Most people believe that I think Texas is the ideal place to live. Most people believe right. But my idea of the ideal place to live is not always similar to other people’s ideas. To me, ideal means heaven. Ideal means that every circumstance that I believe to be perfect is true – that’s ideal. I have an idea that my ideal surety isn’t as sure as my idea’s. Are you following me?

The eagle soars because it’s not afraid. Born with nothing but the sky to look at, its aspirations could be no higher. From a hatchling the eagle strives to grow, craving nourishment, attacking its own kind to survive, pushing itself and others to make way for the world it wishes to see. The eagle doesn’t fail because of high expectations. The drop from the nest is a long one, but the longer the fall – the more time the eagle has to learn how to fly. The young eagle has no direction, only the wide open blue sky. Where there is no sky, they learn not to fly. When eagles tire, they return to the shelter of the wings and rest. They won’t ever get discouraged of leaving the comfort of the nest because they know what lies beyond is much greater and more fulfilling. How could they not jump from the safety of their cliffs when they know the freedom that lies outside? Nobody told them they could fly; they simply tried and realized they could. Eagles deserve to soar because they believe they can fly before they can.

Amid all of the controversy that surrounds Halloween every year it is amazing to note all of the many cultures across the world that celebrate the Day of the Dead. To me it seems completely egotistical for Americans to get on the same band-wagon, year after year, dismissing and disrespecting every ancient culture known since the beginning of human existence. News flash America – you are not that old.

Nobody can really confirm the exact date that the Day of the Dead originated. The earliest recognized celebration most probably came from the Olmecs. The Olmec were an ancient pre-Columbia indigenous people, covering the land of Central America and Mexico. Studies of ancient artifacts conclude that the Olmecs flourished during the Pre-classic era, dating from 1200 BCE to about 400 BCE. Some scholars date the Olmecs, Día de Los Muertos, as far back as possibly 3000 years ago.

The more common known, Día de los Difuntos of the Mayans and Aztecs, was a joyous occasion stemming from the Olmec tradition. This festival was held to honor the lives of the deceased and to celebrate the continuation of life. It was a very spiritual and symbolic festival that did not recognize death as an end, but rejoiced that departed loved ones were beginning a new eternal life beyond the earthly realm. The Day of the Dead fell in the ninth month of the Aztec calendar, about the beginning of August, and was celebrated for an entire month. In most current Mexican cultures, The Day of the Dead is now widely celebrated on November 1st and 2nd. The dead are acknowledged in many different and sometimes gruesome ways. Skulls and skeletons are displayed for remembrance, burial grounds are visited and cleaned, graves are decorated with flowers, and food and gifts are left for cherished loved ones on the other side.

The most controversial line of thought tracks the Day of the Dead back to 1000 BC, and the Celtic tradition of ‘samhuinn‘ (the Scots Gaelic spelling) which simply means ’summer’s end’. Most legend supports that this was celebrated as the Celtic New Year. The Celts used a lunar calendar that consisted of 13 months, each 28 days in length called the Calendar of Trees. In this calendar the Celts recognized two seasons, one for light, and one for darkness based on the summer and winter solstices. They held month-long festivals counting back 45.6 days before the coming of each solstice. On modern calendars, these celebrations are now Beltane, held on May 1st, and Samhain held on November 1st.

As a Christian I find it very interesting to note that again, the festival of Samhain marked the end of life and the promise of a new resurrection. It was not only a spiritual belief for the Celts, but also a time to cull and move livestock, harvest the fields and prepare for the coming ‘dead’ season. As the families reaped the bounty of their seasons hard work, they threw offerings of thanksgiving for the harvest into a huge bonfire and celebrated as a community, lamenting over those that had passed before the great harvest and praying that they would all be sustained through the coming cold and barren months. It is easy for the imagination to conclude how this came to be known as a festival for the dead.

In the early roman church, “All Martyrs” began to be celebrated as early as the year 270. Some Christian scholars have attributed the first celebration even earlier to the city of Antioch on the first Sunday after Pentecost, although this was not widely accepted because it occurred before the Romans had accepted Christianity. The feast of the dedicatio Sanctae Mariae ad Martyres has been celebrated since 609, when Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon at Rome to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs. Historians claim that this was an effort to de-paganize Rome and blend the clashing cultures of the pagans and the ever-growing Christian community. This was accomplished by Pope Gregory III in 835 when all of the festivals and celebrations were compounded and moved to November 1^st, forever after to be known as All Saints Day.

The Asian version of the Day of the Dead has been so nicely meshed within the culture that it’s hard to pinpoint an exact origin of their annual festivals. On the Chinese calendar, the entire 7th month is called Ghost Month. The Ghost Festival may possibly date back to The Tang Dynasty of China (618–907). During that period, Ullambana (Sanskrit for “hanging upside down in hell and suffering”) and other traditional festivities were blended into one day of celebration. Ullambama is the festival of deliverance, and translates into “deliverance from suffering”, and specifically refers to the salvation that is granted to tormented souls in hell. Along the same lines of tradition, Buddhists instituted a day on the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar ( mid-to-late August) as a day of prayer and offering in which monks pray and make sacrifices on behalf of dead ancestors or hungry ghosts. Family members of the deceased pay for this service, and so their patronage is considered a form of charity. In Japan, O-bon also stems from the ancient Ullambana, and is celebrated to honor departed ancestors. This festival has evolved into a very family oriented holiday where people return to their ancestor’s home towns and visit and clean their graves.

There is no possible way I could cover each and every cultural celebration of the dead, but I must of course end this night with the American celebration of Halloween. As the melting pot of all dying cultures we have once again succeeded in stripping culture to meaningless propagated marketing.

Children are dressed up to coo over
Single women dressed to drool over
Christians prepare to fuss over
pagans prepare to offend over
and the cycle continues – each time worse than the year before.

There is absolutely nothing sacred or religious left in this candy-loot, media-manic, over-marketed laughable holiday.  We have simply raped all cultures and called them our own in order to annihilate each and every root of our own heritage.  It’s a downright shame if you ask me.