I hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween, and again I hope the best for all those up north dealing with the Hurricane. The holiday was filled with lots of love and good things for me, even though I did not make it to the Shadowfest (name for their Samhain celebration this year) at the Universalist Church. I ended up taking a lot of the day into my own hands, which is hopefully a good sign for the year to come.
Just a recap on this day, Samhain (usually celebrated October 31st) is the Gaelic, or Old Irish, festival marking the end of the harvest and the start of the "darker" half of the year. To the dismay of evangelist, this does not mean dark as in "evil" in any sense, but instead simply that the days continue growing shorter and during that time in Ireland the weather would grow cold and dreary, too cold to be outside for person or livestock. The poor at the time had to hope that the final harvest was full enough to sustain them through these harsh months and just the same hoped that their livestock, which serves as a family's livelihood in such an agricultural community, would make it through the winter. It was quite literally, the dark half of the year. Thus the holiday moves to the April/May time in the southern hemisphere, which is when their winter begins.
We may no longer be in an agriculturally predominant society but in the eyes of pagans who honor the Earth, it is still fitting to use this seasonal marker as a designated time to reflect on the "harvest" of the year so far and reflect on our lives. Have we been living the way we should or want to? Have we been allowing any unnecessary negativity to block good things that we deserve or need? Now is the time to address these things.
Rightly so, I had baked delicious pumpkin bars for the fall season and taken them to my mom's office in the morning. After dropping those off (which were very well received by her colleages) I set off to do my civic duty and vote in the presidential election. Unfortunately, the benefits of early voting were not so much as I had anticipated and I still had to wait over two hours to complete the task. It still felt good to vote and be done before the eminent chaos of November 6th. Although, I did end up missing my office hours at the college and subsequently completion of the work I intended to do there. Oh well, sometimes we have to sacrifice for the greater good. After some reflecting in honor of this time of harvest, I decided it was still a great day.
