Exorcising our demons by celebrations

Social Studies - Published Monday October 27th, 2008

I remember when I went to High Kennebecasis High School in Quispamsis, while living in Hampton that Halloween was the absolute best time of the year. First off, you got to dress up.

There was freedom to be someone else for a moment. Secondly, you got candy!

I also remember that cars were lit on fire, houses vandalized, and a lot of small town angst was worked out by us unruly teenagers.

I do not know how it changed, but Halloween traces its origins to a completely different beginning than candy corn and vandalism.

Some 2,000 years ago the Celts celebrated the New Year on Nov. 1, the day which marked the end of the warm, growing, harvesting season; and the beginning of the cold, dark, dying season.

They also believed that on the night before the changing of the seasons the veil between the two worlds, physical and spiritual, was weakened. This made it easier to see the future and to determine where fate was leading you. So they built bonfires, wore animal skins, danced, prayed, sang and celebrated.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honour Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated Nov. 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honour saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.

Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make Nov. 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honour the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the Eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

I am fascinated by history, which I believe we ignore at our own peril. But history also allows us to see that even when we have forgotten the origins, all of the things that we do come from somewhere.

Although the roots of the festival of Halloween began in an agricultural way, there was always that aspect of the unknown, of the scary, of believing that this was one of those times when ghosts might just walk the earth.

I believe that we need moments like that to take seriously the darker and more mysterious parts of our psyche.

Humans have certain innate qualities and we have a certain balance to us. If we are going to end up being happy, then we have to make room for sadness, and if we are going to feel safe, there has to be something to compare it to; so we need to feel afraid.

Fear seems to be one of those things we are born with, babies develop a sense of fear around seven months whether they have anything to be afraid of or not. According to Leon Rappoport, professor of psychology at Kansas State University, we need to be afraid for the same reason we all want to go to amusement parks to ride roller coasters.

"It goes all the way back to sitting around the campfire telling ghost stories and folk tales," Rappoport said. "It's a very prevalent, deep-seated, human characteristic to explore the boundaries where they can tolerate fear and anxiety, and then master that fear and anxiety by working through it."

Rappoport says that Freudians and analytical thinkers believe that the more we develop and progress as a civilization, the more repressed problems we have. "The more civilized we get the more we repress our sort of uncivilized nature," Rappoport said. "And one way to release that is through festival occasions, vicariously enjoying horror movies and all sorts of related things."

So, I would like to argue that it is necessary to indulge in a little fantasizing about the dark side every now and again. It helps us to recognize ourselves for what we really are and to not push everything below the surface.

So go put on a mask, go watch a creepy 1950s movie about a haunted house, go and believe, at least for one night, that there is more to this fear of the dark than we are letting on. Sometimes we need an excuse to explore those darker instincts. It is not an excuse to do things you would never normally do, nor am I talking about hurting anyone, or vandalizing anything, which does not accomplish the real goal of Halloween.

Halloween is a very real way to let out some of the demons that this stressful world forces us to keep locked inside. So have fun, stay safe, and get scared.

'Don't worry; be happy' and other inalienable truths

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday October 20th, 2008

The election is over. Now what can we worry about?

Well, there is still no political direction, food is unsafe to eat, milk apparently can contain poison, the icecap is melting, and oil is running out, capitalism is failing, kids are increasingly violent and sexualized, poverty is rampant and death seems to be winning.

Cheery is it not?

I heard an interesting phrase this week, "the tyranny of the small" which I have decided is a great corrective for some of the negativity I get towards the state of the world. In this context I am choosing to interpret the phrase to mean that sometimes problems that really should only take up a small space in the corner of our mind blow up and become consuming.

Don't get me wrong, I realize that any one of the problems I listed above is likely to destroy us all. I also realize we need to take them seriously and make concrete changes in the way we live, work, and relate.

If, however, we allow ourselves to become consumed with the dark side of life, we fail to appreciate all of the good that surrounds us.

Anyone remember Baz Luhrmann? Probably not, he is most famous for a spoken word song from the eighties called "Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen)" which was hugely popular. The song is supposedly the text of a high school commencement speech, spoken aloud, while catchy techno-pop music plays lightly in the background for effect.

It was popular in part because it actually contained some of the most profound wisdom most of us had ever heard. One stanza in particular speaks to me in light of our nation's recent political gambit.

"Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old; and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders."

Well, that is the thing isn't it? How do we keep our negative cynicism from taking over our lives? How do we get from the point where we think it was so much better in the past and that today is so terrible to the point where we begin to see life right here, right now, as being okay?

In case you have not guessed this already, I am one of those rare people who find the autumn gloomy and dark. I know everyone else seems to love the cool nights and coloured trees. Give me 12 hours of sunshine and 25 degrees any day. So what I am saying is coloured by a tinge of oncoming seasonal affective disorder, but really . . .

The truth about the tyranny of the small is that we as a species cannot seem to function without something to worry about. Perhaps that is why we talk about the weather so much.
I am writing this column as a form of therapy to advocate a forgotten way of seeing the world; the good old, "glass half full" philosophy of life.

