Happy Halloween!

Kirsten's Jack O'Lanterns

I can't believe I know people who actually carved these. Talk about a labor of love! And of creativity!

And some poetry to go along with it!

"Hallowe'en in a Suburb" by H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)

The steeples are white in the wild moonlight,
And the trees have a silver glare;
Past the chimneys high see the vampires fly,
And the harpies of upper air,
That flutter and laugh and stare.

For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset's gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
Where the rivers of madness stream
Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.

A chill wind weaves through the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.

Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
That tore from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral power
Spreads sleep o'er the cosmic throne,
And looses the vast unknown.

So here again stretch the vale and plain
That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leap gay in the pallid ray,
Sprung out of the tomb's black maw
To shake all the world with awe.

And all that the morn shall greet forlorn,
The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thick rise the stones and brick,
Shall some day be with the rest,
And brood with the shades unblest.

Then wild in the dark let the lemurs bark,
And the leprous spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the fold
Of horror and death are penned,
For the hounds of Time to rend.

C.S. Lewis's Ghost Story

We've had Padre Pio and a ghost, St. John Bosco and a ghost. For Halloween itself, let's get one where the famous person is himself the ghost!

At the time, J. B. Phillips was in a deep depression that threatened his life. He refused to leave his chambers, refused proper food or exercise, and seriously questioned the love and election of God [in his life]. It was in this state of detachment and depression, leading to his early death…that suddenly, a ruddy and glowing C. S. Lewis stood before him, entering his room through closed doors -- a “healthy Lewis, hearty and glowing” as Phillips was later to record.

In this vision, Lewis only spoke only one sentence to Phillips: ‘J.B., it’s not as hard as you think.’ One solitary sentence, the meaning of which is debated! But what is not debated is the effect of that sentence. It snapped Phillips out of his depression, and set him again following God. After Lewis spoke that cryptic sentence, he disappeared.

Phillips came out of his chambers only to find that Lewis had died moments before the appearance, miles away. He pondered this in his heart, with wonder, and never returned to his depression. Now, was this a case of God giving a detour of a soul on the way to heaven to a special friend, to save him? Who knows? But again, it is recorded evidence of the highest order, by persons of the highest order: Lewis and Phillips. It is a ghost story, a benevolent one, to all appearances – actually, not only benevolent, but redemptive [which I would take as an element of authenticity].

This story is found in a lot of places but I like this retelling which is from Thoughts of Loy.

St. John Bosco's Ghost Story

This is a little reminder that All Saints' Day is on Tuesday (formerly known as All Hallow's Day), without which we would not have Hallowe'en (formerly known as All Hallow's Eve).

Nothing like a saint telling a ghost story to both celebrate spookiness and also ... saintliness!

While a young man, St. John Bosco (1815-1888) and his friend, Comollo, agreed that whoever died first would return and give a sign about the state of their soul. Comollo died on April 2, 1839. The evening following the funeral, Bosco sat sleepless on his bed in the room he shared with twenty seminarians.

“Midnight struck and I then heard a dull rolling sound from the end of the passage, which grew ever more clear, loud and deep, the nearer it came. It sounded as though a heavy dray were being drawn by many horses, like a railway train, almost like the discharge of a cannon…While the noise came nearer the dormitory, the walls, ceiling and floor of the passage re-echoed and trembled behind it…

Then the door opened violently of its own accord without anybody seeing anything except a dim light of changing colour that seemed to control the sound…Then a voice was clearly heard, ‘Bosco, Bosco, Bosco, I am saved.’… The seminarists leapt out of bed and fled without knowing where to go. … for a long time there was no other subject of conversation in the seminary.”

Isle of the Dead

Arnold Böcklin, Isle of the Dead: "Basel" version, 1880

This was so popular that the artist did several different versions of it. Read all about it at Wikipedia. Here's a bit.

All versions of Isle of the Dead depict a desolate and rocky islet seen across an expanse of dark water. A small rowboat is just arriving at a water gate and seawall on shore. An oarsman maneuvers the boat from the stern. In the bow, facing the gate, is a standing figure clad entirely in white. Just behind the figure is a white, festooned object commonly interpreted as a coffin. The tiny islet is dominated by a dense grove of tall, dark cypress trees—associated by long-standing tradition with cemeteries and mourning—which is closely hemmed in by precipitous cliffs. Furthering the funerary theme are what appear to be sepulchral portals and windows penetrating the rock faces.

Padre Pio's Ghost Story

Speaking of ghosts, since Halloween is close upon us ...

