Happy Halloween

Of lost things, dreaming in the dark, and a repurposed poem for the ghosts among us

Friends, my hope is that this note finds you enjoying a few moments of magic on this Halloween night. This month has been a full one personally for me, not to mention everything at work in the world. I’ve been doing my best to keep my eyes open to it all: the fear, the enchantment, the warmth of the golden afternoons, and the encroachment of the darker nights that arrive earlier with each passing day. More than ever this autumn, I am committed to finding ways that we can kindle each other’s hearts during times like these.

I worked today, and am sick with a nasty cold virus, but did muster up a bit of energy to stroll around my neighborhood after dinner, sipping a thermos of hot spicy apple cider while taking in the various spooky scenes that my neighbors had created on their front lawns and porches.

I saw small children proudly parading down the street in their costumes, crying to their parents that they didn’t want to go home. I saw older folks in their homes peek out the window one last time, and not glimpsing any more trick or treaters on the sidewalk, turn off their lights, leaving their Jack ‘o lanterns to serve as the only sign of life inside.

As I walk, I think back to Katherine May’s Halloween newsletter, which I read this morning. What really resonated for me about her essay today is the notion that Halloween, that this thin time of year, is really a time of sitting with two truths at the same time: death and darkness on one side, goodness and light on the other. For me this year, I have been thinking about this balance being between what has been lost and what I am still conjuring from the dark. Both feel holy to me.

Back in our apartment, I’ve got my fairy pumpkin house (which I spent a happy Sunday afternoon creating) lit up tonite, and am grateful to hold what feels like a vigil for all the enchantment and playfulness I want to seek and exercise this season. It feels as if there is so much to coax from the cooler weather and dark evenings this year. I feel like a treasure hunter, on the trail for something wonderful meant just for me. The conjuring.

On Halloween night last year, I lit a candle next to a photograph of my dad and I on my wedding day and sat near it most of the night. Last year, my dad spent Halloween in hospice waiting to leave his physical body and move onward into whatever comes next and the holiday was a very literal liminal space between life and death. It felt blindingly ___ to sit on the edge of what I was about to lose, and all that was to be pulled forth following that loss. Both felt holy.

Even the photograph of us captures a fleeting kind of in-between. My dad and I are both beaming as we step out onto the lawn of the local farm where my husband and I were married. He and I start the walk down the aisle, a thin place in itself between the Old and New. Both are holy.

This night brings with it an invitation to grieve what has gone before you, faded into the background like a ghost.

What is it - who is it - that you are hoping to catch a glimpse of tonite, on their way to somewhere else? What is haunting you?

This evening also offers the opportunity to dream in the dark. Indulge, imagine:

What is it that you have lovingly planted in the furthest reaches of your heart, and would give anything to be able to see come into being in the spring? What are you grateful is still clothed in the shadows - what is your secret alone, and doesn’t need to be subjected to the bright light just yet? What can you secretly savor a little longer?

Tonite there is both a darkening and a sense of expansion, of zest. All sides of your spirit are out to play - what might emerge if you let them?

---

A brief list of October glimmers for me:

1. A friend’s 75th birthday party where I got to spend time with chosen family and enjoy freshly pressed apple cider and a live jazz band on the most beautiful autumn day.

   

2. Doing our annual apple tasting this past weekend with Golden Russet, Spencer, and Baldwin apples courtesy of Kimball Farms (and not coming up with one winner because they were all so. good.)

   

3. Receiving this gorgeous Mary Shelley pendant necklace from a dear friend, in plenty of time for Halloween. Did I tell you that she glows in the dark?

   

4. Tagging a Christmas tree at a local tree farm (yup, they let you choose and tag your tree on October 1st!). I’m not a November 1st Christmas decorator by any means (no judgement!), but I find that starting autumn by browsing trees in a beautiful rural setting while drinking hot chocolate just makes me happy. I’ll be excited to pick this sweet tree up after Thanksgiving and bring her home!

---

My final offering to you this evening is Lullaby for the Lost, a poem from Wild Unfolding, about how we might take good care when it feels like we might be turning into ghosts ourselves…