Yes, the days are getting colder and shorter; but that could mean more time for romance in front of a fireplace. Yes, the ice caps are melting and the water rising; but just think of the great surfing. Sure, the stock markets are crashing but pretty soon I will own IBM.
I'm kidding --- sort of.

Later in the song we find this verse, "Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday."

How true is that? A few weeks ago I had a "spell" that I thought was a heart attack. Heart attack had not even been on the radar of things I was worrying about until that moment. It could have been the last thing I ever worried about. Of all the things I had been worrying about that day, and wasting energy on, none of them have ever materialized.

Another song that became hugely popular in the 80s by an artist that never really released anything else into the mainstream was "Don't Worry" by Bobby McFerrin. It was catchy, but perhaps a little more pie in the sky than the sunscreen song.

He wrote, "Ain't got no place to lay your head. Somebody came and took your bed. Don't worry, be happy. The landlord says your rent is late. He may have to litigate. Don't worry, be happy."
I don't know that I am capable of letting go of all my worry. Perhaps some people are. Again, I hear this as a reminder not to let the worry overtake you. Do not give in to the tyranny of worry.

If, somehow, you can manage that, then you will be able to make a lot of decisions and do a lot of things in a freer way.

It is not likely the world is going to be a better place next year. If we are stuck in just being frightened and worried about it, though, nothing will ever change. We need a worldwide positivism movement. I'll try to start.

Another Feature Article to Read

http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/lifetimes/article/451188

Look around, discover our good fortune

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday October 13th, 2008

I still think the American Thanksgiving myth has a lot of power as a story. Imagine being part of a failed expedition, starving on the banks of an endless ocean which separates you from home.

That first winter north of Boston, way back in 1629 was a tough one. If it had not been for the Massachuset Tribe of natives everyone would have died.

If you want an equivalent Canadian story, in 1576 Martin Frobisher failed to find a Northwest Passage through the ice above our fair country; but took the time to stop in Newfoundland and have a large celebration of Thanksgiving for safe passage -- we could think of this as our Canadian Pilgrim story.

Or there is the story of how during the difficult winter of 1606/1607, in a tiny wooden palisade at Porte Royale, on the Annapolis Basin in Nova Scotia, Samuel de Champlain created what was arguably a very good approximation of the idea behind Thanksgiving. He called it L'Ordre de Bon Temps -- The Order of Good Cheer -- and it only lasted that one winter.

The story goes that the first year they spent on St. Croix Island saw the death of two thirds of the crew from scurvy. No one knew what scurvy was, or that they needed vitamins, but it was Champlain's genius to suggest that good food and friendly camaraderie would go a long way towards curing the medical problems of his small and struggling colony. So he instituted the Order of Good Cheer. Under the rules of the Order, special meals became the personal responsibility of individual colonists, who then went on to try and upstage each other.

All of a sudden you had great meals decked out with the finest fish and fowl, and game. Entertaining tended to raise everyone's spirits. Good food brought better health.

These stories resonate with us because they remind us of how tentative life can be, and how easy it is to celebrate the good things that get us through.

I spent the week before Thanksgiving driving across half of our country. To make a long story short my youngest brother is going to Korea to teach and I have inherited his car. Since he lives in Indiana I flew out to Hamilton and drove the car back; a remarkably cheap way to move a vehicle.

It was also a whirlwind tour of the Eastern half of Canada. I discovered that New Brunswick has the best fall leaves and the best Tim Horton's coffee. I had time to think about all that I am thankful for and just how much I take for granted about Canada; which includes, by the way, my ability to choose a new leader.

I noticed a few other things in my travels.

First off, Toronto is huge. The scale of it makes you think you are in a science fiction movie where industrialization has taken over the planet. I drove along the Don Valley Parkway in the dusky twilight and there were times when all I could see in any direction were the glassy steel reflection of skyscrapers blocking any possible view of the countryside.

I also realized that despite architectural differences, life was pretty much the same. I passed the same malls, people cut me off with the same regularity, and the election signs even looked the same. I saw school buses and delivery trucks, transports and minivans; and everyone looked like they were happy or worried or indifferent for the exact same reasons that I encounter in Moncton.

The same was true in Montreal. Only replace the skyscrapers with urban sprawl and cars. There are more cars on the road in Montreal city than there are people on the planet. I don't know how that can be true but I am sure it is. It took a good two hours to drive 20 kilometres. Again, however, if I looked in any one of those vehicles, or over to the side at a playground, or apartment complex, the people were just the same as you and me.

The best election ad I came across was a billboard in Montreal. Half of the sign was factories spewing smoke with a gray sky and the word "Stephen" the other half was a forest, with the sun shining through the trees on dappled flowers and the word "Stéphane" emblazoned across it.
If you were commuting down the highway, choking on fumes, a nice nature scene might speak to you about the possibility that Stéphane offers hope for something different.

