Halloween

The combination of smoke from chimneys and the farthest reaches of light pollution from the city gave the sky an austere tone as if it were toxic to breathe. The color was a smokey orange that seemed to produce its own light, more alien than human. In fact, it held an almost spot-on Halloween ambiance. Eldritch and mournful at the same time, it couldn’t have been better to see on All Hallow’s Eve.

Regrettably, this sky became a day late. This eerie sky was the backdrop for my first All Saints’ Day. 

Through the woods surrounding one of Citadel Park’s  military cemeteries (the perfect place, we had been advised, if you don’t have anyone to mourn), we could see the lights glowing with unyielding persistence. There was nothing cavorted or twinkling in them. Each flame sat behind colored glass and offered neither sentiment nor signs of neglect. What it did insinuate was something that neither picture nor words could adequately convey. 

The park itself was thrust into the history books in 1945 as the site of the last Nazi stronghold in the Battle of Poznan (an event which devastated the city and left much of it in piles of rubble). Today, it houses several museums and several military cemeteries. The graves are thus uniform for the most part and offer little explanation beyond birthdate, death date, and nationality. Each grave was fashioned with a small jar (some were red, some green, most clear) with a candle inside. The end result while stumbling through the hillside was a sea of light. The solid ground drifted away and what was left seemed almost cosmic, less tangible than soil, but offering boundaries only in the form of where light from the thousands of candles could reach.

I reflected on this holiday sporadically over the week. Naturally, I associated the end of October with Halloween. It is, without doubt, my favorite holiday because if offers a campy environment in which mirth and sorrow exist simultaneously. The philosophy or sanctity of the day has long since drained for most Americans. As one of my Polish students phrased it, “There’s no philosophy behind it. People just get in costumes and drink.” I can see what she meant. We hollow out pumpkins in the United States and illuminate them from the inside to keep away what we want to stay only in a memory. Jack O Lanterns are designed to send a message to the dead to stay put, to frighten things away. In contrast, the candles on All Saints' Day are designed to help the dead, to navigate a path in a vacuum of darkness.

In this cemetery, there was a certain peace, a silence appropriate to the circumstances. People meandered through the maze of illumination, pausing occasionally for their own reasons. Yet to someone looking in from the outside, there were just candles sitting on the graves visited largely by those who, as we were informed, had no one else to keep the path lit for them. 

Other photos from the week: