Every year, at the confluence of Halloween and Diwali, I chuckle.
I set out my witch and my diyas, my purple spotlight and misting cauldron beside my solar moroccan lights that cast rangoli -patterned light on my porch and rose bushes.
Ironic fun!
But my chuckling has little to do with their October coincidence and decorations; rather it spurs from the juxtaposition of their celebratory origins.
While Halloween might seem like a celebration of evil with costumes and decor of gore, the practice originated as Samhain, with the ancient Celts, to ward off spirits on the night that the dead seemed to want to return to their homes. Sacred bonfires were lit and sacrifices made to protect the crops and humans from the long winter ahead.
So in that sense, even with all the hideous fun, it’s no different from Diwali where the victory of Lord Rama ( the virtuous king of Kosala) over the evil, ten-headed rakshasa (demon) Ravana of Lanka, is celebrated by burning a giant paper sculpture of the latter. Thus, banishing darkness and bringing light and prosperity to the people, which is symbolized in Indian homes by lighting diyas and fireworks and wearing new clothes to signify new beginnings.
I like the conceptualization of a ten-headed rakshasa. We seem to berate people for not being themselves or their “authentic selves” all the time, of changing their personalities to suit the occassion; but isn’t that what everyone does to some extent?
Are you the same with your bestie as you are with your boss or your spouse or new acquaintainces? With your level of honesty and deep intentions on every occasion? If you count all the ways in which I’m not the same with everyone I know or meet or even in different situations with the same people, I probably have more than ten heads.
In the same vein, it’s fun to see everyone dress up as different characters every year for Halloween! It seems to give people permission to embrace the darker aspects of their personality– the side that we so carefully hide all year, maybe even all life long, presenting only the accepted ways of conducting ourselves in this weirdly wonderful world.
I recently watched a Diwali video that glorified the importance of forgiving and forgetting old transgressions, and letting go of envy, resentment, competition, greed, and embracing everyone with a renewed heart. Noble, isn’t it?
However, I prefer the unmasking of the darker aspects of being human. I want to embrace my hurts, my insecurity, my longings, and even my resentments. I like the idea of not rejecting parts of me that I have refused to look at (tenderly) for fear that I’ll no longer be the “good” person that I’m supposed to be. And I’m beginning to see that it has kept me from being the person that I am at my core. This acceptance is doing for me what no amount of positivity-preaching gurus or videos or morals from ancient folk tales seem to do–allow me to be whole.
Maybe it means dulling my luminiscence in the world, but I’d rather light a candle in the dark recesses of my mind and see myself as I am. It is all me- the light and the dark. The light because of the dark.
Maybe what the banish-the-darkness crusaders of Diwali are really trying to say is, “Banish the darkness that tells you to “banish the darkness” ?”
So, Happy Halloween and Happy Diwali, my friends. May your masks symbolize the darker side of your beings. And may their unmasking light up your world.
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love
~Rainer Maria Rilke
