It is 4:55 AM – I get an extra hour of “my time” this morning thanks to the daylight savings change on Saturday. This is no guarantee that my youngest will actually sleep an extra hour as I don’t believe he yet honors daylight savings.
I always like to get a journal entry in at the start of the holiday season. I wasn’t motivated enough this past week and was feeling pretty sluggish due to lack of exercise. I found an opportunity yesterday and went for a short run which made me feel great. Unfortunately Halloween happened while I had a lack of exercise endorphins so I wasn’t as in to it as I should have been. But that has now been corrected.
This Halloween we had an earth destroying asteroid named “Spooky” fly pretty close by the earth. Scientists only caught it 20 days before and if we properly reflect on this event it should have made us all turn white. We are just one rock hit away from being almost completely wiped out from a catastrophic impact. We inhabit a flying orb that would take only one direct impact to change life as we know it in a neighborhood full of enormous asteroids. We are lulled into a false sense of security as these events seem rare due to an amount of time – one of hundreds of lifetimes – to actually occur. When it does – unless we find a reliable way to deflect asteroids – it will not be a good day.
Humanity however just read it as another news story and the majority most likely paid no attention. I did pay attention but at the assurance of scientists was not worried and we went about our Halloween festivities. On October 31st, we went down to Fitzgerald Marine Reserve but it was high tide so we couldn’t see any of the pools. This was OK because what I refer to as the “Enchanted Forest” gave us a spectacular Halloween appropriate display. The sun was in the perfect position for the light to be dimmed and scattered through the dead and seemingly petrified trees which made it seem enchanted indeed! We got more than a few pictures which made the trip more than worthwhile.
As I’m writing this post on November 2nd, I thought I should include a picture of Pumpkin Jack in the Pumpkin graveyard where the passage of time will ensure he slowly rots away. I like this tradition because it does remind us how quickly time goes and nothing stops its relentless forward motion. We’ll all return to our daily routines and soon Jack will have disappeared completely. This is a fitting reminder for Samhain (aka Halloween) – a day in Gaelic lore when the veil between the world of the living and that of the dead is more easily crossed – as we too will age and disappear from the earth as well.
My recent visits to my ancestors graves also serves as a stark reminder that our lives are brief and we should appreciate the gift of life and try to live it as fully and happily as possible. It is all too often we become focused on the trivial, on work and the accumulation of money, on things that really do not matter in the end. When one reflects back on their life who can really say they would have liked to spend more time at the office? Life is best spent with family and friends, in appreciating sunrises and sunsets, enjoying good bottles of wine and taking joy in watching our kids grow and learn. None of these will last, and to me, are activities which promote a life well spent.
This really is a special time of year as the end of one holiday just signals the beginning of another. Halloween is now over for the year 2015 never to return again but we still have Thanksgiving and then the king of all holidays, Christmas. So, I’ll be sure to get my exercise to ensure I enjoy the next two holidays to the fullest.
