And I hope it was full of magic, and spirit. I think one of the unfortunate aspects of our culture [in general] is that during our holy days, we hold consumerism most sacred of all.
[Take Halloween, for example. For most people it consists of buying costumes and eating candy and maybe partying really hard, and that's about it.]
Having children has given me the opportunity to deeply examine my beliefs and to reinvent how I celebrate the Holy Days.
Take Halloween, for example. I know that trick or treating is a tradition that will not be abandoned, nor would I want to abandon it. But I do want my children to connect with a meaning deeper than just a whole lot of sugar [why why why do people insist on giving so much of a powerfully addicting drug to children??? Ok, I will say no more.]
The Halloween that we celebrated in our family is deeply rooted in the magic of this day. I explained to Jai that on Oct. 31, the door between this world and the spirit world opens a bit, allowing the spirits to come a-visiting. The spirits in general are loving, but sometimes they like to play little tricks on us, which is why we dress up in costumes. Adorned, the spirits won't recognize us and therefore won't be able to trick us. People keep candy in their homes to mollify the spirits, and when we dress up they don't know if we're spirits or not, so they give us the candy. A trick of our own!
We started our celebration the day before Halloween with the carving of our [homegrown] pumpkins. Our jack-o-lanterns are spirit guides, lighting the way for the spirits to find our house. For Halloween, much like its cousin the Day of the Dead, is a day of honoring our beloveds who are no longer with us. We want our loved ones to come visit us, so we help light their way.
On Halloween, we began the festivities by decorating the house and our altar. With pumpkins, gourds, and dried corn, we beautified our home to please the spirits. On our altar we placed pictures of our passed loved ones, a mortar and pestle for making potions, and other sacred objects. Then we were ready to disguise ourselves.
Off to the dress-up box we went. Jai emerged a firefighter, Mina a goddess of the ocean [so interpreted by Jai], and I became the Goddess of the Wind [Oya].
With the crows announcing our arrival, we headed down the road to trick the neighbors into giving us treats.
Home again just before dark, it was time to light our spirit guides and to make some potions on our altar. The kids pulled apart dried flowers, which they placed into the bowl of the mortar. As they added fingerfuls of healing herbs, they put their blessings into the potion. Jai blessed the middle of the earth with love, and he blessed all of our dishware to keep them from breaking. Afterwards, we burned a little bit of the potion to send our blessings out to the spirits.
Then it was bedtime - time for sleep to allow our spirits to cavort with those visiting us.
I hope your Halloween was as magical, and as full of Spirit.
*Blessings*
p.s. In the morning when we got up, we found a strange and unidentifiable substance on the floor. Jai immediately said, "It's spirit poop! They played a trick on us!" Oh those spirits...
No comments:
Post a Comment