Of course, I still maintain that the Conservative and Liberal parties are two sides of the same coin and that if we actually wanted change, which apparently very few people really do, we would vote NDP or Green.

Interesting coincidence though, everything falling on the same week means that no matter where you go in Canada you find we are all the same, and we are all closing cottages, getting ready for winter, preparing a fall feast, and about to elect new leadership.

It is worth taking a good hard look around you today before you go out to vote tomorrow.
Too many of us stop paying attention to how good we have it here in Canada.

We forget to be thankful and also forget to participate in the basic decision making tools that are our constitutional right.

Although this may be an election that is being fought over nonexistent issues as opposed to the ones that really matter to us; it is worth taking this day to pause and reflect on what really is important to you, and how is that reflected by those people who claim to speak on your behalf.

First Feature Article in Times and Transcript

you have to go to their site to see the pictures that go with it: An article on Kitchen Safety in all it's glory...

http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/lifetimes/article/441097

Coping with change like never before

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday October 6th, 2008

When you read this I will already be 40.

Intellectually I know that every year is a different one, and that aging just happens to every single thing on the planet. Somehow decades hit me harder though.

I remember being completely stunned when I turned 30. My life pretty much ended. Not literally, but figuratively. I left behind the career I believed I was training for, I left behind the way of life I was living, and in the process discovered that the next decade was going to be better and better in every way.

I am sure this will be true for the coming decade as well, that it will be the best 10 years of my life so far; but as I get older and more set in my ways I am finding it increasingly difficult to navigate the change in the world.

I have heard it said that this past decade has been the fastest changing in the recorded history of humanity. Think about it; from the Second World War until the 1960s there was a relative period of stability in terms of invention and social structure. Two parent, multiple kid homes, with a male breadwinner and a female homemaker. Everyone had a radio, then a television, a phone, a car and most likely a travel trailer.

Sure, things happened. The Cold War comes quickly to mind. But the things that happened did not change the lay of the land all that much.

Then the hippies got involved. Vietnam and the Love Children changed everything and we have been on a roller coaster ever since.

I am commonly slotted as a Generation X individual; in other words, I am different from my Baby Boomer parents. Since the 60s however, you can't even count on your two children seeing the world the same way. We have three generations in the last 25 years, Y, Net and Millennium being the terms some people use.

What it means is that anyone born a few years from now will see the world completely differently, because the world is changing that fast.

I had to learn the battle of Hastings took place in 1066 in England. I had to memorize that incredibly useful bit of information for some reason, along with countless other facts. My youngest brother belongs to a different generation, he just looks up facts on a computer. He is trained to see patterns, not facts.

So much has changed though, hasn't it?

My personal favourite is digital television; "high def" at that. I remember watching the Wonderful World of Disney in black and white. Now I can put in my DVD and watch computer generated monsters eat digitally enhanced heroes for breakfast.

The smoke detector was invented in 1969, digital music in 1970. Acronyms that did not pre-exist me include the MRI, GPS and even digital DNA fingerprinting.

Think about what we have done in terms of health, creating laser and microsurgery, pacemakers that control so many different heart functions, artificial everything and even Prozac and Viagra.

We have learned all about wind and sun and wave power even if we are just scratching the surface.

We have put a man on the moon, built a house in space, and searched for life on Mars.

I want you to consider it took humanity about 2,000 years from planting a seed to creating a plough, and that the leap from copper to bronze took generations. In the last decade in terms of communications alone we have gone from standard telephones, to portable, to wireless, the Internet, to text messaging, to VoIP.

I remember the first time I went to Walt Disney World as a kid and when you got off the Space Mountain ride you rode a moving sidewalk past displays about the "future". What was on display was essentially the video disk. Some day in the future they would create a shining metal disk that would hold data and could be used to watch movies.

It was all true within a decade.

The last time I was down there they were talking about beaming objects from place to place just like a Star Trek transporter. Does that mean that this technology is less than a decade away? Perhaps it does.

All this reminiscing has a point though, and the point is psychological.

To say that 40 is in fact any different than 39 is strange. The decade is just an artificial marker. Not only that, but each stage of my life has brought both pain and joy in equal amounts. There are some things I have to let go of as I age; for example, I am not going to be an Olympic athlete, or in fact a professional athlete of any kind. My reflexes are shot. On the other hand, I took up running just last year and I hope to run a marathon while I am 40.

How we see ourselves and our surroundings makes a difference.

Psychologists believe that our attitude changes our action. We've all seen immature 30 year olds and vibrant 80 year olds so I think we can relate to this concept. I want to be the type of 40 year old that is wholeheartedly engaged in the process of living life as a 40 year old. Adapting to each year of life is actually quite an adventure.

Change is not only constant and inevitable, but it's now coming at us faster than at any point in human history. Who knows what the world will look like in 2018 when, God willing, I celebrate my 50th birthday. One thing is for sure, the changes we'll see in the next decade will dwarf those we've seen in the previous decades, and probably in ways we can't even begin to imagine.