Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Because It's Hallowed.

By débora Ewing

Markoff's Haunted Forest will open soon. Come over.
My sweet and bubbly personality is genuine, but so is my dark heart. I think dark may not mean the same thing to you that it does to me.

My birthday is right before Halloween; the world was just beginning to die when I was born. Orion watched over me every night.

I don't think that helps explain why I like bugs and lizards and bats. Especially bats. I can find an eye of calm in death metal. My favorite Christmas carol is God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

Darkness is not creepy to me, but joyful. 

I like to play with the dark things - tales, emotions, creations - because they are beautiful. Dark is the other side of the earth from the sun; it's where you can see the stars and the moon, where creatures of the desert find it safe to come out from hiding. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is ultimately a story of hope, even if the hope is strangled by humanity.

Bones are organic matter allowing us to walk upright and feel superior. When bare and picked clean, they are evidence of a food chain supplied, ants well-fed, thence birds and so on. They are smooth ivory calcium deposits, mineral matrix, ready to be shaped into tools or stories.

Death is a doorway, a cycle completed and moving to its next rotation, evidence that a life was truly lived. Decay is a beautiful process of becoming different. Mystery is a thing waiting to be discovered. Fog is a promise that the unknown will be revealed.

I love all these things; I love them like feathers, kittens, biscuits* and home-made gumbo. All things, even those in the dark, represent whole living. There is no fear or joy but thinking makes it so. Ghosts? The possibility of spirit does not make me afraid.

You know what makes me afraid? Disingenuity. Duplicity. Prejudice. Ignobility, and choosing to reinforce ignorance.  Please keep that away from me, please and thank you.

*no, there is not meant to be an Oxford there. The biscuits go with the gumbo.


Further Watching:

Loreena McKennitt - Mummers' Dance
I'm glad I felt the need to explain myself, and thought of Christmas, and then Mummers, because I haven't listened to this song in a very long time.

 Annie Lennox sings God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
This video of one of my favorite performers singing one of my favorite songs is just gorgeous. It's also a pretty good depiction of what's going on in my brain right now. If I had a zipper in my skull you could see. That would be awesome, actually.



Comments

  1. MariMonday, 17 September, 2018

    AL has a transparent skull thing happening. People keep reading his mind.

    ReplyDelete

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