Time to take off the masks. Halloween is over. No performance left to put on. Drop your weapons. Remove your armour. We’re all tired now. So come, sit down. Wrap yourself in a blanket and have a hot drink. A coffee or how bout a cup of tea. You can stop with the hate and the talk and the go go go. Just sit and be and move slow. Can you hear that – the sound of the wind or the sea? The story of the soil that stands with the trees? The whispering of those who have gone before. The crying of those who did not get what they deserved. Taken too young. Pained and wronged.

Wipe off your face paint and come on into the circle. You need not have a reason for being here, you need not explain yourself. You need not put on a brave face or a smile, you can be sad or even feel nothing for a little while. Let your guard down and stop with the control. Forcing things to be the way they should, the way you’d like. Stop looking for more. We’ve all had enough for one night.

Enough destruction, enough producing, enough consuming, enough bombing, enough shopping, enough talking, enough performing, enough dividing, enough judging, enough forcing, enough taking, enough fighting, enough burning, enough proving, enough changing, enough showing, enough needing.

What would it be like to sit and cradle that child? The one who has been screaming and silenced for a lifetime. The one who lives inside. Maybe then you would see the barbarity of pointing at everybody except ‘me’. Of talking about how they are all different to you. How we are all different to you. Instead of dividing and killing and taking, you could be connecting and loving and sharing.

So, please, PLEASE, just take off the mask, and come sit down. Halloween is over and we’re all tired now.