samhain/all hallows eve/all hallows

it's been a while--<a href="http://cyclesofpraise.blogspot.com/2008/02/19-fall-into-winter-all-saints-spring_08.html">three years</a>--since i wrote about al hallows, i think, and it seems a good time to reflect again on this holiday, considered by some to have been the most important to the celts, one of my favourites, and certainly one that is widely celebrated in pop culture with very little understanding of what's going on.  yet for all of us it is clearly some sort of hinge time, a doorway between the the last autumn harvest of summer's growth and the deep cold and dark of winter's threat of death.

in his insightful book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Underworld-Initiation-journey-towards-transformation/dp/1892137038/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320031121&sr=1-2"><i>the underworld initiation</i></a>, r. j. stewart makes a strong argument that primary truths do not disappear, even when they are suppressed, and that there is not necessarily any 'original text' of sacred story.  but mainly what he writes about is the necessity of death, of going into the ground, for one's soul to develop, to let go of it's attachment only to the body so that it may come under the influence of the spirit.  (this is one of the the really basic truths that i suggested in my <i>cycle of praise</i> essay three years ago.  for the christian church, all hallow's with it's darkness and bonfires in the evening, is intimately related to pentecost, with its tongues of flame in the morning.

but we are not comfortable with that understanding.  shamans throughout the world are initiated by a death--indeed some say that they die every night.  in christianity this understanding is very clear, but often ignored.  the canticle of going to bed, the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucgV0CjFl9M&list=PL2E0F1C4269301714&index=30&feature=plpp_video"> <i>nunc dimittis</i></a> recognizes is.  it is recognized in the apostles' creed with the statement 'he descended into hell', even though  many protestant sects disavow it.  stewart recognizes that this necessity for the authentic man--the christ--to undergo this initiation is a recapitulation of all the various ways this understanding is expressed in all times and in all cultures. 

ah, but there's the rub:  if we, too, are willing to live authentic lives, we too must lose our lives.  ' except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.'  the feast of the fruit of the earth, samhain, is also the time when we enter the death of winter that we might participate in the feast of the fruit of the spirit, beltane (or as christians call it, pentecost).  we must face the darkness and embrace it, even if we do it in bizarre costumes of the underworld which we don't understand but which we would not abandon.  (well, we do abandon them these days, with our total avoidance of death, dressing up as cartoon characters or actors or whatever.  but even then there is perhaps a veiled recognition that this everyday 'me' is not the eternal 'me'.  the candy that we give out probably originated in the soul cakes that were fed to the dead.  the bonfires we light were once bonefires, in which the bones of the dead were burned to help their transition from the land of matter to the land of spirit. 

so, let us not just celebrate this wonderful holy day of halloween but explore it, mining its riches.  we need it for our salvation.