Aisling and Halloween - visiting family
Halloween is almost upon us.
Halloween - a night of costumes and begging (Trick or Treat), a night of thrilling spookiness and night-travels, a night to watch campy old scary movies and enjoy the fright. But that's not the Halloween I'm celebrating this year.
Halloween is one of the cross-quarter celebrations - falling as it does between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. The name that fundamental Christian's conjure the devil with "Samhain" simply means "Summer's end" (it's also the name of the month that follows - November, my birth month). It is a celebration of the dead, a remembrance of those who are gone. The candy we give out with such glee to little children transformed by costumes all out of recognition represent funereal meats, food set out for the spirits, food intended to entice the souls of those we have loved and lost. But it is also a bribe to other spirits, given in the hope that they will not haunt our homes, will not curse our endeavours. When my boys were small and asked why we went Trick-or-Treating, I told them that we were visiting a blessing on the houses that we went to; that by accepting the treats, we were helping to make sure that no spirits would visit tricks upon them.
This year, I have lost three who were very dear to me. My mother-in-law in January. My best friend in May. My favorite, closest aunt last month.
This morning, I dreamt of my mother-in-law, visiting her house, talking with her again. There was some foolishness of an ordinary dream (murders, blood, suspicion) but as soon as we got to her house, that plot line was abandoned, and my dreaming concentrated on being with her. I got a mug from her cupboard and poured a green lime drink into it, but when I lifted the mug, I found that the bottom was missing and the liquid had spilled all over the carpet. The house was very empty, she was giving away her belongings because she didn't need them anymore, she was dead - not a zombie dead, just ... sloughing off her mortality.
The odd thing is, although I miss my mother-in-law the most and hardest, I find it difficult to ... to mourn her. To cry for her. I miss her, I wish she were still around, but ... my vision at her funeral, of her and my father-in-law together, happy - I tell myself that I imagined it, I tell myself that it was an artifact of grief. I know it wasn't real, it couldn't have been real - but I don't believe it. Not really. I may be as psychic as a head of cabbage, but I believe that I saw what I saw because I can't imagine myself ... well, imagining it.
I am very happy with the dream, however. It was nice to visit with her again but ... more than that ... for years after my father died, I had monkey-paw dreams of him and those ... the Monkey Paw is the most terrifying story I've ever read, and those dreams were NOT pleasant ones. They hurt.
Halloween - a night of costumes and begging (Trick or Treat), a night of thrilling spookiness and night-travels, a night to watch campy old scary movies and enjoy the fright. But that's not the Halloween I'm celebrating this year.
Halloween is one of the cross-quarter celebrations - falling as it does between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. The name that fundamental Christian's conjure the devil with "Samhain" simply means "Summer's end" (it's also the name of the month that follows - November, my birth month). It is a celebration of the dead, a remembrance of those who are gone. The candy we give out with such glee to little children transformed by costumes all out of recognition represent funereal meats, food set out for the spirits, food intended to entice the souls of those we have loved and lost. But it is also a bribe to other spirits, given in the hope that they will not haunt our homes, will not curse our endeavours. When my boys were small and asked why we went Trick-or-Treating, I told them that we were visiting a blessing on the houses that we went to; that by accepting the treats, we were helping to make sure that no spirits would visit tricks upon them.
This year, I have lost three who were very dear to me. My mother-in-law in January. My best friend in May. My favorite, closest aunt last month.
This morning, I dreamt of my mother-in-law, visiting her house, talking with her again. There was some foolishness of an ordinary dream (murders, blood, suspicion) but as soon as we got to her house, that plot line was abandoned, and my dreaming concentrated on being with her. I got a mug from her cupboard and poured a green lime drink into it, but when I lifted the mug, I found that the bottom was missing and the liquid had spilled all over the carpet. The house was very empty, she was giving away her belongings because she didn't need them anymore, she was dead - not a zombie dead, just ... sloughing off her mortality.
The odd thing is, although I miss my mother-in-law the most and hardest, I find it difficult to ... to mourn her. To cry for her. I miss her, I wish she were still around, but ... my vision at her funeral, of her and my father-in-law together, happy - I tell myself that I imagined it, I tell myself that it was an artifact of grief. I know it wasn't real, it couldn't have been real - but I don't believe it. Not really. I may be as psychic as a head of cabbage, but I believe that I saw what I saw because I can't imagine myself ... well, imagining it.
I am very happy with the dream, however. It was nice to visit with her again but ... more than that ... for years after my father died, I had monkey-paw dreams of him and those ... the Monkey Paw is the most terrifying story I've ever read, and those dreams were NOT pleasant ones. They hurt.