ALL HALLOWS EVE

For years, I offered The IRISH HOUR, my virtual radio program.  For some reason, it kind of fell by the wayside, so I thought I would offer up an Irish tale today to you my blog readers.

I love Halloween.  It was my favorite holiday as a child. Going to Catholic school, we always got the next day off as it was a  Holy Day, The Feast of All Saints.   It was a time of honoring the dead and the saints who were an example of how we  should live our lives.

Ghosts and Goblins roamed the neighborhood on this night of nights, when it was believed the dead rose from their graves.  Growing up in Chicago, we had cemeteries galore in our neighborhood, each with at least a few relatives and friends in residence.  Plenty of dark places to walk past and maybe hear the rustling of chains as the graves opened and feel the wisp of a touch
graze you as something flew by.

I had no fear of ghosts. Since I was a baby in my crib, my grandmother, who died in childbirth with my mother, began visiting me on a regular basis.  When I was four, my maternal grandfather died at the beginning of October, and my last remaining grandparent, my father’s mother, died at the end of October.  They too began to visit me regularly for nighttime visits.   As many of you know, I am 100% of Irish descent, and well talking to the dead is in my bones, so to speak.

Halloween is New Year’s Eve to the Celts.  It is a time when the veil between worlds is thin, and we believe our ancestors come to call, just before the FEAST.  Some of them may be included in the Saints, and well some of them, might still be working off their Sinner status.  We called that Purgatory.  God is good, and really you have to have done something REALLY BAD to burn in hell for ever after.  Purgatory was the tween place, where you go before you get to see God.  At least that’s how my young mind remembers it.

Tween places are magical to the Irish people.  Dawn & Dusk, the shore where water meets the sand, the edges of the mists, all open us to the unexpected, a place where logic doesn’t exist, the places of fantasy and mystery.

And this year, I find myself drawn back once again to Chicago.  A place where Halloween is a National Holiday, I swear.  Where
everyone decorates their homes to welcome in the Goblins, where bobbing for apples is still an event, and children go house to house dressed in costume, crying TRICK OR TREAT, Money or Eat…

Samhain (pronounced “Sowain”) literally means Summers End.  The lunar feast took place at the time of the Full moon in October which took place earlier this week.  It marked the Celtic New Year and lasted about a week.  The Celts believed that this was the time of year when the Earth turned away from the light and began to embrace the darkness.  The harvest was already in, the cornstalks became like ghost figures in the field.  And the doors to the Otherworld flew open, and the veil between this world and the world of Spirit all but disappeared.  What if, even for only one night, we were able to communicate once again with loved ones that have crossed, and receive their guidance and instruction?  I have felt my own mother close by the past few days, and had numerous friends who just lost their own mothers in the past few weeks.  Mom came a calling to let me know she is well
and sending her love to everyone.  Greeting the new arrivals in Heaven.

Already our nights are becoming longer and just this morning I was surprised how dark it was at 6 am. So as you snuggle into the dark the next few weeks as Halloween approaches, open your heart to hear the whispers of you loved ones from the other side.  BE WELL.  And hope to see you in Chicago at one of my Soul Salons!

Also check out the link on your right to Four Winds Farm where I will be doing a Soul Salon in Quincy, IL on Nov 3rd.