How do you celebrate Halloween?
In Sweden where I grew up, November 1st, is a day
where you send a thought to loved ones that have passed away and you often
visit their graves, put some plants and light a candle in their memory. I
remember going with my grandmother to my grandfathers grave at the Eastern Cemetary in Malmo each year, and
often also going to my paternal great grandmothers grave straight afterwards,
to say a silent hello and to remember their life with us.
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| Östra kyrkogården Malmö, from here |
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| Östra kyrkogården Malmö, from here |
But more so, what is really more prevalent in my mind is the
memory of feelings and sensations I got when entering this particular cemetery in late
Swedish autumn. Often a rugged, cold and wet afternoon with not much sunlight,
the remnants of once colourful leaves now turning brown on the ground as the
photosynthesis gradually removes the chlorophyll from its veins. Muddled conversations
from dark figures hunching over the graves of their forefathers, warm air
blowing from their mouths as they say their hellos, how are yous and goodbyes.
The flickering light from hundreds of individual candles that have been gently
placed on each grave from somebody that needs to remember. A wet and stubborn
runny nose turning red as the cold bites harder as darkness and evening sets
in. The trees are almost naked now and the evergreen shrubbery and hedges line
the grave divisions strictly ordering the system of the dead.
The sombre atmosphere is something that I treasure in my
heart and in my memory. Tradition makes it happen and the landscape makes you
feel it.
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| from here |
This way of celebrating Halloween predates the Christian
church and is actually linked to Pagan Rituals of guiding the dead. The pagans believed
that when summer was finished the dead returned home and needed people to light
their way with fires, hence the lighting of candles, decorating and visiting of
graves in modern time.
Here in Australia, I don’t quite know how it would feel like
to experience the cemetery, tonight on the eve of the dead. I don’t know any
dead people here. Although, being a landscape architect, I have of course
wandered the aisles of many of the local cemeteries on days off but never on
this night.
It would be such a different experience. First of all, we
are going into summer here in Australia, so it would be warmer, perhaps more
humid or dry, the mist, the wet air that is the fairy dance in the northern
hemisphere is likely to be dust cloud from the gravel path here in the south,
hovering slightly above the ground. Generally, my experience has been that the
vegetation around the Australian cemeteries tend to be quite arid and
bushy/thorny, almost like the dead themselves. They are not designed for grand
displays of planting schemes; neither do they seem to be public spaces used
beyond their primary program. But I haven’t seen them all, so I couldn’t
possibly tell you that all of them are like this.
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| Östra kyrkogården Malmö, from here |
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| Östra kyrkogården Malmö, from here |
Commercially, Halloween to me is a pumpkin, little kids
begging for sweets and money, horror on the television and a good excuse for
grown up dress up parties and frolicking around.
Yes, I admit it. I bought a pumpkin solely on the premise
that I’d get to carve into it and turn it into a scary looking piece of home
decoration for a couple of nights in our house lit up with tea candles.
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| this years pumpkin |
Buying a pumpkin and sitting down to watch Tim Burton’s
Nightmare Before Christmas in candle light is as far as I get to celebrate the
eve of the dead’s return to our earth this year as my two little darlings need
their mum for bedtime.
Spiritually, I am sending thought to loved ones now passed.
May they proceed in peace through the landscapes of memory.
