To Carve a Pumpkin

If you wish to carve a pumpkin, then I shall try to tell you how. Yet I think that I should first inform you something of the pumpkin whose life would be in your hands. Here follows a description of a pumpkin's life, and what you can do to make its end a happy one.

A domestic pumpkin is born to a happy childhood. It spends its early, carefree days basking in the warm glow of the sun. That golden ball of precious light shines down upon the small, newborn pumpkin. It is held in the sun's warm embrace until the dark blanket of night covers the sun with starry silence. Now the times without the sun's face are brief, and but mildly cold. They are only a whisper of what is to come. Still the young pumpkin, along with all its brothers and sisters, misses the deep felt warmth, but they have each other, and the hope for the return of the much longed for warmth. Soon the sun does rise and in a blaze of glory returns her beams to the patient little pumpkins.

Many of these sunlit days pass as the pumpkin and all its fellows grow up under the sun's watchful eye. Before long, the pumpkin begins to grow fat from such an easy-going lifestyle and develops a wonderful orange tan from all its much enjoyed hours in the sun. Some of the more well to do pumpkin families hire a gardener or farmer to turn the members of that vine so that the tan might be nice and even all around, and the much sought after orange color might be more readily achieved.

Unfortunately, these happy times do not last forever, as happy times are all too apt to do. The dearly beloved times of sunshine grow shorter and colder; while the nights, those times when warmth is taken away, grow longer and colder still. The shadow of the night persists to hide ever a little more of the golden days, and the shadow's chilling breath lingers still when the sun regains the sky. The pumpkin grows cold in this time of so little sun and soon joins its family in a little shack by the road where they cuddle closely for the shared warmth. Now that the once well off pumpkin has fallen on hard times, there is nothing to pay the hard-working gardener or farmer with. The now poor pumpkin has only itself to give to pay off the debt it owes, so that is what it does. At the pitiful little roadside stands, pumpkins are for sale.

This is where you come in. Go to one of those little stands. Sometimes you can even find them in grocery stores. Either way is just as good. Take a moment to look at the pumpkins. See the varying shades of orange. There are so many different shades, and sizes of pumpkins. Each one is individual. Every one is unique. This one may be no bigger than your fist, or twice as large as your head. That one may be a bright cheerful orange, or a soft gentle tone. Chose carefully or at random, however strikes your fancy. After you find one, buy it and take it home. Set out some newspaper, as if you were going to house train the pumpkin. While looking for the side you wish to give a face, gently set it down, and begin to turn it around. This turning motion is natural to the pumpkin. It feels much like the turning that helped give it its lovely tan. Such a familiar motion helps calm the pumpkin and make it feel at home. Once you have decided upon which side you want to carve, you may wish to draw what you have envisioned for its features upon its now blank face. Then leave your pumpkin for a moment to itself, while you retrieve a knife. Such a blade, which can be so cruel, brings now, not an end, but a fresh beginning. Take this instrument of creation and cut out a conical piece centered around what is left of its stem. Do not fear. The pumpkin does not feel much pain, and the pain it does feel is like a growing pain in this first stage of its journey to its new self. Remove this piece and reach inside. Take out what you find there and set it down on the newspaper. Gently lift out its core and do not shun its sweet life juices as they stick close to your hands. Make it clean within of that weak flesh that would all too soon rot away. After this is done, cut out its features. Carve it some eyes so it can see. You have given it sight. Chisel out a smile for its mouth. Now it can breathe and speak. You may wish to continue and to make for it a nose and ears. Yet it seems that so much has happened to it already. Suddenly, it has been awakened to a new way of living. There is so much more that it can now experience in this world. Before it has entirely passed on, it has learned to open eyes which it might never have opened, and smile with lips it never dreamed it would have. When you are finished carving the pumpkin, after its final pruning is done, place a light within it. Now it has its own warmth, and its own light. It has become like the sun, who in her kindness, shined down upon the pumpkin when it was still small and green. Now set it outside so that it may look out upon the world and spend the last of its now well fulfilled life in the open air and sunlight of its well beloved childhood.