Padre Pio told the story of being in the choir alone one evening to pray. He heard rustling and looked up to see a young monk dusting and straightening up the altar. When he asked who the monk was, he was told: “I am a brother of yours that made the novitiate here. I was ordered to clean the altar during the year of the noviciate. Unfortunately many times I didn’t reverence Jesus while passing in front of the altar, thus causing the Holy Sacrament that was preserved in the tabernacle to be disrespected. For this serious carelessness, I am still in Purgatory. Now, God, with his endless goodness, sent me here so that you may quicken the time I will enjoy Paradise. Take care of me.”

Source

Portrait of Padre Pio by Solomenco Bogdan
via Wikipedia

A Lane

John Atkinson Grimshaw, A Lane

John Atkinson Grimshaw's work all seems wonderfully gloomy, which is perfect for this time of year. Who is that figure in the moonlight, dwarfed by the trees and sky? An innocent traveler out late? Someone sinister? Someone in need? We are left to wonder.

St. James Church Cemetery

St. James Church Or Goose Creek Church And Cemetery, 1872 Engraving

Deliciously spooky!

O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

... we can give the supernatural world of evil too much power. I guess it's a case of either the devil isn't real or the devil is on every street corner hiding inside a pumpkin. Surely there is a middle ground where we acknowledge supernatural evil but we recognize its limited power in the face of the power of Christ.

Ironically I wonder if this might have been what some of the Christians were doing when they celebrated All Hallow's Eve and All Saints Day in the past. Those festivities were opportunities to laugh in the face of evil spirits, to dress up as them and sort of mock them, saying, "Hey check this out. These big, scary demons, they're just empty masks. When you compare them with the power of the risen Jesus Christ, they're not up to much."

I wonder if Halloween offers us a chance to affirm our eternal life while looking into the face of death which has actually lost its sting ... For Christians the scariness of death is not scary. Not really. Because we've got eternal life.

Peter Laws

Halloween

Halloween, Grandma Moses

I love seeing the whole neighborhood in action!

Lovecraftian School Board Member Wants Madness Added To Curriculum

"Our schools are orderly, sanitary places where students dwell in blissful ignorance of the chaos that awaits," West said. "Should our facilities be repaired? No, they must be razed to the ground and rebuilt in the image of the Cyclopean dwellings of the Elder Gods, the very geometry of which will drive them to be possessed by visions of the realms beyond." ...

"Charles sure likes to bang on that madness drum," fellow school board member Danielle Kolker said. "I'm not totally sold on his plan to let gibbering, half-formed creatures dripping with ichor feed off the flesh and fear of our students. But he is always on time to help set up for our spaghetti suppers, and his bake sale goods are among the most popular."

"I must admit, he's very convincing," Kolker added.

This excerpt is from one of my favorite of The Onion's pieces. I enjoy rereading it every year. Do go read it all.

Inhuman, Gelatinous, and Disembodied

Shall I say that the voice was deep, hollow, gelatinous, remote, unearthly, inhuman, disembodied?

H.P. Lovecraft, the Statement of Randolph Carter

Wow. And somehow I feel I know just how it sounded.

El Gato Negro

Sometimes foreign movie posters capture the essence of the thing so much better than the American ones. That cat looks like a panther, ready to strike!

Lagniappe: The Ghost House

This melancholy and evocative poem by Robert Frost is perfect for October.

I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.

O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.

I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;

The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.

It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
Who share the unlit place with me—
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,—
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had.

Herbsttraum (Autumn)

 

Daniel Stark, Herbsttraum (Autumn), some rights reserved

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

This first ran in 2018 but let's not forget what a great book it is!

A group of eight boys go trick-or-treating on Halloween, only to discover that a ninth friend, Pipkin, has been whisked away on a journey that could determine whether he lives or dies. Through the help of a mysterious character named Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, they pursue their friend across time and space through Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek, and Ancient Roman cultures, Celtic Druidism, the Notre Dame Cathedral in Medieval Paris, and The Day of the Dead in Mexico. — Wikipedia summary

It's funny that in discussing the Pixar movie Coco with friends after having watched it recently, many of them had never heard of Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Even those who are proud of their Hispanic heritage came across it first in this movie. Of course, this is because first and foremost they are Americans and Day of the Dead is not really celebrated in most of this country. And also I think that the holiday is mostly celebrated in Mexico so it would depend on country of origin.

Anyway, what made it oddest to me was that even with my purely Anglo and Kansas background, I felt as if I'd known about this holiday forever. Finally I figured out it was because of my love Ray Bradbury's writing and his love of Day of the Dead.

