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It is interesting in this day and age how blind we are as Americans. We are blind to our heritage as a species, blind to reality, and blind to falsehood. Take skeletons for instance.
At Halloween, we think nothing of seeing these everywhere. In fact, we don’t see them, even though they may be on lights at the diner we are eating at, in our schools, at the town hall and in displays in yards throughout your neighborhood. They are there to “scare” us or to “have fun” in “make believe.” So – we ignore them. Because they “aren’t real” or “don’t mean anything.”
But any other time of year skeletons displayed or seen create an outrage/fear within us as being “demonic” or satanic in anything but a medical setting. Why – because we are scared about what we don’t know. We push it to the extremes to either the closet of taboos or the “silly” notions of fantasy. Skeletons are a stark symbol of the fact of life that most of America refuses to admit to – that we will all die one day. That death is a part of the circle of life – which flies in the face of what society tries to hide from us today in telling us how to live our lives – that we are immortal in the flesh we are living in right now! What a farce!
No wonder so many people live in fear of skeletons
It is one of the things I really appreciate about being pagan – our understanding and appreciation of what life and death is. Skeletons remind us of the spirit that lived amidst that shell and that has moved on to another level of existence. It is a concrete connection from that skeleton to that spirit. And all of us, people, animals and plants, are descendants and recipients of the work, lives, and energy that those who have gone before us have given us. We honor them and seek to invest that gift to honor the divine and our ancestors by blessing our descendants (whether they be by blood or spirit, it matters not).
Skeletons do not scare me – they inspire me to honor the spirits, remember my ancestors, and give thanks to the divine for the spark that joins us all.
We are a circle, within a circle.
Blessed Be,
Alan
