By Jason Kitchen
I love this time of year. It is, in my opinion, the best time of the year. The weather is just right, and the fall season is settling in on all us folks in the Northern Hemisphere. Our days with the sun grow shorter, but our nights with the moon become greater in time. And that I do not mind at all, because the moon can do things to us that some of us do not even understand yet.
I enjoy the changes that our Earth goes through during this season. All of the changes are wondrous to look upon. The colors that are manifested onto our vegetation is nothing short of spectacular, and the small breezes of air coming forth to welcome us to the eve of winter are intoxicating and hypnotic to behold.
Yet, with all of that said, I must admit that my most prized feeling of joy during this time is the celebration of Halloween. It is just what the doctor ordered: the modern forms of guises, the carved jack-o-lanterns, the ghost stories, and all the other products of Halloween that can be thought of. All of them have the ability to excite me to no end.
Halloween seems to bring with it the elixir to awaken many things within us. It can feed my craving to be frightened, make me want the full moon to dance magick upon my head, and even bring forth my more mischievous side. After all, if you do not treat, I will most definitely trick. I was never a very big fan of those folks who either ignored the celebration of Halloween and went through the evening as if nothing was happening around them, or were knowledgeable enough to know what was going on amongst them, but did not take part in the celebrations. I have even known people who would make plans for days on end, working out how best to leave their house on the night of Halloween so as to dodge the traffic of trick-or-treaters and their companions. In reality, if they would only join in on the fun, they would learn a few things. Perhaps one of those things they would learn would be the fact that the work that is put in to planning their escape from their own house is much more stressful than hanging around and becoming a ghoul themselves with the rest of the town. But slithering actions of the miserable are always somewhere to be found.
I can remember Halloween nights as a child when my late mother’s costume was more flamboyant and elaborate than almost anyone else’s within a hundred mile radius. She went all-out during this time of year, and I can say with great certainty that her inner child, with unmatchable excitement and untrained imaginable skills, were at their peak in those moments. And with her most appreciated example, I have tried to follow suit. Because it makes me happy, and that alone is worth more than most of us can comprehend in this life.
We live in a society of self-made sickness, with our stress level going through the roof and our self-medicated maladies controlling how we think we have to live and maintain ourselves. But these illusions are made up from our own perceptions, and how we see ourselves and tell ourselves what we must be and what we must do to be happy. It is all just plain junk.
We take ourselves much too seriously these days. Most people that I know would commit severe acts of crime before they would dress up into something they would enjoy and glide around their vicinity. And in my opinion, that is not a good thing. Perhaps it would do us all some good if we were to choose a costume that we would very much like to wear, and portray that character for a night. I do not see the harm in letting go of our ego for the time being and becoming something more. Something that is mundane in nature and blissful in spirit. After all, we all need our happiness to live productively in this world. Without it, we are only creating an illusion that will soon become destructive.
If we can find the character within us, and find the right costume to fit us, it can lead to many great things. It can cause our imagination to soar to new heights, and our visualization, as we are creating scenarios in our minds that will suit our character, will become potent and motivated with wanting more of these things in our lives. That is why a practicing magickian or witch is often seen wearing robes and cloaks of a mystical kind…It gives us the help we need in creating and willing the things and changes in our lives that we are manifesting. It helps us to feel out of the norm and not an average Joe. And sometimes, that is what is needed to find happiness. Well, that and a few bags of candy corn.