He wrote about it in his love letter to Halloween, The Halloween Tree. This is a great boys' adventure, a spooky tale, a story of sacrificial friendship, and a history lesson about the origins of Halloween. Bradbury leans a bit hard on Christians in this history, but to be fair I think that is how it was being told when he wrote it in 1972. It is definitely written for children but I enjoy rereading it every year so you can read along (or ahead) to enjoy it with the kids.

My own little tribute to the Day of the Dead is here from last year.

Scott Danielson loves this book even more than I do and we discussed it for Halloween 2016 at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.

Here's a bit from The Halloween Tree.

For now they knew why the town was empty.

Because the graveyard was full.

By every grave was a woman kneeling to place gardenias or azaleas or marigolds in a frame upon the stone.

By every grave knelt a daughter who was lighting a new candle or lighting a candle that had just blown out.

By every grave was a quiet boy with bright brown eyes, and in one hand a small papier-mâché funeral parade glued to a shingle and in the other a papier-mâché skeleton head which rattled with rice or nuts inside. ...

“Mexican Halloweens are better than ours!”

For on every grave were plates of cookies shaped like funeral priests or skeletons or ghosts, waiting to be nibbled by—living people? or by ghosts that might come along toward dawn, hungry and forlorn? No one knew. No one said. ...

And each boy beside the graveyard, next to his sister and mother, put down the miniature funeral on the grave. And they could see the tiny candy person inside the tiny wooden coffin placed before a tiny altar with tiny candles. ... And on the altar was a photograph of the person in the coffin, a real person once; remembered now.

“Better, and still better,” whispered Ralph. ...

“Oh, strange funny strange,” whispered Tom

“What?” said Ralph at his elbow.

“Up in Illinois, we’ve forgotten what it’s all about. I mean the dead, up in our town, tonight, heck, they’re forgotten. Nobody remembers. Nobody cares. Nobody goes to sit and talk to them. Boy, that’s lonely. That’s really sad. But here—why, shucks. It’s both happy and sad. It’s all firecrackers and skeleton toys down here in the plaza and up in that graveyard now are all the Mexican dead folks with the families visiting and flowers and candles and singing and candy. I mean it’s almost like Thanksgiving, huh? And everyone set down to dinner, but only half the people able to eat, but that’s no mind, they’re there. It’s like holding hands at a séance with your friends, but some of the friends gone. ...”

Halloween's Coming: Horror, Monster, and Monstrance

We're going to count down to Halloween with some of my favorite spooky quotes and images. But let's put it in perspective first ... Catholic perspective that is!

By Toby Ord

Most people don't think of horror as a genre of literature or film that is particularly agreeable to Christian sensibilities. However, two of the great practitioners of horror on both page and screen consider their work to be an extension of the gospel. Stephen King, author of many a scary tale, says that he considers himself the spiritual heir of the great Puritan preacher, Jonathan Edwards (who preached the famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"). William Peter Blatty, who penned "The Exorcist" wrote the story precisely in order to show both the depths of demonic evil and to remind the world of the reality of Christ-like self-sacrifice.

By Broederhugo

It is the depth of the darkness of the Enemy that paradoxically highlights the brilliance of the light of Heaven. Indeed, the word "monster" comes from the same root as the word "demonstrate" and "monstrance." A "monster" demonstrates what we can and will be apart from Christ. A monstrance shows forth the saving eucharistic, and self-sacrificial power of him who underwent the worst horror the world has ever known to save us from the terrors of Hell. He has prepared a eucharistic table for us in the presence of Satan himself--and deprived him of his prey.

This Halloween, be not afraid.

Catholic Exchange, Word of Encouragement, Oct. 31, 2005

Autumn Maple Trees

Autumn Maple Trees, a screen painted by Tawaraya Sōri, late 1700s.
Via J.R.'s Art Place.

Click the link to see it larger. I love Japanese Maples.

The Witches' Ride

The Witches' Ride by William Holbrook Beard, 1870.
Via J.R.'s Art Place

Kohada Koheiji

Kohada Koheiji, Hokusai
from the series Hyaku Monogatari [One Hundred Ghost Stories] (ca. 1830)
via J.R.'s Art Place

Based on a real event, the cuckold and murder victim Kohada Koheiji returns from the dead to torment his cheating wife and lover. Here he grins over the top of the mosquito netting that surrounds the bed of his killers.

See more at Public Domain Review.

Fleeing Skeleton

Fleeing Skeleton by Władysław Podkowiński, 1892.

You could think of this as a bit of memento mori (an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death)! Or just as a nice scary piece of art for October!