connection can be witnessed in the figure of the banshee — or bean sí, in Irish — an important mythological figure in Irish folklore, believed to be heard wailing with grief directly before the death of a family member. With “bean” meaning simply “woman,” the banshee is thus a female spirit of the mounds and a ruler of the realm of the dead.

The sí spirits are not only spirits of the dead but are a particular aristocracy, who host the dead with feasting, merriment and eternal youth, often at the megalithic sites. In Irish lore, they are powerful and dangerous, able to give great gifts or exact great damage. They once ruled Ireland, according to folklore, and now they rule the world of the dead.

The Otherworld is always there, but it is on the beginning of the dark half of the year, the evening of Samhain — now Halloween — when the dead are at their most powerful and the lines between this world and the next are erased.

As the light of summer fades and the season of darkness begins, the ancient holiday of Halloween arrives to celebrate the dead mingling with the world of the living, as it has for thousands of years.

Tok Thompson is an anthropology professor at USC Dornsife and author of “Posthuman Folklore.” This article was produced in partnership with The Conversation.

Let's write about reading banned books!

"....(although) there have been differences of opinion during the group’s monthly meetings, but participants have generally agreed that each book it has discussed has value."

Maine Writer history: Revealing my age, but when I was in high school, back in the day, while living in Dundalk, Maryland, the now classic "Peyton Place", by Grace Metalious was labeled as too sexually risqué to be read by teenagers. Librarians at the public library hid the book under the check out counter, away from teenagers. Today, "Peyton Place" is largely considered to be a benign book about life in a small New England town. 

This Liberty book club only reads banned and challenged books! Echo report by Maria Benevento, published in The Kansas City Beacon, a non-profit online news outlet in the Kansas City metropolitan area, focusing on public-interest journalism. It is Kansas City’s first regional nonprofit news outlet that is not a public television or radio station.

A discussion group sponsored by Liberty Parents for Public Schools seeks to understand banned books holistically and discuss whether they have value in schools.

When parents and others first learn of a campaign to ban a book, they may be faced with its most controversial passage — such as a sex scene or a graphic illustration.

Critics around the Kansas City region who have sought to remove books from school libraries or classrooms have posted those segments on social media, read passages out loud at school board meetings and even turned controversial material into a poster.

The Redacted Readers, a book discussion group launched by Liberty Parents for Public Schools, thinks parents need more context — how the scene fits into the story and whether that affects its meaning — to form educated opinions on books.

And so once a month, members of the group get together to discuss works that have been banned or challenged.

Although members are welcome to attend if they haven’t had time to read each month’s book, the group discusses each book as a whole, weighing whether it has value and belongs in schools.

“If you don’t look holistically at a book, you can attack many, many books,” said Carroll Makemson, a retired school library coordinator with 34 years of experience in Liberty Public Schools. “But when you read them in their entirety, and read anything that might be objectionable in context, you see it differently.”

Liberty book club's discussion of Looking for Alaska

Context played a key role when the group convened in September to talk about “Looking for Alaska” by John Green.

About a dozen members met over Zoom for an open and wide-ranging conversation that lasted more than two hours.

Some members related the book’s content to personal experiences such as childhood loss, teenage experiences with alcohol and sex, and their efforts as parents and educators to help children navigate difficult topics.

When group members read a controversial sex scene in relation to the rest of the book, most weren’t alarmed. Several thought it was laugh-out-loud funny.

The author of “Looking for Alaska” has emphasized that the awkward scene is juxtaposed with a more passionate, but less R-rated, kissing scene.

“In context, the novel is arguing really in a rather pointed way that emotionally intimate kissing can be a whole lot more fulfilling than emotionally empty oral sex,” Green said in one video.

But some members said books with heavy themes could help young people process situations they may already encounter, such as peer pressure, sex or the death of a loved one.

“One of the roles of fiction is to introduce students to characters who are different than themselves, who experience events and parts of life that are different than their own,” Makemson told The Kansas City Beacon.

That can prepare children for something as simple as meeting a gay person for the first time, she said, but also for more challenging situations.

“If parents are getting a divorce, if a child has read about how single-parent families or dual-custody families operate … then the child has some background for it,” Makemson said.

“Vicarious experiences help us deal with real experiences.”

Challenges to books: Beth Farr, is co-founder and executive director of Liberty Parents for Public Schools, said the book discussion group was formed during the most recent spring semester because “everybody was so sad and disappointed that people were coming after books.”

In 2021, groups such as the Northland Parent Association and some school board candidates pushed for certain books to be removed from schools, while others defended them.

This year, a new state law that targets books with sexually explicit visuals has prompted some local districts to remove several graphic novels.

Also in 2022, the Kansas Independence school board voted 6-1 to remove a book that featured a nonbinary character from the district’s elementary schools. In this decision, the board followed a recommendation from a committee made up of parents, staff and a board member.

The Redacted Readers read that book, “Cats vs. Robots Volume 1: This is War,” because they have a particular focus on titles that have been challenged or banned locally.

