Halloween is my favorite holiday.
Starting in October, when I feel the wind on my face, I think of magical beings flying in to celebrate the beginning of the Holiday Season. I love the colors changing on the trees and the weather changing as well.
But what I really love about Halloween is the memories. It was the one time of the year that I could dress up and become someone else, if only for the evening. I loved being able to roam the streets free. My parents would drop me off at the cinema so I could watch black and white horror movies until dawn.
But it was that feeling of freedom, however, that has stuck with me all these years.
When Halloween comes around, I decorate outside the day before. I go to the corn maize and buy pumpkins to carve. I have laser lights and sound effects set up. I wear pumpkin pants with black sweaters.
It is told that at the strike of midnight on October 31st the veil between the past and the present and the living and the dead becomes especially thin. November 1st is the beginning of the Celtic New Year. As a month of endings and beginnings, when the seeds of renewal are shed from the mother plant, it is a time to rid oneself of the past and look forward to the future.
So this year I had a ceremony. I love ceremonies because for me, it is an outward expression of what I am feeling and it helps commit my thoughts to actual actions.
I chose a personal object (an old watch) and concentrated on what it meant to me. The watch signified for me the past and the time I had spent wearing it. I no longer wear watches so it seemed like a good choice.
I chose a purple candle (the color of original essence) representing the joy and spontaneity of my youth.
I found a container (small wicker basket)
I had a bell handy (to ring in the new year)
With these objects I let go of my past and started anew. I lit the candle and stared into the flame. I put my watch into the basket and used the candle wax to seal it in. I vowed to begin anew and rang my bell to announce my intentions. This morning I buried the basket.
Halloween being my favorite day, made the ceremony even more special to me. I encourage you all to take a look at the special days in your life and create a tradition or ceremony around them. For so many of us it is get up, work, eat, go to bed, repeat. If we can break things up and look forward to something, all the better.
Happy Halloween!! Patrice
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