ニオミ・スマートさんのインスタグラム写真 - (ニオミ・スマートInstagram)「I overheard someone speaking about Halloween last week, and how they didn’t understand the point of celebrating such fear and horror. ☠️ Aside from the obvious fun of dressing up, I get it. Why celebrate such darkness? But that got me thinking… Something I’ve learned from the culture here in Bali is the acknowledgement of both the dark / light energies. The dark should not be feared, and if anything should be respected. It’s unrealistic to expect life to always be pretty & bright (although that’s what we often naturally strive for) because it’s like viewing life through rose-tinted glasses, avoiding reality. Sounds lovely right, but the darkness serves its purpose too… bear with me. The darkness is a necessary space & energy to lean into. Without the darkness, there is no light. I think of it like Yin and Yang ☯️ . They are a perfect compliment, and one cannot exist without the other. I’m going to speak more about the dark phases we go through as individuals on a personal level another time because it’s an area I’ve been contemplating and reflecting on a lot recently. I did a little digging and found the earliest record of Halloween to be Samhain, the Celtic pagan festival celebrated on 1st November to honour spirit and the energies of the non-physical world. The veil between the physical and spiritual realm is thin during this time, providing an opportunity to honour our ancestors and spirit, and to remember what we are experiencing here in the physical realm is only temporary - our spirit lives on. Halloween is a time to embrace the death and rebirth cycle, and although we spend most of our time running from this out of fear, this time of year feels like an opportunity to lean into the dark side to embrace the death and rebirth cycles. By that I refer to the parts of us that we consciously let go of this past year in order to create space for the new. And on an Earth level that refers to the cycle of seasons, with the transition into Winter (northern hem) symbolising death- the coldest and darkest period - and a time for reflection. So… how will you be leaning into darkness tonight? Happy Halloween ☠️」10月31日 17時04分