Joanne McNeill: Keep the home fires burning

Guy Fawke's used to be the most exciting night of the year.

Empires may fall, civilisations crumble and religions fade into legend but human fragility in the face of elemental forces remains.

Since the dawn of time - eons before insurance, smoke alarms and health and safety regulations were invented - seasonal rituals have been practised as symbolic protection from outrageous fortune.

Long before Guy Fawkes was commemorated on November 5 - by order of the English King James I as a warning to any who might consider any copycat attempts to blow up the House of Lords, as Fawkes allegedly did in 1605 - and way before Halloween evolved out of the Christian calendar, hilltop bonfires were lit on the pagan/Celtic northern hemisphere autumn festival of Samhain at the beginning of November to frighten away the black chaos of winter with a defiant show of light.

Of course, holding an autumn festival here in spring makes no sense. Neither does the spring festival of Easter in autumn and snowy Christmas in sticky summer, but we do our best to adapt the trappings of colonial hangovers.

After Christianity took root, Christmas and Easter too were expediently grafted on to pre-existing ritual observances.

Throughout history, cunning political, religious and commercial institutions have appropriated popular seasonal festivities by associating them with contemporary dogma.

Guy Fawkes looks to be on its way out.

Increasingly, reports exaggerate alleged downsides. The sheer exhilaration of gathering under the stars to shoot firebird wings trailing arcs of light hardly rates a mention.

Instead, insulated wowsers and fearmongers, who worship more prosaic safety measures than ancient rituals, emphasise dangers. Pet owners project their insecurities on to animals which have far more sense than they're given credit for, and the Fire Service seems to have completely lost its mojo compared with days past when Guy Fawkes night was not only considered a valuable predictable exercise in assessing the stretch of operational capabilities but was the very best night of the year on the fire stations I lived in as a child " with all appliances busy, mothers staffing the soup caravan and we (perfectly capable) kids left to whoop in charge of the biggest bonfire in town in the station yard.

No children live in fire stations of the land now - far too dangerous. Instead, the spaces once occupied by families are stuffed with nine-to-five paper shufflers - middle management with grand titles such as Adviser for Fire Risk Management - who have nothing better to do than tut-tut about their troops having to put out the odd fire.

I'm picking that by this time next year the fun police will have banned the sale of fireworks altogether on any pretext they can muster.

There is hope for the seasonal ritual under a fresh guise though. Clamour has arisen to pin it to the anniversary of the terrible day (November 5, 1881) when 1600 armed constabulary raided the peaceful village of Parihaka in Taranaki, to commemorate the heroic passive resistance of Te Whiti and his people to forced land confiscations.

At least this revision would have more local relevance than an imported anachronism.

Personally though, I don't really care what the excuse is as long as the gods are appeased with the primal poetry of fire in the night.