The skies are grey here in Michigan. It’s damp and the wind is tickling the trees, shaking loose an occasional leaf. In years past, a thick carpet of leaves obscured the ground by now. This year there’s only a light scattering of them. I’m trying not to panic.
Today is Halloween, a day that many in the States strongly associate with costumes, parties, and sugar highs. We go door to door threatening our neighbors to give us candy or face the consequences. “Trick or treat!”
As much as I enjoy those commercial, hedonistic indulgences, I prefer Halloween’s more earthy association with paganism. I think of paganism as a kind of love song to mother nature and planet Earth, Halloween being the pagan high holiday. It’s a time when the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest. It’s a time to honor the rhythms of nature we depend on for survival.
So when I see the leafy trees so late in the season, I think of climate change and worry that we have been a neglectful lover to our planet. If she kicks us out of her bed, there will be no need of veils to cross because we will all be ghosts.
life in jello 