NYC HALLOWEEN PARADE 2012 CANCELLED

NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY POSTPONE
HALLOWEEN PARADE DUE TO SANDY

www.dailymail.co.uk - Ask any New Yorker or New Jerseyites what day today is and they might say Halloween - and they'd be dead wrong. Both the Big Apple and The Garden State have postponed their ghoulish festivities by decree of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who both declared the parades and trick-or-treating be moved to a later date when emergency responders have had a chance to secure their respective locales. Meanwhile, New York City initially cancelled their annual event, but today the Mayor announced it would be moved to next week. 
Halloween looked likely to be an uncharacteristically somber affair as up and down the East Coast people come to terms with Sandy's aftermath. Across New York and Westchester, around 811,000 people were without power - with that number reaching a staggering eight million along the Eastern Seaboard. The outages in Manhattan have been attributed to a huge explosion at an electrical substation, which blew up when it was apparently overwhelmed by floodwater. 

Traveling around the city remains difficult as it would still be four to five days before limited operation could begin on the New York subway, according to Bloomberg, with some reports estimating it might take as long as 21 days for service to become fully functioning. Halloween at the White House was all out cancelled due to Sandy. After three straight years of passing out goodies to area students and military children in the White House driveway, President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, broke their Halloween tradition this year because of superstorm Sandy that walloped the East Coast. 
Hundreds of treat bags containing White House M&Ms, an orange-frosted, pumpkin-shaped sugar cookie, jelly beans and some dried fruit were be delivered to the White House Military Office and to school districts in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia that would have participated in the celebration. Pumpkins used to decorate the White House will be donated to area shelters.

It’s Halloween, that wonderful day when people get to consume large amounts of candy and go to parties dressed up in costumes; however this year it is not so happy. The traditional Halloween parade of ghouls, ghosts and monsters in Greenwich Village in New York City, which attracts thousands of visitors and NYC residents every year, has been cancelled for the first time in 39 years after widespread flooding brought on by Hurricane Sandy. When mundane Holidays involve simply sense enjoyment - which for a child can mean games, presents, fireworks, and special food - we are indirectly teaching our children that we are living for material pleasure.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

If we wish to raise our children to be absorbed only in thoughts of Lord Krishna, how should we treat these secular holidays? One approach is, as far as possible, to ignore them. ... But sometimes even when a child’s parents are fully convinced that observing devotional holidays is sufficient, avoiding materialistic celebrations is difficult. ... A second approach, therefore, is to find a way of relating nondevotional celebrations to Krishna. ... For example, one year on Halloween some of my high school girls dressed up as male devotees and went door to door selling Srila Prabhupada’s books. ... On Halloween night in the United States, children dress in costumes and go from house to house collecting candy and other treats. If we decide to have our children celebrate mundane occasions in the same way as the materialists, we greatly risk raising children whose idea of happiness is materialistic.

Śrīmati Urmila devi dasi :
“Observing Secular Holidays”
http://urmila.me.uk/
http://www.krishna.com/observing-secular-holidays

Published by dasavatara das - "Vedic Views on World News"
http://www.vedicviews-worldnews.blogspot.com.ar/

Its All Hallows Eve...

what you call Halloween, and the sun is nearly up, so there's not much time.

I hope this letter reaches you, that you read it, for its your eyes its meant for. I've never had the right words, that grand sweeping prose that moves the heart, grabs hold of one's soul, but I've always thought in those ways. If only I would have known how to bring to bear those notions so powerful that I am enveloped by them, and in so doing wrap you in this ceaseless love only felt for you.

Love.... so foreign a concept when heard from my lips, more so to those whom know who, know what I've become, what I am. Nevertheless, it is my nature, though none have ever felt it from me, and it runs deeper than you will ever know.

Perhaps, in all of it, that is the most tragic aspect.... that no one, that you, will ever know those depths of my soul. And again, I search for words that won't come... forever searching for what will not come.... and maybe its just as well.

The sky is beginning to brighten just over the horizon now. The stars still shine and the moon gazes upon me, but their light dims with the coming day. I've moved my desk to face the window, removed the shades. Its been so long now since I've seen the sunrise..... I can't think of a more beautiful way to say farewell.

So long I'd spent chasing things outside of myself, anything that would give me that spark of life once more, that I missed all of everything that truly fills a man. Its led me down this dark path, left me with this hunger, this hole that nothing can fill. I've thrown away all I had, my very humanity trying to do so.....

What I wanted to say to you was this..... in your life you will encounter many things, people, experiences..... most will come and go like random breezes in the night. Some will be soft and warm while others whip and bite the flesh, but every now and then you'll be forced to stop and catch your breath. And its those moments, those people, those events that change you forever that this great dream called life is all about.

Human kind..... so funny..... so lost..... they cling so tightly to the fears that keep them alive that they fail to ever live. They focus all they have on making a living and rarely create a life. They waste all their time looking for people they can live with when they should be looking for the people that they can not live without.... don't be afraid. Don't waste life like those fools.

That spark of life that I spoke of..... that's how you'll know.... not the fleeting excitement of meeting someone or doing something new and different, not the light and easy, fun free spirit of just having a good time.... its that thing that stops you dead in your tracks that won't let you move on that tells you. And in that instant the person that you were will be gone, you'll be forever changed..... that's how you'll know.

I was young once, full of life, full of that idealistic vision of better days, perfect worlds. If you could have known me then.... but alas, those days have long since passed. I am outside the world now, no longer part of it. I sit in shadow, in that place in between, neither living nor dead, unseen.

You wouldn't know it, but when my body begins to warm, when my skin begins to heat, I break into hives. At first it tickles, and then it itches, it doesn't burn.... at least not at first, not until its too late.

Those days are gone.... or so I thought.... until I saw you. And now I'm changed. Changed for the better. Changed from this despicable wretch, this vile creature I've become. All of those better parts of my youth, the perfect ideals, the best of me, of my heart, have been stirred in your eyes. You've awakened something I've not felt in....

You are someone that I can not live without. I can not go back to what I'd become before I'd seen you. You raise me up in indescribable ways, towards perfection. And I wish to be your champion. Your champion.... a long lost ideal of chivalry...

But all I touch is death. I can not go on without you.... but to entangle your fate with my own would be to damn you to an eternity of despair and suffering.... I would suck the life from your life and leave you as empty as I....

No.... no, that won't do. There is no hope for happiness with me. There is no hope. That is no life. And since I can not go on otherwise..... I await the sun.

My skin is beginning to crawl. Tears fill my eyes.... the sunrise.... so beautiful.....


Happy Halloween People!



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