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Sunday 31 October for 4 days
In solar calendars throughout the Northern
Hemisphere, this is the mid-autumn festival of the dead, directly
opposite the new life rituals of greening, leafing out and renewal
celebrated in Beltaine, May Day and other mid-spring festivals.
Among the many rites celebrated now: Hallowe'en, of course.
This is the last day of the Celtic year,
on which it is said that the Sun actually enters the gates of
Hell, creating an opening wide enough to allow malicious spirits
to fly out and create mayhem on the Earth for the next 48 hours.
The spirits of the dead are believed to return to their family
homes on the night of 10/31, and the annual children's custom
of dressing as ghosts and ghouls and going door to door for treats
echoes the ancient practice of placing food and drink offerings
near the door to placate wild and hungry spirits that are apt
to roam and rumble on this night. The great Celtic rite of Samhain,
on the following day, begins the New Year with the feast of the
death goddess Cerridwen, whose power waxes now as the Holly King,
symbol of the waning sun, grows decrepit with the approach of
winter.
In the Egyptian calendar, festivals of
the sun god Ra, the cat goddess Bastet and the lion goddess Sekhmet
are all celebrated on this day. The last of these, in her dire
aspect as goddess of magic, the Lady of Fire and punitive destroyer
of evil, is protector of women against rape and all sexual violence,
as embodied in Egyptian myth by Set, Neter of chaos and destruction,
who perpetrates the murder of king Osiris on this day. This feast
is the ancient basis of links among Hallowe'en, medicine women
and their feline familiars.
This last day of October is also a Goddess
festival honoring the art of weaving. "Originally (Hallowe'en)
was a celebration honoring our creator goddess. That is why the
spider is one of the symbols of Halloween. The Hopis called their
creator, Spider Woman." [Mahala Gayle Flenniken]
Among the ancient Sumerian people, one
of the world's first festivals of light descending into darkness
is held now as Inanna, Goddess of Life, enters the underworld
to spend the next six months with Ereshkigal, Lord of Death and
Rebirth -- but on condition that she spend the other six in the
green places with her summer lover Dumuzi. Many other myths of
the Scorpionic death and transformation cycle occur among the
Canaanites, Greeks, Japanese and many others.
One wonders if Martin Luther had in mind
the ancient significance of this day and night -- as a time when
numberless troubles are said to stalk the world -- when he chose
Hallowe'en in 1517 as the day to nail to the door of Wittenberg
cathedral the famous 95 theses that would launch the Protestant
Reformation. Since Luther's time, Lutherans and some other Protestant
denominations have celebrated the Sunday closest to Oct. 31 as
Reformation Sunday, because it is the Sunday in October closest
to Oct. 31. This year Reformation Sunday falls on Hallowe'en.
Thanks to Dan Furst at the Universal
Festival Calendar
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