Today is All Souls Day in Germany. Yesterday was All Saints Day. When I was a kid, both days were public holidays meaning that everything except for churches and cemeteries was shut, TV/radio had only very somber programs and the weather would always be dismal. Two excruciatingly boring and seemingly endless days. Now, only All Saints is a public holiday based on some agreement between the two main churches and the catholics have won. Maybe catholic saints somehow overrule protestant souls. Today, there will be candles lit on graves, basically fat tealights in red holders, and it will look a little spooky after dark walking there. I often walk through the local cemeteries and must take some pictures one day, German cemeteries are basically parks, lots of tall trees etc. and nobody adheres to the no dogs, no cycling rules.
Hallowe'en isn't really a thing here (yet). The pubs and clubs have special drinks or theme nights, but the whole decorating and dressing up, no. I saw one group of teenagers walking down the road but they were not interested in trick or treating, they were heading for a place to hang out and take legal/illegal drugs.
When I was living in Ireland in the early 1980s, Hallowe'en was still Samhain, lots of mythology and bonfires and stuff I did not understand. Especially Barm Brack, or bairín breac, a round soft yeasty fruit bread with a ring hidden inside. And yes, the ring miraculously landed on my plate one day and all of R's family started to whoop and clap. The first crazy Hallowe'en parties with dressing up were becoming fashionable and one year, we both dressed up as Rubik cubes, very uncomfortable as I remember.
Here the big day, again thanks to the catholics, is the feast of St. Martin, a Roman soldier born around the year 316 AD. According to legend, on the 12th of November, he rode past a starving and freezing beggar. He felt so sorry for the man that he split his warm coat with his sword and gave the beggar one half. During the night, the beggar appeared to Martin in a dream and revealed himself to be Jesus Christ apparently. This is celebrated by the primary schools and kindergartens with lantern parades, hundreds of kids walking behind a person dressed like a Roman soldier sitting on a real horse. The kids carry their home made lanterns and sing special songs. This culminates in a bonfire on a local field and after that, the kids walk from door to door, hold up their lanterns and sing songs and in return get sweets. The best part for most kids is the big fire truck that comes last at the end of the parade in case one or more of the lanterns go up in flames. Also, the horse. The Roman soldier gets mistaken for Santa by some but never mind.
It can be a parent's nightmare, especially the lantern part. These are made in school and I learned the hard way that the required wooden lantern holders sell out rapidly and that teachers have no mercy. My penance is that I now always have a large bucket of sweets waiting for very few kids who make it to our door and we then have to eat the sweets ourselves.
All Souls day is meant to be the day you get your act together regarding death, according to some members of my family, the how and where you want to be buried, what kind of funeral incl. your list of music and readings. I've written my list, a very short one, as I assume that I will not be around on the day, asking for no grave, no funeral (whatever is the cheapest option, I wrote) but if there's time and place, a party. If the religious members of my family should insist on a church funeral (my brother is married to a very lively and persuasive Lutheran pastor), go ahead, I wrote, but only if all of you sing John Lennon's Imagine.
My mother opted out of it, donated her body to science. We have no idea what happened to it, there is no grave. My father is buried with his parents, for many years he had the letters ready for the shared gravestone incl. numbers and when he lived beyond 1999, got a bit mad at the fact that his set needed more 2s and what to do with all the 9s.
go ahead, I wrote, but only if all of you sing John Lennon's Imagine.
ReplyDeleteThat is brilliant, Sabine! My list is much like yours.
On November 2 in years to come I will laugh like a happy child when I think of your words. I can add them to something you wrote that made me laugh on Hallowe'en 2014:
But seriously, had Jesus not slain the giant pumpkin, none of us would be here today. Right?
Laughter is the beginning of prayer.
(Meister Eckhart)
Now I'm remembering John Lennon's words:
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.
And John Prine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suoJ6mLVBlU
I'm not religious but I do experience Jesus as something like a Zen teacher who lived fully and suffered and died. I do wonder about the missing years. Some say Jesus traveled to India, Nepal and Tibet.
Hmmmm ... How did I get from John Lennon to Jesus? Two teachers!
I truly love the way Mexicans celebrate Day of the Dead, decorating the graves of their loved ones and creating altars with the departed's favorite things. It seems so very loving and personal to remember the dead this way.
ReplyDeleteLove your list, with Imagine being sung by all. Excellent choice. That's strange to hear, that the Catholics have overruled the Lutherans in Germany. Not the way I think about it at all! But I must change with the times. Giving out sweets should be something we could just do upon meeting friends...hi, how're you doing, here's a dark chocolate for you today! It's so lame to ask how you're doing and not really expect honest replies! Dark chocolate? Oh allergic, how about bit-o-honey?
ReplyDeleteHalloween has always been big here especially when I was a kid. gangs of us would go out and come home with tons of candy. then that crazy parent who tried to kill his kid put the kibosh of that for a long time. as an adult I've never lived in a neighborhood where we got more than a handful and some years none at all. and none out here where we live now. Nov 1 is Day of The Dead, a Mexican celebration that has gained traction here in the US. it's about remembering and honoring all your lost loved ones. people set up altars with pictures and flowers and favorite foods and trinkets.
ReplyDeleteboth my parents were cremated. no funeral, no wake, no memorial gathering. father's ashes dumped in Galveston bay, mother's in the surf. my sister donated her husband's body to the Neptune Society. after they took whatever was useful they cremated the remains and sent the ashes back to her and were also dumped in the surf in Galveston. Me? just put my body in that cardboard box and cremate it. maybe put my ashes in one of those tree growing things and plant me.
Never knew about St Martin. Agree with you on parent's nightmare on the lantern part
ReplyDeleteInteresting reading about the holidays and how they are marked. All Saints and All Souls days are pretty much non-events in the USA and UK, I think. (At least if you're not a churchgoer.) I think "Imagine" is the perfect song for those circumstances!
ReplyDeleteIn an earlier version of our last wills and testaments, both VR and I insisted that we should be posthumously dealt with in the cheapest way possible. At the time we were living in the USA and our request provoked horror among our acquaintances. Further research revealed that what we requested would have broken several laws; commercial and religious interests in Pennsylvania having conspired to ensure that the very minimum would have led to the expenditure of several thousand dollars. Whether this con played a part in our decision to return to Old Blighty I can't be sure, but on reflection I now see our severing of the cord as a distinct advantage.
ReplyDeleteI lost interest in the subject when - having made some mild funerary suggestion - I was told by VR that I wouldn't be in a strong position to ensure this happened, were I to die first. The hint being that democracy would prevail. Thereafter the only thing that mattered was the music. Obviously it had to Mozart's greatest vocal trio, Soave sia il vento from Cosi, an idea that quickly foundered on the matter of cost. A later choice, Brahms' utterly seductive Alto Rhapsody proved to be even more profligate: a full orchestra and Europe's greatest alto, for a piece that lasts a mere 14 minutes. A CD I considered infra dig.
Of the fifty or sixty chunks of verse I've written, three at most might stand a public reading. Subsequently I dropped this one too because the principle seemed undesirably assertive, as if I felt the need to address the world from beyond the grave. At present I'm hovering over a discounted rate - to be arranged via Amazon - on the two published novels and the short story collection. No doubt this sounds crass but I was, after all, born in what used to be called the West Riding where crassness over money starts to bloom at the foetus stage.