Tag Archives: All Hallows Even

Unhallowed #1

 

La Treizième revient… C’est encore la première ;
Et c’est toujours la seule, — ou c’est le seul moment ;
Car es-tu reine, ô toi ! la première ou dernière ?
Es-tu roi, toi le seul ou le dernier amant ?…

Aimez qui vous aima du berceau dans la bière ;
Celle que j’aimai seul m’aime encore tendrement :
C’est la mort – ou la morte… Ô délice ! ô tourment !
La rose qu’elle tient, c’est la Rose trémière.

Sainte napolitaine aux mains pleines de feux,
Rose au coeur violet, fleur de sainte Gudule :
As-tu trouvé ta croix dans le désert des cieux ?

Roses blanches, tombez ! vous insultez nos dieux,
Tombez, fantômes blancs, de votre ciel qui brûle :
— La sainte de l’abîme est plus sainte à mes yeux !

 

(Artemis by Gerard de Nerval)

All Hallow Seven

 

 

666 Skull deep orange  halloween-skull-om1
cross skull DEEPER orange  halloween-skull-alph-omega1

October 31st is a night to celebrate – to celebrate Absolute Truth.
It is a night to grasp the sinister magnitude of the predicament fallen humanity is in.
It is also a night to recall one’s childhood with truly sepulchral melancholy and nostalgia.

I have noted, in my years of this earthly pilgrimage, the degeneration of Halloween from what it was in childhood. I recall less commercial pressure to consume. There was more child-friendly fantasy when I was growing up. The culture had not yet begun to harden into a crassly consumerist rigor mortis yet – or maybe I didn’t notice that part of it so much. Am I  just idealizing a vanished past? Possibly, yes… but the push to turn Halloween into a cannibalistic slasher-film is a real phenomenon and also a discernible symptom.

I am disgusted with the spectacle of Halloween in the USA. But I hold a grudging respect for what looks like a passing victory for death and the grave every year on the last gasp of October. Which brings me to Reformation Day:

In honor of St. Martin Luther, St. John Calvin and  St. John Knox, I proclaim the ongoing triumph of the Reformation. October 31, Reformation Day, is a national day of celebration in Germany, Slovenia, Chile, and Scandinavia – and it should be here as well.

The wages of sin is death (the bitter) but the gift of God is eternal life (the sweet).


The night is still, and the frost it bites my face
I wear my silence like a mask and murmur like a ghost…

Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat: the bitter and the sweet

The carefree days are distant now / I wear my memories like a shroud
I try to speak but words collapse, echoing, echoing….

Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat: the bitter and the sweet

I wander though your sadness
Gazing at you with scorpion eyes: Halloween, Halloween…

A sweet reminder in the ice-blue nursery
Of a childish murder / of hidden luster – and she cries:

Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat: the bitter and the sweet

I wander through your sadness
Gazing at you with scorpion eyes: Halloween, Halloween…

Hallows Eve Pumpkin

 

The Unhallowed and the Lost

And now, dearly departed connectees, as autumnal shades deepen and hallowed memories of the haunted past surge and rise from the depths of smiling despair, I cast before you pearls of eternal wisdom to set in your swiftly-corroding crowns of ephemeral earthly joy as you prepare body and soul for All Hallows Even.

Here are passages from Scenes From Beyond the Grave
first published in 1865 by Marietta Davis.

Chapter 12

the Abode of the Lost

    Suddenly a sable veil of nether night appeared to ascend, pervading, and encompassing my being. My inner doubt seemed wrought into a cloud that shut out the upper glory, and the spirit of denial plunged me into the vortex of a deeper gloom. I fell as one precipitated from some dizzy height. The embodiment of darkness opened to receive me. The moving shadow of a more desolate abyss arose like clouds in dense masses of tempestuous gloom; and as I descended, the ever-accumulating weight of darkness pressed more fearfully upon me. At length a nether plain that seemed boundless was imaged upon my sight, which, at a little distance, appeared to be covered with the sparkling semblance of vegetation. Luminous appearances, like waving trees, with resplendent foliage, and flowers and fruits of crystal and of gold, were visible in every direction.

Spirits of the Lost

    Multitudes of spirits appeared beneath the umbrage, and luminous mantles were folded about rapidly moving form. Some wore crowns upon their heads; others tiaras; and others decorations of which I knew not the name, but which appeared to be wrought of clusters of jewels, wreaths of golden coin, and cloth of gold and silver tissue. Others, wore towering helmets; and others circlets filled with glistening and waving plumes. A pale phosphorescence was emitted by every object, and all appeared a splendid masquerade. The apparel worn by these busy myriads corresponded with the ornaments of the head; hence every variety of sumptuous apparel was displayed upon their forms. Kings and queens appeared arrayed in the gorgeous robes of coronation. Groups of nobility of both sexes, also decorated with all the varieties of adornment displayed in the pageantry of kingly courts. Dense multitudes were visible in costume, proper to the highly cultivated nations; and as they passed by, I discovered similar groups composed of less civilized tribes, attired in barbaric ornaments of every form. While some appeared clothed in the habiliments of the present day, others were in ancient attire; but every class of spirits manifested, in the midst of variety of mode, a uniformity of external pride, pomp, and rapidly moving and dazzling luster.

BEYOND BEYOND the GRAVE