Q: Why is Halloween so important?

A: (Settle in, grab some popcorn).

I've been a performance artist for a long time, but I can't dance unless everything about it is spooky AF and fuelled by strong emotion. I write about traumatic things. Sure, the Shadow series is light and fizzy and funny on the surface, but it's driven by a helluva dystopic world we live in. That's why it's called Shadow.

So sometimes people ask me, why can't you just be normal? Why can't you make happy things? I don't want you to make me feel things that are not happy...

The answer to that is, first, hey, you don't have to read my books or watch me dance. Second, and more importantly, ignoring bad things, or sad things, does not make them go away. It makes them get bigger. Also being happy for the sake of other people's comfort is toxic - if we don't explore our own shadow selves, and through that the collective shadow of our world, these things will overwhelm us.

Stories, art and performance are kind of a safe way to do this, to explore the themes and emotions, transmute them into play, and then set them free. And - to come back to the original question - so is Halloween. Halloween is a descendant of a festival that recognised a moment when the veils thinned between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Ghosts roamed the night, and people paid respects to their ancestors.

It's unsurprising in a culture and point in history (and here I can only speak from my own lens and experience, living in Australia and being of Irish descent - I do not presume to speak for anyone else) where we either deny or live in fear of things that go bump in the night, that such a festival would become about all things supernatural and - by extension - all things we fear.

Which is exactly why Halloween is important. It gives us a moment in the year to go out and explore trauma, and emotion, and fear. It gives us a moment in the year to choose to turn those things into play, tell stories, talk about them, transmute them, set them free.

Also, it's a great time to light a candle for your ancestors and leave a flower for your friendly neighbourhood ghost ;)

Happy #31DaysOfHalloween