Horror Newsletter November 1, 2006

Men fear death as children fear to go into the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
~Sir Francis Bacon


No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
~Edmund Burke


When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
~Nietzsche



From the Editor:

Dia de los Muertos
Day of the Dead

The Day of the Dead is celebrated, yes celebrated, in Mexico on November 1 and 2 in honor of reunions of dead relatives with their living families.

The origins of the holiday trace back to ancient indigenous peoples of the country; Purepacha, Nahua, Totuna and Otomi. Their belief was that sould of the dead returned each year to vivit their living relatives.

November 1 is All Saints Day also called Dia de los Angelitos or Day of the Little Angels. This day is to celebrate children who have passed. Toys and brightly colored balloons adorn the children's graves.

On the 2nd, All Souls Day, the adults are honored. Graves are once again decorated, this time in the departed's favorite food and drink, ornamentals and personal belongings.

Flower play a large part of the festivities, most noticibly the zempasuchil, Indian for a special type of marigold. Candles are aslo plentiful as they are placed to guide the spirits home.

Home altars are decorated to match the graveside decor in order to entice the dead and invite them to take part.

Once home and graveside are festooned, the families have a picnic at the gravesite. They bring more of the deceased's favorite food items and spend time talking about and telling the stories of their loved ones. The mindset is that the spirits are all around them. Some will stay there throughout the night, returning home the next day.

Of course, symbols abound to add to the festivities. Items such as pan de muerto a rich coffe cake decorated with merangue bones, skull shaped sweets, marzipan death figures and paper mache skeletons and skulls. A "dead bread" is popular. It is lucky to be the one who bites into a small plstic skeleton enclosed in the loaf. Bakeries will cease production of their regular fare in order to fill orders for this bread.

My humble opinion is that these people have it right. Celebrate death as the next stage of the journey. Honor those who've passed but do so in a festive manner.

Til next month
Nikola













Feedback

From kelly1202: Great newsletter, Nikola!
When I was little, I too had monsters that lived under my bed. To this day, I still remember the horror of going to bed at night and knowing they were going to come out from under the bed and get me.



From W.D.Wilcox © ¿ Φ : I agree Nikola, the unseen monster is the scariest, but even worse is the unrecognized monster: the one who appears absolutely normal on the outside, but inside is a raving lunatic, a ticking bomb waiting to explode. To me, people are the scariest thing in the world.