shimmer

Wiccans halt Halloween for school kids
By ERIC WILKINSON / KING 5 News

PUYALLUP, Wash. - Six-year-old Molly Macon was looking forward to wearing her cheerleader costume and celebrating Halloween with her schoolmates, until her mom got this letter saying there would be "no observance" of Halloween at Puyallup schools.

"I just think it's wrong and that it's not fair to the children," said said her mother.

The school district says it got calls from witches - yes, actual witches - complaining about the continuation of ugly stereotypes.

"That witches are portrayed with pointy noses and flying on broomsticks," said Karen Hansen, Puyallup School District.

The district says it is just trying to be sensitive to individual religious beliefs, whether you're a practicing catholic or practicing witchcraft.

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OK, I get the point. We are not green-faced, warty old hags. Well, not most of us, anyway. But really, don't you just think this goes too far?

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. I have happy, even delightful, memories of my childhood Halloweens. For years, I dressed as a clown... my normally non-domestic mother spent hours sewing extraordinary clown costumes for my sisters and I when we were very young. We wore them for years, because one of the great things about clown costumes is they still work when they're too small. Legs too short? Stripey socks will do the trick! Clowns are supposed to look silly! Then came the makeup. Not one to skimp on life's really important things, Mom bought real greasepaint, and did amazing clown makeup on each of us three girls. After trick-or-treating was over, out came the Noxema to scrub away the makeup, leaving each of us with a glowing, clean, red, sore face. Of course, the three of us were pretty much over the clown thing long before my mother was. But eventually, none of us could fit into any of the costumes, and got to move on to other Halloween fantasies.

As a teenager and young woman, I really liked sexy costumes for Halloween. A black cat. A black widow spider. A prostitute (when I was 15... I can't believe my mother allowed it!). A can-can dancer. A gypsy. As I got older, I became more willing to try on scarier costumes: A ghoul. A vampire. A bloody dead girl.

School was, for my friends and me, a fabulous opportunity to show off our costumes, to play Halloween make-believe, and to get candy at school. Costumes were not just for trick-or-treat, but to wear all day long. So much fun!

So why would people want to take this away from kids? Because they are offended at the "stereotypes" of witches. I was like that for a little while myself, so I do understand where those folks are coming from.

When my kids got old enough to begin to understand that I was a Witch, I made sure they understood the difference between "real Witches" and "fairy-tale witches." Whenever we saw depictions or heard stories of witches, I would ask them what kind of witch it was (usually the fairy-tale type). Then we would talk about the real Witches we knew: me, some of our family friends, one of my sisters.... What I found is that the line between fairy-tale witches and real Witches was clear and distinct, if you know what real Witches are.

Besides, in my middle-age, I find myself re-embracing the crone, the old, scary hag with a wart on her crooked nose. She knows things, secret things, dark things, and yes, scary things. This is the time of the Dead, the time of seeing that which we cannot usually see. Maybe that includes the frightening wisdom of the fairy-tale witch, of scary old Baba Yaga, who challenges and tests us.

Changing the stereotypes of witches goes far beyond Halloween decorations. The problem is not that people think we have warts on our noses. The problem that people have with Witches is that we represent a fundamentally different relationship to the world. One built on, ideally, respect for the Earth and for our proper place in it, while mainstream culture still relates to the planet as if She belongs to us, instead of us belonging to Her. That's a problem that's not going away any time soon.

Posted by Jean on Friday, October 22, 2004 at 1:34 PM | Permalink