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I went to bed with stars shining overhead, and woke with them still gleaming in a pitch black sky. A wisp of pale clouds trailed across the darkness like some huge remnant of ghosts that must have marched through someone’s dreams trailing cobwebby veils and offering to dance. There was the faintest touch of chill in the air, an autumn kiss. It is five days before Halloween.
Everyone thinks that this is a big time of year for me, since I write paranormal thrillers. I recently had a woman ask me what kind of paranormal I wrote, and after much going back and forth, I finally realized all she wanted to know was it vampires, werewolves, or something else. I told her all of the above and more, and she seemed happy. What does someone who writes about monsters do this time of year? Well, this year, I will be at the Annual Anne Rice Vampire Lestat Fan Club Ball on October 28th in New Orleans. Yep, I write about vampires and I’m going to a vampire ball in New Orleans, it seems perfect, doesn’t it? But my husband, Jon, and I are only staying a short time in New Orleans after the ball, because we need to get home to our daughter, Trinity. She still thinks we’re cool enough to hang out with on Halloween, and we’ve vowed not to miss spending the actual day with her until she decides that she has more grownup plans that do not include parents. All our other friends with teenagers tell us that this dreaded moment will happen soon, but right now she wants the holiday to be a family one, and that works for us.
Halloween has always been one of my two favorite holidays, the other being Christmas. I loved the dressing up, the trick or treat, the candy, the walking around on the chilly Indiana nights. One year we actually had snow and I had to wear a coat over my costume, I was so bummed. It doesn’t get that cold that early here in Missouri, and that’s just fine with me. Snow sucked much for trick or treat.
But its not me being a vampire writer, or going to the Anne Rice Vampire Ball, or having a child, or even nostalgia that makes Halloween truly special, it’s the fact that it’s one of the major holidays for my religion. We’re Wiccan, as in pantheistic, nature honoring, God and Goddess worshipping, as a rough overview. It’s like trying to explain being Catholic in a single sentence to someone who doesn’t know anything about it; try it sometime, harder than it sounds. The most important thing that every Wiccan agrees on is this; “So long as you harm none, do as thou wilt.” That harm none part means you, too, by the way, so harm no one, not even yourself. That means that every decision should got through this filter. You can do what you want, as long as you harm no one, not even yourself. Some Wiccans carry that to animals, and go Vegetarian, or Vegan. Not me, and my family, we’re carnivores, but one of the things that most Wiccans value greatly is their independence from having to follow the same rules that everyone else follows, we’re sort of the anti-organized religion, which is why the one bit of “harm none” is about all everyone can agree on. Our household are eclectic Wiccans, which means that even among ourselves we don’t all do the same thing at our altars, or call on the same Deities on a regular basis. Group rituals must be agreed upon, but beyond that it’s very individual. Halloween is All Hallows Eve, Samhain, for us. It is a time when the veil between the worlds is thin, and most Wiccans do a ritual to honor their dead. It is saying good-bye to the recently dead, or making peace with someone that did you wrong long ago. It can just be an honoring of the dead in general. For us, we still do a more typical American celebration of dressing up, trick or treat, and watching a marathon of Ghost Hunters, or favorite scary movie. I think this year we’ll be watching Ghost Hunters and whatever location wins their contest to be a live investigation on Halloween night.
But I’ll see some of you guys in New Orleans on Friday the 28, for the Anne Rice Vampire Ball, hosted by Voltaire, the musician and all around performer and artist, not the dead philosopher. It’s the vampire ball, but it’s not that kind of vampire ball. There will be other wonderful musicians, costumes, and fun to be had. Come on down to New Orleans, dance with some vampires, or at least people who write and sing about them, beyond that, can’t guarantee anything, but it is New Orleans, and it is two days before Halloween, you never know.