Attempts to remove books from schools aren’t new, Makemson said.

Early in her career, a group calling itself Concerned Parents of Liberty tried to remove “Go Ask Alice,” a cautionary tale published in 1971, about drug addiction presented as the authentic diary of a teenager.

“It got really, really ugly,” Makemson said. “They stood at the grocery store, reading sections of the book, just like you could do with ‘Looking for Alaska’ … and they even copied a couple pages and passed them out.”

Parents also sued the district, and someone put bags of manure on the doorstep of the home where Makemson and her husband lived.

But, that situation was the exception.  In more than three decades of working in school libraries, Makemson saw numerous titles challenged. They included a surprisingly macabre Halloween ABC book, the Harry Potter series❓ and a careers book for middle schoolers. Also, she  witnessed objections to all books portraying single-parent families and to all fairy tales.

Several books were removed, recategorized or restricted to certain ages, but many remained on the shelves. The biggest difference Makemson sees between challenges of the past and challenges today is the aftermath.

“For decades, people accepted decisions,” she said. “And they accepted them gracefully — at least in public … But now it’s kind of like if you made a decision that the people didn’t like, you could expect phone calls, you could expect letters, it might even lead to verbal assault.”
The value of a book club for banned and challenged books

Makemson said one of the reasons that she appreciates the Redacted Readers and the overall Liberty Parents for Public Schools group is that it provides “mutual support” and gives her the courage to speak out in the current climate — such as when she addressed the Liberty school board to talk about librarians’ selection process for books.

Farr said there have been differences of opinion during the group’s monthly meetings, but participants have generally agreed that each book it has discussed has value.

In addition to “Looking for Alaska” and “Cats vs. Robots,” books read so far include: “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Perez
“All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson
“Melissa” (previously published as “George”) by Alex Gino

There are 55 people on the group’s email list, but meeting attendance has ranged from about four to 14, Farr said.

“You don’t have to come in pro-books necessarily,” she said. “But you need to come in pro-willingness to listen to all sides, and (with) an openness to wanting to learn — to learn about the books, the authors, our community.”

Members register online to be added to the email list, and don’t have to live in the Liberty district. Staff members, retired staff members such as Makemson and at least one recent LPS graduate have attended meetings. Students need parental permission to join.

“This isn’t a discussion that just needs to happen in the Liberty School District,” Farr said. “It’s a discussion that needs to happen everywhere, especially together in the Northland.”
The themes of death, suicide and youth substance abuse were more sobering for group members and led them to express concern for the book’s teen characters and young readers.

Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is important to American-French history of friendship

Aleteia:  75% of donors giving money to restore Notre-Dame Cathedral are American. Why?

April 15, 2019 Notre Dame in Paris burning. 

What is it about the Notre-Dame Cathedral, that captures so many hearts across the Atlantic? The answer is centuries old.

When Notre-Dame Cathedral caught fire April 15, 2019, the world watched in horror. Now, as restoration efforts are well under way, it’s heartwarming and perhaps a little surprising that the vast majority of donors who have given money to repair it are American.

What is it about Notre-Dame that captures so many hearts across the Atlantic?

Notre-Dame Cathedral is an international icon of beauty and culture, to be sure. But there is something unique about the way so many Americans have responded to the tragedy.

It goes back to the special relationship the United States has had with France since its very beginning.

Way back in the 1700s, France allied with the US when almost no other country took the new nation seriously. French soldiers and money bolstered the fledgling republic.

Without France, there would be no United States.

And honestly, the US has never forgotten it.
In fact, France was our first friend, and centuries later, Americans remain totally obsessed with all things French.

Most Americans wouldn’t think of this early alliance as the reason for their Francophilia, of course. But it began there and has only blossomed in the centuries since.

On top of that, there’s a beautiful history with each nation supporting the other’s cultural monuments.

Our Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor was an 1884, gift from the French people, commemorating the alliance of France and the United States during the American Revolution. And in 1924, American business tycoon John D. Rockefeller pledged $1 million to rebuild the Reims cathedral, the castle and gardens at Versailles, and the palace of Fontainebleau after they were badly damaged in World War I.

Paris, in particular, captivates us as the world capital of romance. It’s not called the “City of Love” for nothing.

Many Americans cherish memories of trips to Paris with loved ones.

Sure enough, the donations to Notre-Dame’s restoration often came with heartfelt personal notes.

Most of all, Notre-Dame is a Christian emblem, one of the many stunningly gorgeous churches in historically Catholic France. Is it any wonder that the 23% of Americans who are Catholic opened their wallets along with their hearts in response to the tragedy?

Notre Dame Cathedral 

The magic and wonder of Notre-Dame and Paris are so much more than anyone can describe. But in the many American donations to the restoration project, it’s wonderfully clear that the special friendship between France and the U.S. is alive and well. And the beauty of Catholicism, as Notre-Dame symbolizes, never ceases to capture hearts and minds around the world.