If it appears that on October 31 the wind sounds a little too mournful as it whistles through the skeletal fingers of the bare trees, remember, it's only your imagination. And if the nip in the air seems to bear the chilling touch of the grave on it, it is only autumn foreshadowing the arrival of winter. It really has nothing to do with the ghosts and goblins that once called this night their own. And as you peer out into the stygian blackness of this night, if something should rustle through the dead leaves, just remember that the faeries dance no more in the realms of man. It is only Halloween.
And if, in the distance, you see the glow of a fire just remember that the ancient Druids who celebrated Samhain are long in their graves. No longer do they and their people gather around their sacred bonfires to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to their Celtic deities. But, in your minds eye you can almost picture them, as they celebrate this night, wearing their costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins. As the flames of their bonfires leaped higher and higher into the air and the sound of their chanting is carried faintly to you on the chilly breeze, you can almost believe what they believed. This was the one night of the year when the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.
For these ancient peoples, this night marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. It was on this night that the spirits of those who had died during that year gathered, returning to their homes, needing the help of their kin to cross over to the land of the dead. Relatives would hollow out turnips and gourds and use them to carry the spirits to the proper location.
And not just good spirits were loose on Samhain - evil spirits, witches and goblins also roamed the earth. To protect your relative's spirit, you'd paint a scary face on the gourd to chase the evil spirits away. And to play it safe, you'd also disguise yourself by hideously painting your face with garish colors and donning a wild costume.
This just left the problem of the faeries. Faeries also ran free on the Eve of Samhain. Now Faeries weren't necessarily evil but they weren't good. Faeries were simply mischievous. They liked rewarding good deeds and did not like to be crossed. And on Samhain, the faeries would disguise themselves as beggars and go door to door asking for handouts. Those who gave them food were rewarded. Those who slammed the door tended to experience some unpleasantness.
So it has become Trick or Treat and the armies of children roaming the landscape in Halloween masks begging for candy can thank the superstitions of the ancient world for their bag of goodies! And like the ancient people who painted their faces while celebrating Samhain, the children roam Halloween night in masks!
While the ancients believed that, on this night, should they leave the safety of their home, they would encounter ghosts come back to the earthly world. So to avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. Today the children wear masks because it is fun!
So, your challenge this week is a Halloween mask, which you can use to fool all the spirits roaming the world on October 31! Better to be safe than sorry!
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| Claudette |
Claudette |
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| Paula |
Tracy |
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In addition to wearing masks to avoid being recognized by ghosts, Druids also wore animal skins, heads, and feathers as a way of
identifying with them, of becoming them for a while, to partake of their powers and receive divine inspiration.
A reverence for animals and an awareness of them as teachers and guides is as old as humanity itself. As we look up into the night sky, we sense the animal spirits looking down on us, and we understand why the ancient Greeks named the circle of the constellations the zodiac, "the circle of living animals."
Many Druids had "totem" animals...an animal that they identified with. My totem animal is the hawk. |
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| Angela |
Angela |
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