Honoring the Shift from Light to Dark

Happy Halloween to you! Right now I am thinking of multiple holidays. My world has expanded, and how wonderful it is. My family is now filled with Mexicans, and the celebrations are for Dia de los Muertos. Also, I am planning to trip to England for the very first time, and I am thinking about things very very old, and it is making me think of Samhain. And this year, Diwali falls on the same dates.

Our squash harvest was not great, but good, and exactly what we wanted for this holiday. The most fun part is that most of them were volunteers. I had always believed that volunteer plants (that grew up from seeds the previous occupants of this house dropped into the soil as part of their composting efforts) would not produce fruit. But that belief was wrong! We harvested and ate one delicious delicata. There are a couple of small delicatas left on withering vines that I will collect this week.

The only thing we actually planted is the strange orange thing on the right, and all the little yellow ones, which are what the strange orange thing used to be. I bought the plant looking only at the plastic tab stuck into the dirt at the nursery, and it was a photo of very pumkiny looking pumpkins. But no, it’s a type of giant squash that is not a pumpkin at all. The insides are pale yellow ribboned with green, and smells like honeydew melon.

Last weekend when the kids came they insisted on carving Jack-o-lanterns because it was our last chance to do it together as a family before Halloween. The twins usually stay at their mom’s house, which is about 5 miles away from us. Close, but not close enough for them to just pop over whenever.

Before I show you the final product, I want to share another picture of our pretty back yard colours:

The rains have set in for good, and usually that means we won’t dry out again until July. It’s always a bummer for me. I love hot and sunshine so much that rain and cold makes me sad. We did get one last project done JUST in time:

I dragged nearly everything out of the storage shed, so we could move the ladder around inside. I piled it all over the dry yard. It took us two days to do this job (for a million tiny dumb reasons that will bore you, but if you’ve ever done a DIY project that kicked your butt, you’ll understand). We FINALLY got it done at dusk on our last dry day. Rains were not forecast to come until the following evening, so I knew I would have plenty of time to put all our boxes of things back into the storage shed the next morning. We went to bed, exhausted.

Pedro woke me up at 1:00 am, with the distinct “ting ting ting” sound of rain on the skylights. We got up and donned rain jackets and boots and hauled sopping wet boxes and furniture back into the shed in the dark and wet. Damn. It has been wet ever since.

Speaking of Fall colours, I am sporting some of my own.

Yeah, so I did the most embarrassing thing I could admit: I freaking stepped on a rake and smashed myself in the face! I didn’t know people actually did this for real. I thought it was only in cartoons. I’m even more miffed because I am meticulous about placing rakes backward, so the tines are pointing away. But somehow I got my foot in there and tripped into it anyway. You guys. It whacked me so hard I was stunned. I didn’t even know what happened. But I got lucky because it was an old wooden rake, not a metal one. And it hit the orbital, nothing soft. So no eye damage, no broken nose, no broken teeth. My brother Ian told me I should name the rake Chuck Norris. So I did.

This is what the front of our house looks like right now. I carved the weird one on the right. I used the fact that it grew lopsided, and carved a lopsided face. Pedro’s is the excellently creepy one with the stitches. All the little green and orange gourds, I have no idea what they are, but they look cool. The basket is made from wisteria strands that I cut and weaved after I took a Cherokee basket-making class and got inspired. Ha ha. Wisteria vines are not great for that, but the basket is perfectly fine and has a cone shape reminiscent of an autumn cornucopia.

Here’s a fun thing to try right now: type in “halloween” on Google. Then do “dia de los muertos” and then “diwali.” Each one brings up a little temporary celebration on the screen. It’s delightful. Diwali is the best because you can grab the little lantern with your mouse and use it to light all the other lanterns.

Halloween is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day. It is at the beginning of the observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. In popular culture, the day has become a celebration of horror, being associated with the macabre and supernatural.

Day of the Dead (Dia De Los Muertos) is a two day holiday that reunites the living and dead. Families create ofrendas (offerings) to honor their departed family members that have passed. These altars are decorated with bright yellow marigold flowers, photos of the departed, and the favorite foods and drinks of the one being honored. The offerings are believed to encourage visits from the land of the dead as the departed souls hear their prayers, smell their foods and join in the celebrations.

In Celtic Ireland about 2,000 years ago, Samhain (pronounced sow-in) was the division of the year between the lighter half and the darker half. In this time the division between this world and the otherworld was at its thinnest, allowing spirits to pass through. The family’s ancestors were honoured and invited home and harmful spirits were warded off. People wore costumes and masks to disguise themselves as harmful spirits and thus avoid harm. Bonfires and food played a large part in the festivities. The bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into a communal fire, household fires were extinguished and started again from the bonfire. Food was prepared for the living and the dead, food for the ancestors who were in no position it eat it, was ritually shared with the less well off.

Diwali, one of the major religious festivals in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, lasting for five days from the 13th day of the dark half of the lunar month Ashvina to the second day of the light half of the lunar month Karttika. Different practices are observed, depending on the specific faith. During the festival, diyas are lit and placed in rows along the parapets of temples and houses and set adrift on rivers and streams. Homes are decorated, and floors inside and out are covered with rangolis, consisting of elaborate designs made of colored rice, sand, or flower petals. The doors and windows of houses are kept open in the hope that Lakshmi will find her way inside and bless the residents with wealth and success. During the festival, the celebrants illuminate their homes, temples and workspaces with diyas (oil lamps), candles and lanterns. It is a time to come home and unite communities, and can also be a time to remember ancestors.

I like how all of these developed in different parts of the world to recognise the same exact thing: changing of seasons. We shift into the dark, we rest, we turn more inward, we seek warmth of fire, and think of our loved ones who are gone physically, but with us in spirit. Here’s my warmth, offered to you. ❤