Happy Halloween, Blessed Samhain, Dia de los Muertos! These past few days as the veil has drawn thin, we have the capacity to sense, feel, maybe even see through to the other side of this experience. Do you believe?
Many of you commented about the remembrance of your pets on Oct. 27~28, a special part of the Dia de los Muertos week which is a day of calling your departed pets home for the night. Today I hope you will post the name of someone you are remembering tonight and tomorrow as we move from Samhain~All Hallows Eve~Halloween into Dia de los Muertos on Nov. 1. Feel free to share a memory or a tradition if you like, or a picture of your Samhain~Halloween~Dia de los Muertos altar on my facebook page:
Let’s talk about Ireland and SAMHAIN, pronounced Sow-win or Saa-wn. Some have noted that the Irish holiday of Samhain coincides with Halloween, but did you know Samhain was actually the inspiration for Halloween? And did you know in IRELAND the tradition is to carve potatoes and turnips on Halloween? And that when the Irish came to America they discovered gourds and pumpkins to carve? Yep. Let’s remember some of Halloween’s roots and bring spirituality back to our dearly departed spirits!
Samhain was a time when the folks of Ireland could feel the veil was thin… it was the time between seasons, between the bounty of harvest and the long winter, a time to gather inward, to survive on summer stores, sit at the hearth close to each other… and yet there was and is an inner knowing that the spirit world and all that is outside of this human body is close by… accessible… maybe even tangible if we listen. Sometimes to listen we need to go outside, outside our comfort zone, outside our homes, outside of our neatly-packaged beliefs even, to grow our awareness wide enough to sense and feel what is beyond this limited body and thinking mind.
The ancient Irish were once afraid of the spirits, thinking that they would be stolen on these nights, taken from their human lives by evil ghosts. Somewhere along the line, they began to make scary face masks and create costumes, to beat their bodhran drums, and march into the fields under the full harvest moon and build enormous bonfires to scare away the evil ones! But over time, the people came to see the Aos Sí, the “unseen folk” as ancestral spirits returning home, seeking the warmth and welcome of fires and family. It truly is a tradition that understands we are more than this physical body bag of flesh (is that halloweeny enough for you?) and that we are spirit once the body bag is gone!
What does this Irish tradition teach us? Don’t be afraid. Love conquers fear every time. Are you missing a loved one? Go out tonight under the dark sky… open your heart to the wondrous possibilities of a sweet visit from a spouse, a friend, a granny, a child, a pet that has left its physical body behind. And maybe someday, when your physical body has dropped away its bones and muscles, you too will come back like a whisper to visit your dear living ones for a moment on this Samhain night.
With love and many blessings,
Katie
