This is one of the reasons why we celebrate this time and take life easy on the last day of October.
This event has been celebrated annually since early times: it is part of our culture, passed down through thousands of years. Part of its function was to culturally guide the nomadic Celtic race who roamed the area between the West of Ireland and the East of Europe.
As they travelled, it is likely that they settled here and there to take some rest, or to fatten their cattle. Their timing was regulated by the seasonal changes. To fit in with those changes, it was a cultural necessity to celebrate events to mark their geographic and other transitions, and to relate these to the seasons and the growth patterns of the Earth’s food. This is the basis of many rituals which deal with the cycle of life, its growth and decay.
The careful rhythm of these festivals and celebrations suggests to us that the Celtic travellers were at peace with their journeys. The sunlight, dawns, sun-sets, moon and stars were observed and there were those who would predict what lay ahead for the travellers.
I have outlined the journeys which took place thousands of years ago. The Celts way of traversing across Europe was different to how we would do this today. We have had much cultural enrichment handed down to us by our ancestors. They left many documents, hewn in stone or built in our landscape, which gives us information on the past which we can build on to create our future.
It is clear to me that they were happy and contented people. So it follows that we continue the traditions of friendship and family in the culture that they have passed down to us.
As happens in many Irish families on the last day of October, we pay respect to all our family deceased. This often takes the form of displaying some flowers beside a photograph of those passed on.
Halloween is a celebration which observes the coming together of autumn and winter. It is saying that the harvest is secure. It celebrates too the seeds planted for next year’s harvest. It celebrates the cycle of life and death mirrored in nature – the death of another summer, and the advent of winter. All the while safe in the knowledge that spring will come again.
November is the month which takes us into the cold of winter when we need to be warmly clad. Snow may come to give us another view of life, and with it another beauty is born.
May we all enjoy this period of celebration and the fusion of the past, present and future.
