All Hallow's Eve

This is All Soul's Day in Rome by Jose Gallegos y Arnosa.  A young widow buys grave-flowers from a market-stall overflowing with lush life. Chrysanthemums, grief, leaf-fall, death, new life, beauty, the mingling of big transitions with day to day activities, stone and petals; the scene evokes the energy of this strange, magical, weighty day. 

Most cultures have a time in their year set aside for honouring the dead.Many cultures honour individual deaths not as isolated events but as lengthy transitional periods, with special activities happening over time, to aid both the living and the dead. What personal, religious, or cultural practices do you have that act as containers for release, grieving, and honouring what (and who) is gone? Are these practices sufficient?

A familiar theme you hear me returning to again and again is this: we have lost track of the dark half of life, the activities of waning and releasing, of rest, surrender, and death.

A remnant of older cultural practices persists in Halloween. What has become a secular celebration of pumpkin spice and fabulous costumes (both of which are super fun, I’m not complaining) began as a part of a longer celebration of the beloved dead, the ancestors, and of more evolved helpful spirits who exist in the Otherworld.

The old Christian celebrations of All Souls and All Saints tie back to even older traditions which link to the agricultural year, and so to astrology.The Solar Year has four quarters, occupied by the solstices and equinoxes at 0º of the Cardinal Signs. The days between, or “cross-quarter days”, at 15º of the Fixed Signs, mark important transitional periods, seasonally and energetically.

The Scorpio cross-quarter, where we are now, is the time of the killing frosts in the northerly parts of the Northern Hemisphere (where these traditions took root). 

Things wither now and die back to the ground. With the season of dormancy, hibernation, freezing, comes focus on interior and underground activity.

Think root growth, composting, clearing the ground. Think indoor life-sustaining activities like crafting, mending and medicine-making, interior activities like rest, relating, re/sourcing, storytelling. All these become important now. These subsistence activities sound old-timey, but please call to mind modern equivalents.

We are now moving inwards and downwards, and turning our energies towards interior care. 

One of the primary uses of ceremony, of course, is to mark transitions, to create a psychological and spiritual container for change. Change is challenging for us humans, even if it’s just seasonal change! We need all the support we can get. The transition from light to dark, active to resting, exterior to interior, this world to the otherworld, is the one we ceremonialize at this time of year.

These days can be tough. The “veils are thin” not only between us and the Otherworld, but between our bright, defended, daytime self, and the darker processes within, of grief, loss, longing, regret, and fear. 

These are the feelings that need a safe container in which to be processed. What if you lack traditions for creating this safe container?

Borrow from the traditions of your own ancestors. Some themes recur across cultures, such as building altars to the beloved dead, leaving offerings at gravesides, creating a feast with foods enjoyed by your loved ones and ancestors, leaving offerings outside to assuage restless spirits(trick-or-treating is a remnant of this tradition) creating protective objectsto ward off sorrow (think candles, wreaths, jock-o-lanterns). 

You know I believe in practical “kitchen magic.” With intention, we can use even the mundane, secular practices of this day to help create psychological and emotional resilience in the face of change and loss.

Here's what I will do this day: 

I will carve pumpkins with the scariest faces, using this activity to gently look my fears in eye. 

I’ll leave offerings of (bunny-safe) food outside under our big maple tree, offer water and fruit on my altar, give candy to trick-or-treaters. As I symbolically feed the animal, spirit, and human worlds, I’ll allow myself to gently touch the hunger and longing of the dark, neglected parts of my own mind and heart.

I’ll make a little altar with photos, flowers, and candles, for us to honour our parents, grandparents, friends, and pets on the other side. Sharing conversations with and about them, I’ll gently touch the grief and loss which never fully recedes.

I’ll be setting out nightlights and crystals to intentionally close the door to any unwanted visitors in my dreamtime. It’s good to have boundaries, always, and now is a great time to refresh them.

Wishing you a safe and blessed All Hallow’s Eve!