I used to love Halloween, but it has a whole new meaning for me now. You see, Halloween is when the love of my life was killed in a car wreck two years ago. She was hit head on by a drunken driver. She was hurrying home from work so that we could take the kids out trick or treating. She truly loved "All Hollow's Eve" ... it was like her Christmas and New Years Eve rolled into one. She gave us each gifts of sweets for us share with the spirits. She would tell us about the Halloween observance originating with the Celtic Druids around 700 B.C. The Druids believed that the souls of the dead returned to inhabit the bodies of the living on October 31st. Villagers donned masks and costumes and paraded to the outskirts of their towns to trick roving spirits into leaving.
When we had carved the pumpkins with the kids a couple of days earlier she told us that the Jack-o-lantern custom comes from Irish folklore which she recounted: "As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree. According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer."
That is the way she left it with the kids; but for me it was continued with readings from the likes of the works of Mike Nichols that she had carefully selected for her Pagan Library One passage goes: "Samhain. All Hallows. All Hallow's Eve. Hallow E'en. Halloween. The most magical night of the year. Exactly opposite Beltane on the wheel of the year, Halloween is Beltane's dark twin. A night of glowing jack-o-lanterns, bobbing for apples, tricks or treats, and dressing in costume. A night of ghost stories and seances, tarot card readings and scrying with mirrors. A night of power, when the veil that separates our world from the Otherworld is at its thinnest. A 'spirit night', as they say in Wales.
All Hallow's Eve is the eve of All Hallow's Day (November 1st). And for once, even popular tradition remembers that the Eve is more important than the Day itself, the traditional celebration focusing on October 31st, beginning at sundown. And this seems only fitting for the great Celtic New Year's festival. Not that the holiday was Celtic only. In fact, it is startling how many ancient and unconnected cultures (the Egyptians and pre-Spanish Mexicans, for example) celebrated this as a festival of the dead. But the majority of our modern traditions can be traced to the British Isles.
The Celts called it Samhain, which means 'summer's end', according to their ancient two-fold division of the year, when summer ran from Beltane to Samhain and winter ran from Samhain to Beltane. (Some modern Covens echo this structure by letting the High Priest 'rule' the Coven beginning on Samhain, with rulership returned to the High Priestess at Beltane.)"
Mike Nichols' writing goes on to say: "As a feast of the dead, it was believed the dead could, if they wished, return to the land of the living for this one night, to celebrate with their family, tribe, or clan. And so the great burial mounds of Ireland (sidh mounds) were opened up, with lighted torches lining the walls, so the dead could find their way. Extra places were set at the table and food set out for any who had died that year. And there are many stories that tell of Irish heroes making raids on the Underworld while the gates of faery stood open, though all must return to their appointed places by cock-crow."
