Happy Halloween, everyone! Whether you choose to call it All Hallows Eve, Samhain, or All Soul's Night, the celebration has the same origin and meaning. According to Barbara Walker (The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets):
" All Souls' or All Hallows Day (Nov. 1) was the Christian version of Samhain, the Celtic Feast of the Dead, named for the Aryan Lord of Death, Samana, "the Leveller", or the Grim Reaper, leader of ancestral ghosts. According to the pagan lunar calendar, festivals were celebrated on the "eve" rather than the day. Therefore Halloween or All Hallows' Eve was the original festival, later displaced to the following day. the name of the pagan deity remains in the Bible as Samuel, from the Semitic Sammael, the same underworld god."
Ancestral Ground
"...divinations were the oracular utterances by the ancestral dead, who came up from their tombs on halloween, sometimes bringing gifts to the children of their living descendants. The pagan idea used to be that crucial joints between the seasons opened cracks in the fabric of space-time, allowing contact between the ghostworld and the mortal one."
Callanish Stones on All Souls' Night
Sehkmet and the Sphinx
So, with that in mind, I dug up (no pun intended) some of my older work that seemed most "Halloweenish", along with a very beautiful song by Loreena McKennitt, called "All Souls' Night".
This is a special day for another reason as well; my beautiful daughter, Caitlin, was born on All Souls' Day. I believe that she is, indeed, an old soul. Since she was tiny, she has been advising me what to do, as if she had been my mother in a past life! She is definitely the best Halloween treat I ever received. Happy birthday, Cait!
Me and my baby
Have a booo-tiful day! (bad pun intended)
