Blessed Samhain/Happy Halloween

 

Blessed Samhain and/or Happy Halloween! On this day, October 31, 2023, two celebrations occur and neither is 'right' or 'wrong'. In our divided world, especially now, it's important we remember this.

To explain...

Ever heard, 'One person's trash is another person's treasure'? Put simply, what someone doesn't value, someone else may. I can look at an empty paper towel roll and see a variety of useful items (like binoculars, a ribbon threader, an electric cord hider, a telescope, a sock holder, a ponytail band organizer, etc). while many see something to throw in the recycle bin.

The same applies to holidays. What some consider a celebration, others may not. Learning to accept all the ways and wonders of the different ways humans choose to celebrate and enjoy holidays is, to me, the highest form of tolerance. After all, doesn't everyone love enjoying a holiday?

Hence, we have Samhain and. Halloween. Like many holidays (some could, and would, argue ALL holidays) both go back a long time into history and have common roots. At their heart, each is a celebration of the end of the time for growing and harvest, a remembrance of those who have passed on, and the start of the 'dark' season, or time when few things grow or flourish (winter), the cold temperatures take over, and the days have less light and more darkness. And there are as many ways to celebrate Samhain and Halloween as there are people who celebrate.

First, Samhain (which literally translates as "Summer's end") is a Celtic origin festival that typically lasts for three days. Many call it 'pagan' as it was around long before Christianity came along. Samhain ushers in and celebrates both death and rebirth, at the end of the harvest and the beginning of the cold, dark season of winter. It is believed the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is the thinnest at this time, leading to easier communication and tricks/haunts by those who have passed on. Those who celebrated didn't fear the dead; they respected and appreciated them and their wisdom of what lies beyond. Samhain is not a 'dark' holiday: it's a time of joyous celebration, rejoicing in (hopefully) bountiful crops to sustain the village/towns/families through the coming long, cold winter and the giving of food and gifts to those spirits who have passed through the veil from one world to another. 

When Christianity began its rise and spread, the priests and esp. Pope realized local populations would embrace this new religion not through force and bloodshed, but by incorporation. Samhain's honor of the dead became 'All Saint's Day' and 'Day of the Dead', where people honor the dead and also implore them not to play pranks on the living by dressing in costumes to not be recognized and thus avoid the pranks-- and the perhaps not so light-hearted tricks of a vengeful spirit with a grudge-- and giving treats and food.

Second, given all the above knowledge, it's really easy to see how Halloween came to be. Costumes, tricks-or-treats, etc. all have their roots in Samhain celebrations. Like most things, the early celebrations gradually evolved to what we see in mainstream Halloween celebrations now: costumes, kids going door to door yelling, "Trick or treat!" to get candy/treats, parties with ghosts, witches, pumpkins, etc. Halloween is a celebration of all things fun and light, a time to be 'something/someone else', and a way to get lots of free sweet stuff.

And let's face it: The scariest part of Halloween is the fear of death and what may cause our death many humans have. We fear what we don't know, and no one who knows what lies after death is here to really tell us. The idea of what's 'beyond the veil' can be terrifying because it's unknown and many of us do not want to contemplate how we may actually get there! There are real, true 'things that go bump in the night', mean spirits, and scary monsters in our everyday world-- some known all too well to many people, in many, many forms. There may or may not be vampires, but there are fearsome wars, terrorists, and evil.  Terror comes with fear and to cope, we try, at Halloween, to make more light or short-lived of things that scare us most (for example, watching a horror movie)-- or maybe to try to forget, if only for minutes, that real bad things exist in this world-- and we hope do NOT exist beyond the veil.

So however we choose to celebrate this time of the change in seasons, (or choose not to celebrate at all), tolerance of all celebrations should also be included. Blessed Samhain to you and yours and/or Happy Halloween!