Halloween you either love it or hate it or are vaguely indifferent to this celebration.
When I was a child there was no trick or treat, that was an American thing you saw on the TV, though I lived on a farm on a busy main road without a footpath so we'd have had no visitors anyway.
A girl in school had her birthday around this time and would always have a halloween themed party which we loved, I remember my cousin helping to make a witches hat out of paper and a broom out of sticks and wood.
I personally don't like what Halloween has become. Yet another commercial event where people spend money on things they can't really afford.
Halloween is an interesting festival with lots of meanings in many different cultures and religions.
I prefer to focus on the old religions and their meaning.
Here this festival is called Samhain and it marks the end of the circle of the year, the final spoke in the wheel. The harvest is finished, the dying god is interred and the goddess has descended to the underworld to be reunited with her love.
Above the underworld, the people prepare for the veil between the world of the dead and the world of the living and all the other worlds that we do not normally see, to thin. It's a time for spirits, and faeries. It's a time for home and hearth and protection through the winter.
This is a time for remembrance, to remember those we have lost in the year and what we have lost or shed ourselves in the last 12 months. Perhaps start a new family ritual and lay orange flowers and/or rosemary on relatives graves. Or just go into a grave yard and find a neglected grave to tidy up and lay flowers on for those who no longer have anyone to remember them.
It's a time for reflection, to consider what we've achieved since this time last year, to consider what we have learnt.
This is the time to start thinking about the new year - gardeners and farmers will be planning their crops for 2019, making plans and managing their resources and we can do the same.
People often start their plans for the New Year in December or even January but we should take our time. Consider our learnings and reflect on the last 12 months so we can make the next 12 months even more successful.
So this Halloween why not start considering what you want to achieve in 2019. Think about what you will have achieved by this time next year and do a step by step plan, moving back to now, of how you will achieve it.
If you have children perhaps get them to make a vision board of what they want to achieve (they can think of it as a wish board and it's a visual way to make a spell for the future, remember a spell is just like an affirmation, a mantra or a prayer).
Consider how you'll spend the winter months preparing for what you want - it could be reading those books, doing that online course, or just resting by an open fire.
Give yourself the time to really consider and plan a year that will see change happen, by embracing those dark winter nights and giving yourself time to think, plan and just be.
This Halloween have a toast to those who have left you and thank them for the impact they had on your life. Slow down just like the natural world is, rest, recharge so you are ready for a glorious year to come.
Bright Blessings and Happy Halloween
Haulwen