10.31.2003 ||>
Happy Samhain! Tonight is Halloween, the night when all souls come together as the veils between our worlds grow thinner. Here in Uzbekistan, it is also Ramazan (to us: Ramadan), the month of fasting, when boys go door to door at dusk singing for sweets and money. The Russians, being the last nationality represented, spend their time burning leaves - body sized bunches burn all along the canal. The smoke chokes those who pass by as amorphous shapes float out of the smoke if you only squint a little above the bright orange flames.
Indeed, everything will intermingle tonight, as the smoke and the chanting voices give the night and its inhabitants renewed vigor.
Yesterday at school, the building was already brimming with anticipation as ghosts and zombies and demons roamed the halls. Even scarier were the rioting mobs axiously awaiting a turn at the haunted houses and the jack-o-lantern competitions. It was all very frightening, this microcosm of the world filled with fire, smoke and mirrors.
So tonight, celebrate with your loved ones, dead or alive. Breathe in the season when you get the chance and know that even as the summer dies, from its ashes the next one will come.
