Happy Hallowe'en!

Happy and blessed Hallowe'en! 

I don't dress up for Hallowe'en anymore as I appear to be dressed for Hallowe'en most days of the year anyway. The last time I intentionally dressed up for the holiday, I trick-or-treated with my grands wearing a pickle costume. The dressing up and decorating is for them, not me, as the older I become, the more I place a spiritual bent on the holiday, one revering my beloved dead and conferring with the old gods and goddesses, and the spirits of the plants and animals around me. I wish that someone had told me that this is what this holiday was really about when I was a child because I would have dug into it and trick-or-treating would have been the least exciting thing about it. You come home, dump the enormous pillowcase of candy out on the kitchen table, wade through the good stuff, separate the bad stuff, sort the chocolates out, eat a few pieces, then take a bath and wash the paint and hairspray out and go to bed. Finito. But with a real Hallowe'en celebration, there are candles and music and bonfires and food. And the ancestors to keep you company. This goes on for a couple of days, the reverie, the dreams with the ghosts of your people walking through. And more than anything else, there is love.