Hallowed Evening, Hallowe'en

Moonrise over Avebury, ancient spiritual site in Wiltshire, England.  (Wiki Commons)

If you consider yourself religious, you may think of October 31 as All Hallow’s Eve, the day before the beloved dead are honored in church services.

If you are not religious, you may think of October 31 as a time to overload on candy if you’re a kid or food and drink if you’re an adult.

Either way, for most, it’s a time to watch scary movies, scream and just generally carouse in ways that would seem, well, ghoulish the rest of the year.

Hallowe'en is more spiritual than you think

Either way, you’d be wrong about the original purpose of Halloween. For ancient cultures worldwide, but for the Celts of Europe particularly, the end of October was a spiritual time, but not a frightening one. Nor was the holiday always and only on October 31. It occurred whenever the druids decided the thin veil separating our mundane world from the world of spirit was thinnest. It usually was at the end of October or beginning of November.

The druids based their precise choice of a day to celebrate the turn of the earthly wheel on the shortening of the days and the arrival of the first good hoar frosts.

On the day they chose, called Samhaim (pronounced So-When), prayers to the earth and spirit powers would be uttered, and special attention would be given to the memories and honoring of those who had left the earthly vale and had passed over to another world. 

Samhain, and the earthly cycle

Sensibly, the Celts regarded Samhain as the start of a new year. Late fall/early winter was the gestation period after which, in spring, birth would happen. Through the summer, those born would grow to maturity―sheep and other stock―and in the fall, as the year came to a close, those animals old enough for slaughter would be prepared, and roots would be dug to last through the gestation period of the winter.

While certainly there was awareness of ghosts, it was not the awareness of a modern horror movie. Rather, it was the awareness that, whether one thinks of it as supernatural or simply the reflections of memories in one’s own mind, our beloved departed are with us then.

The church purloined the holiday, turning it into a much more corporate affair, and loading it with liturgical expectations that, for many, interfere with their own need to honor the departed simply and with more love than ceremony. For others, the ceremonies of the churches are welcome.

A new sort of Hallowe'en celebration?

As for me, I have always loathed the fake skeletons, the dirty tricks, the bwa-ha-ha mechanical toys and the celebration of the fiendish. Fiendishness is not at all what Samhain was about.  Perhaps there’s no harm in it, to a point.

But what, one wonders, would happen―in spite of or along with―the church’s demands and modern secular expectations of ghoulish mirth…

If we carved happy faces on our pumpkins, lighted them, and carried them out under the night sky.

If we stood quietly until we could begin to hear the music of the wind, and see the paintings done by stars, framed by the last leaves on venerable trees.

If we attempted to commune in quiet grace, just for a few minutes, with those we loved and lost.

One wonders if a quiet, thankful approach to this ancient season could change the upheaval so prevalent in today’s world….

If we simply turned a raucous Halloween into a sanctified moment or two or three or an hour or an evening, and actually savored the ending of an old year of birth, growth and death, and looked ahead to a period of quiet gestation during which the roots of all there is could renew themselves….

If we stopped the chatter, and focused on the truth.

If we would forsake our daily companions for a short while, and look, for a few moments, to the wisdom of those we see among us no longer….

 If we could be as quiet as a contemplative druid for a single hour, and release our understanding of how we can all go on into a better season to the suffering universe.

I wonder.

The stars would surely remain in their heaven, but maybe we could approach their peace and constancy just a tiny little bit.