Halloween

Sitting on the front steps
into my house are
a pumpkin and colorful gourds
which are reminders of the season.

Halloween, shortened from All Hallows' Eve, is a cross quarter day; also know as Samhain. It falls more or less half way between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. 

            "the seed now begins its time of gestation

        the harvest is gathered, the fields lie fallow,

        and the gates of life and death are open."                   

            from Earth Prayers

        edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elinas Amidon

This cross quarter day is near the Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos which is a holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and most of Latin America. So rather than writing the usual two blog posts, I have chosen to incorporate both in this post.

This is the first Halloween and the first Day of the Dead that Dwight will not be with me to celebrate. Much to my dismay this is the beginning of celebrating holidays without Dwight. Of course, he will be front and center in my mind when I do honor these two holidays.

                                        

As we honor those ancestors that have gone before us and those loved ones who have died leaving us bereft, may we prepare our alter with food they enjoyed. The alter may also be covered with colorful leaves that are so abundant presently.

Dwight loved broccoli
so I purchased a modest amount at
this morning's Farmers Market
to enjoy eating on Halloween.

  The longer we are together

the larger death grows around

us.

How many we know now

who are dead! We, who were

young.,

now count the cost of having

been

And yet as we know the dead

we grow familiar with the 

world.

We, who were young and loved

each other

ignorantly, now come to know

each other in love, married

by what we have done, as

much

as by what we intend. Our hair

turns white with our ripening

as though to fly away in some

coming wind, bearing the seed

of what we know. It was bitter

to learn

that we come to death as we

come

to come, bitter to face

the just and solving welcome

that death prepares. But that is

bitter

only to the ignorant, who pray

it will not happen. Having come

the bitter way to better prayer 

we have 

the sweetness of ripening.

How sweet

to know you by the signs of the

world!

                              WENDELL BERRY

to usher in these holidays and open connections with your past ancestors and loved ones that are no longer with you in physical form.