Samhain Blessings

As the Sun goes down on the "Celtic" year, and we call out in love and respect to those who've gone before and passed into mystery... the doorbell rings. 

Walking skeletons, green faced witches and ghoulish zombies offer their most horrible screeches. It's Halloween! Mostly secular and remote from it's Christian roots, it harkens to the same connection with the other-worlds, death and ancestors we commemorate at Samhain.

The Sun goes down over the Severn, behind the Tyndale Monument. William Tyndale; the man who translated the bible into English so everyone could understand, and was strangled then burned at the stake for his heresy. Despite everything, you have to admire a man who pushes back against censorship. The wikileaks of his time, perhaps.

I raise a glass to those gone ahead, and in the moment of it remember so many names and faces; loved, admired, honoured. I remember my father, her mother, aunts and uncles, teachers and nieces and, on this hundredth year, so many nameless ones who thought they'd stopped war forever.

A week hence, at least half of the ten million quids worth of pumpkins sold in this country will be off to landfill. What a waste! If you're celebrating Halloween with this Irish-American tradition, please do consider making soup, pie, or at least putting the gooey shell out for animals to feed on before the winter chills.

And remember your ancestors. Some of them might not have been splendid, but you are the result of their loves and lives. And one day you'll join them. Spooky eh.

Sláinte.