Halloween and Samhain

Samhain was Halloween. 

The Sun goes down on a misty evening, There’s a chill in the air and the faint smell of wood smoke as darkness falls. Somewhere in the distance a dog howls and the moon looks out from between the clouds, through the mist it appears ringed by a faint halo. It’s Halloween in Austrian backcountry and it's quiet almost erile so.

It wasn’t always called Halloween. That name is in fact quite young and is a contraction of "All Hallows' evening, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve. A Christian festival remembering the dead, in this case saints (hallows), martyrs. Some would pray for their souls, believing they could assist their passage to heaven. Others just to honor the recently departed. Over a thousand years ago this Idea emerged from the Roman church and spread throughout europe. This idea of honouring a special class of dead christians began to run parallel with a different celebration that seems to be tied in particular to celtic speaking nations, although how widespread and how far reaching back through the ages this was no one really knows. This is the festival of Samhain, The last of three harvest festivals, a cross-quarter festival, celebrated approximately halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. It marked the beginning of the darker half of the yearly cycle. 

A large part of the tradition was to make offerings to the presiding spirits and deities. Portions of the crops, possibly animals, food and drink would be offered for good fortune and safe passage through the darker, colder times to come. Traditionally animals would be slaughtered around this time of year in preparation for winter. It was no secret for the celts animals were at their fattest just before pastures and deciduous shrubs died back. It's likely some were given to the feast. Somehow it's hard for us to imagine looking now through our lense of the 21st century what it must have been like for these celtic cultures rooted in the traditions of the land but becoming less nomadic. Their practice of subsistence farming increasingly carried the burden of their growing communities. The beliefs they had were based on the natural world and the observations of it. Myths yes, fantasy also but a fundamental understanding of balance and equilibrium in the cycles of nature and the world they were a part of. 

It was of course a common theme shared not only by the Celts but by any person, Christian, Jew or Buddhist working and living from the land at that time to be thankful when the harvest was done. When the work is completed and the stores are full for the lean time coming. 

So far away from a consumer world view that most of us literally have no idea what it means to depend on yourself and your family to store enough food to survive the winter. There was no safety net and the desperation one might face at the failure of a crop or loss of animals was as real as it gets. 

There were however three common harvest festivals to choose from and as Christianity started to dominate the western world the celts and their contemporaries were gradually incorporated into the new ideas of monotheism and the Christ. The church chose an earlier date to celebrate the harvest, which could be seen as a move away from the observation based marking of the seasons. For the celts certainly a move away from traditional ideas of spirits and pagan beliefs. 

The festival for both Christian and pagan shared a similar tread as both contemplated ancestors, either directly related or through spiritual beliefs. As most Christians were not directly related to the saints. In honoring life through the lens of death they gave credit and appreciation to those who have gone before, their wisdom and courage. So rather than a festival of death as it has now become, this was a celebration of life and the inheritance of it. The celts certainly had a much different understanding of death not based on the Christian ideas of the finality of it, hell or heaven. Angels or demons. They saw that patterns repeat, death then was an integral part of a process but by no means the end. One part of a never ending circle. Nature.

So it seems that somewhere along the way we lost sight or lost touch with what we were celebrating. Ideas of purgatory and eternal death superseded ideas of the infinite nature of life force. Ancestral spirits became nondescript haunting ghosts and devils, the undead and everything horrifying. 

Much of the traditions of today's Halloween festival come from the christian practices of the middle ages, even what is believed to be the pegan sacrificial rites and devil worship attributed to the event were further constructs of this belief. A crusade against a perceived evil force by the church that in reality was a push for religious conformity.

6,500 kms away in India One of the most popular festivals of Hinduism is also about to begin. Interestingly but not surprisingly Diwali symbolizes the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance". This festival of lights is one of many post harvest festivals that takes place all around the world. We are not so different after all. 

In Austria and Bavaria Allerheiligenstriezel is still made. This sweet bread was baked for poor children who used to go door to door on halloween offering to pray for the souls of the home owners family. As far as we know that goes back as far as the 12th century.

 By the 16th century in Great Britain people would go house to house in costumes to recite poems and songs for food. They would carry carved turnips as lanterns, very similar to today's festivities. As many of the traditions were slowly forgotten in Europe and England in the United States of America they continued and evolved again in the modern day as a consumer festival, in the form of a spooky carnival.  

Halloween is a perfect example of the evolution of ideas and beliefs. It gives us a window into the past, which is not only fascinating but also mysterious. Books have been written about this and I'm well aware there is more to be explored. For me it's a beautiful time of year and a wonderful festival. When considered mindfully and in relation to our place on this planet I'm reminded to be thankful for all that I have, all I have experienced. We are all a part of this existence, connected together irrespective of beliefs or where we live. We share a common history, we share in the common pattern of life and death and when looking at the origin of this festival I'm reminded of that.

Have a happy halloween.

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