Halloween

10/21/07 – 10/28/07
by C. Zaitz

Halloween is a great night, isn’t it? Modern culture has taken our holiday to new heights of materialism, but if we can get back to its former meaning, it can be a great night for communities. October often has cool, clear nights, great for viewing the sky. On Halloween, kids and parents are out, neighborhoods are active, and the sky darkens early. What better time to look up and notice the evocative sky? It can bring us together and remind us of our connection to the seasons and the sky above.

Halloween is the last of four special days of the year known as the cross-quarter days. These days are the midway points between the better known solstices and equinoxes. As the earth slips around the sun, it changes its tilt with respect to it. At this time of year, the earth is changing its orientation daily. The northern hemisphere leans toward the sun in the summer, but in winter it leans away from it. The leaning causes a big difference in weather. The sun doesn’t heat us as well now that we aren’t getting direct rays. The sun also makes a short path in the sky, which means it’s not in the sky as long. Shorter days and indirect rays cause winter here in the north. That, and that alone, causes our seasons.

We celebrated the first day of fall, the autumn equinox, on September 23rd this year, and winter begins officially on December 22nd, the winter solstice. But for many of us, fall doesn’t really get under way until October. Perhaps that’s why we have retained the celebration of the cross quarter day in this one season. Seasons on earth don’t really kick in until the earth itself is on board. It takes time for heating and cooling to take place, just like in the air conditioning and heating in your car. Our seasons are delayed so much that it seems like the cross-quarter days are really the "first days" of the season. It’s not a great leap to imagine October 31st as the end of the growing – harvest season. What better New Year’s Eve party than Halloween?

I like Halloween for one reason and one reason only: people are outside and looking at the sky. Ok, maybe that and the leftover candy! Halloween at the Zaitz house includes the traditional bowl of candy for trick-or-treaters, but also my trusty 4” Astroscan telescope, showing any and all comers a view of the sky. This year the moon will be past full by Halloween, so not very helpful in lighting our evening activities, but Jupiter will be shining powerfully in the southwest and showing its children- four of its tiny moons, visible through a telescope.

We have lost touch in our modern culture with most of the cross quarter days. The others are Groundhog’s Day in February, May Day, and Lammas day, in August. Halloween is by far the most famous of the cross quarter days, and the most fun. Halloween celebrations have lasted through the centuries. Pre-Christian Celts celebrated Samhain (“sau-wen”) as the end of the year/beginning of a new year. The association with death and dying has been preserved through the centuries in our modern celebration of Halloween. It’s the time of the year we can easily be in touch with the rhythms of the earth.

Until next week, my friends, enjoy the view.