Halloween Again

Today is Halloween (All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ Eve), the yearly celebration which uses “humor and ridicule to confront the power of death,” according to Sam Portaro in A Companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts. Are you now at work in costume? Did you pack a brown paper bag with soul cakes and an apple for lunch? Did you bring a thermos of hot apple cider – made with a dash of cinnamon? Me neither.

Tomorrow is the Gaelic festival of Samhain, marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the darker half of the year. Samhain starts at sunset on October 31 and ends at sunset November 1. From sunset until sunrise, this is a liminal time of year – a threshold in which the supernatural beings that walk amongst humans can more easily enter our world. Tonight, you should sit near a bonfire with your friends. It will help to keep away the Aos Sí – the survivors of the Tuatha Dé Danann – whom you certainly don’t want to anger or insult. To learn more about Samhain, the Aos Sí, and the Otherworld, consult your neopagan handbook. Or Google. Whatever.