Festival of ugliness

The year in the West is punctuated by once religious (or even spiritual) festivals that have become highly commercialised: Christmas in winter, Easter in spring and Halloween in autumn.

Little by little, these festivals have been emptied of their collective, spiritual and symbolic meaning, leaving only highly lucrative opportunities that keep us in consumerist habits without enriching us on other levels.

A bit of history

We have just been through Halloween. This festival has had a winding history in Europe, originating in pagan celebrations, including the famous Samhain, honouring the end of the harvest and the arrival of winter, but also the part of the year when the veil between the world of the living and that of the dead is considered thinnest, and therefore the time when we can most easily get in touch with those who have left us.

It was Pope Gregory III who, in the 8^th century, moved the Christian Feast of the Dead, which took place on 13 May, to 31 October in order to Christianise this festival, which was too pagan for his liking.

Let’s talk money

This year, in the United States alone (where Halloween took off in its current form), the forecasts of the NRF (National Retail Federation) put spending at $10.6 billion^[1] for the night of 31 October, including €2.34 billion on sweets (i.e. 300,000 tonnes)^[2] and nearly $804 million on pumpkins^[3]… of which 1.3 billion tonnes will end up in the bin^[4].

Let’s talk death

As if to justify the images of skulls, witches and flayed zombies that flood public space from the end of summer, many fall back on the fact that Halloween, falling on the eve of All Saints’ Day, has its origins in the Feast of the Dead. But the gratuitous ugliness and morbid nature of everything surrounding Halloween as it is “celebrated” in the Westernised world have nothing to do with the celebration of the departed, which is marked by respect, offerings and remembrance.

It is estimated that 70% of the US population, i.e. 235 million people, celebrated Halloween this year.^[5] On the other hand, All Saints’ Day or any other collective celebration in honour of ancestors, since it is not profitable, is not quantified and, in the West, amounts to no more than a public holiday and individual commemorations.

One thinks of the Dia de los Muertos in Mexico. This festival traditionally takes place over three days: the first is devoted to children who have died, the second to people who died violently, and the third to all the other departed.^[6] The family of the deceased cleans the grave, dances, sings and leaves offerings to provide for the needs of the deceased in the afterlife. These are foreign notions for our uber-productivist, logical societies, in which, above all, the family itself is becoming a fragmented reality.

The dead, the living and beauty

In other cultures, the day of the dead is an opportunity for the living to connect with one another in memory of those who have left the Earth.^[7]

In South Korea, Chuseok is a festival to show gratitude to one’s ancestors. It is focused not so much on the dead as on the opportunity to pay tribute to those who are now “on the other side of the veil”. People visit one another, clean the graves, prepare fine dishes and express gratitude to those who went before them.

Traditionally, on All Saints’ Day, believers cleaned the graves, placed chrysanthemums on them and lit candles.

Air Muyan is celebrated on Carey Island, 140 km from Kuala Lumpur. The inhabitants put on their finest costumes and intricate masks. They address prayers and blessings to their ancestors.

Death in a society that prioritises sterility

In Westernised countries, where viruses are demonised and hand gel is posted at the entrance of every establishment to save us from germs, it is hardly surprising that death struggles to find a natural place in collective practice. While a gigantic campaign put citizens under pressure to get vaccinated in order to protect their grandparents, thousands, or even millions, of people died alone, without their loved ones being able to come and bury them properly to pay them a last tribute together.

The notion of death has been largely swallowed up by a commercial festival that puts horror in the spotlight. It is up to us to revive, or even reinvent, practices that allow us to approach death with more respect and beauty, where we can together pay tribute, make room for remembrance, eat and weep in order to do what these festivals are meant to do: go through the pain of death together and expiate it so as to go on living.

Almost all of us know Dr Emoto’s experiments on water. In contact with words of kindness and gratitude or with harmonious music, water molecules arrange themselves in balanced forms, unlike those brought into contact with words of hatred or dissonant music.

Beauty will save the world.^[8] It is up to us to save beauty.

By Katiouchka, journalist and North America correspondent at BAM!

[1] https://nrf.com/research-insights/holiday-and-seasonal-trends/halloween

[2] https://korii.slate.fr/biz/

[3] https://www.finder.com/cost-of-pumpkins

[4] https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/home-and-garden/

[5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/

[6] https://www.gralon.net/articles/

[7] https://theculturetrip.com/africa/

[8] https://www.pimido.com/philosophie-et-litterature/

Photo source: BAM!