The Cellar - Happy Samhain

Yeah, I know...here I go again, spewing that Pagan tripe. But for some reason (perhaps the fact that we just put the youngest kid back in the psych hospital yesterday, or the fact that we've had to have two cats put down this past month, or the fact that I had another of my infrequent visits with my grandson yesterday and had to watch my shaved-head, just out of the hospital brain-injured son trying to come to grips with being a "father") I'm feeling a bit melancholy and morbid, so I just wanted to promote this, the highest of the Pagan Sabbats.

Today, my coven will host around sixty people in a feast honoring our dead ancestors. People will bring photos of their loved ones, pets or those they admired and place them upon a special altar. We will circle together, and symbolically open the Western Gate, encouraging and assisting those who have crossed over to once again enter the world of the living and walk amongst us. We will honor the God as he begins his journey through the Underworld, to be reborn at Yule as the Sun King. We will tell the tale of Persephone and how she ate the seeds of the pomegranate, and thus began her own journey through the underworld, giving us the white death of Winter as her mother mourns her absence. We will celebrate the Feast of the Dead, and hold a dumb supper, setting a place for our departed ancestors and filling their plate with food so that they may once again feast with their families and loved ones.

We will also take our fears, things we wish to remove from our lives, write them on flash paper, and symbolically destroy them in flame and smoke. We will replace these negative, transient things with positive thoughts and goals emblazoned on a black ribbon which we will wear for the rest of the day.

Mostly, we will remember and communicate with our ancestors. I will reach out for my mother's essence and send her all the love and respect I have for her. I'll let her know that she is missed; I'll tell her that she is the great-grandmother of a beautiful boy.

Together, a group of people will open themselves, their hearts and minds and spirits, embrace the darkness of life and death, examine it, accept it...and, for one more turn of the Wheel...overcome it.

I hope that this most sacred of Pagan holidays finds all of you happy, healthy and well. If you deem it fitting, take a moment and honor the memories of those who made you who you are. Invite them to join you as you dole out candy to the giggling ghouls at your door. Those children, with their hands out, scary masks on, and "Trick or Treat" on their lips, are doing the soldier's task of keeping the malevolent spirits at bay even as we embrace those we love.

Happy Halloween, everyone! And Happy Anniversary to Mrs. Elspode, should she chance to read this.