I loathe and detest what has happened to Halloween. Plastic pumpkins; the ubiquitous and unpleasant fake cobwebs that trap and kill wildlife; the ugly depictions of ghouls and ghosts; the pursuit by young people of huge quantities of sugar; Yuk.
And feel angry that a word that could mean so much has been conscripted to describe this travesty. Holy night. The time in the year when the veil between the worlds is thin.
All over the world, the dead are remembered, honoured, communicated with at this season.
In my own imagination, this time, known also as Samhain, is the beginning of a descent into the darkness of winter. A time for focusing inwards, warming our bodies and caring for our souls.
The descent takes us all the way to the solstice, the darkest time of the year. A time where a miracle happens, represented in Christian tradition as the birth of the Christ child, the advent of light in the depth of darkness.
Picturing the nativity in a cave, lit by love, I feel connected to the stirring of the seeds underground, reaching towards the light.
The journey into darkness, in my own imagination, is accompanied by the fire and fury of the dragon. Not slayed by the young Knight at Michaelmas, but joining with the Virgin to support the descent. We need that fire and force to nourish the deep earth and to nourish our humanity.
And we need to offer our young people something more nourishing than plastic ghouls to help them understand death as a rich part of our lives.
Photos thanks to Lorien Ray
