Month of the Dead

Ahhh, October. The temperatures are cooler. The days are shorter. I can finally move the Halloween decorations out of my bedroom and into the rest of the apartment. And my roommates can't say one damn thing about it.

I love this month.

Ever wonder where Halloween came from? Well, according to the History Channel, our modern day Halloween descended from the Celtic celebration of Samhain, which fell on October 31st, the last day of the Celtic new year:

"This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.

In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes."

So the transition of October 31st from November 1st is so spiritually significant the worlds of the LIVING and the DEAD are permeable! Fitting, then, that at this moment, I came into the world! Mwahaha ahaha! aAH! ahAHAH!

(I was born at 5 a.m. on November 1st)

In honor of this (un)holy moment, Go Be Delighted will feature fun facts about specters and corpses and other terrifying horribleness through the remainder of October. Scurrred yet?