November 6 - The Hallowe'en Parade organized by the Smallwood Civic Association for this past Saturday, October 31st was a big hit with everyone who donned a costume or just showed up. So many goblins, witches, and ghosts parading around our Smallwood lake!

Many accommodating homeowners along the shores of Mountain Lake set up tables with grab n' go goodie bags. All told about 150 kids trick-or-treated, and that number excludes the attendant adults only wearing masks.

The event was carried off in a manner ensuring public safety (Town of Bethel police car escorts, social distancing and N-95 face masks!). Delightfully enough, the Hallowe'en Parade attracted families from the surrounding countryside, people who now know what a swell place Smallwood is to live and thrive in.

Most people who live around these parts know that the lands near the Delaware River, which we call home, were once the home of the Lenape people. Look around, and you see few (if any) signs that these people once called our beloved home their beloved home.

The tribe's gradual displacement in the eighteenth century by encroaching Europeans was a relentless process, and whatever signs of their existence the Lenape left behind have largely been expunged.

How astounding then to me this past weekend when a neighbor casually mentioned that there was a First People's Stone Man facing my Smallwood home from the neighboring property. Darkness was falling and I went to bed a bit spooked. The next morning, All Souls Day, I picked my way across the treacherous scree separating my home from a tall grey block of triangular stone.

Sure enough, someone taking great care a very long time ago had carved a man's upturned face into the hard stone. Blotches of lichen dot his cheeks and chin. The grey green stoney face is open and friendly. His nose is triangular and broad. He looks upward and almost directly to the south, where the sun approaches its midday zenith.

Who is this Stone Man, and why stands he in the Smallwood forest?

Biologist friend and fellow Smallwoodian Dorota Puchala came to my aid. Stone Man has a name.

Most probably the face represents Mesingwe (“muh-seeng-weh”), a Lenape spirit whose powerful spiritual influence ensures equanimity in the often contentious natural world where fox eats hare and wolf eats fox.

Most often the Lenape carved Mesingwe's face into living tree trunks; one half the face was painted red and the other, black. Sometimes the god's face was then excised from the tree trunk and taken into a spiritual hall as a totem mask.

As the godly protector of the forest, Mesingwe was a potent presence hereabouts. He loved to assume human form and ride on the back of a deer leaping through the forest. In this way he would help those hunters who treated his leafy abode with care and (by turning the darker side of his face toward them) punish those who abused the world.

Masks and spirits all about: Mesingwe and Hallowe'en and the distant sounds of contending parties. Folks, consider who we are and where we have come from and want to go. May we leap together in the forest today and tonight, and look to the sky in the morning to draw light.