Before Halloween became all about dressing up as ghosts, ghouls, witches and wolves, carving faces in pumpkins, going to parties and tricker treating for candy. Halloween was and meant so much more, it was something older and quieter. It is on this day that the veil between worlds grew thin it was something sacred. It was Samhain, the Celtic turning of the year, when the harvest ended, when the cold breath of winter whispered through the fields.
The Forgotten Fire
Families would gather by the fire, but not to frighten instead to honour-welcoming the souls of ancestors, guarding against the wondering lost. Candles glowed not in pumpkins but in hollowed turnips to help guide spirits home. On the door steps you would find food was left not for tricksters in masks no this food was for loved ones who had crossed beyond the mortal fog.
Samhain was not a night of fear, it was a night of remembrance. It was a look at the in between of the seen and unseen the moment when the earth exhaled and time bowed its head. Now the sacred fires are replaced by porch lights and food by candy and fun. Long since passed the days when this was a dance with eternity. This night was once to honour death but now is a carnival of costumes. A ritual of sugar, plastic, and neon lights. Though beneath all this the spirit still stirs.
The Masked World We Made
When a candle flickers inside a jack-o-lantern, a chill crawls down our spines, when the moon rises, the whisper of Samhain is felt. We are called to remember the ancient call of what has passed and celebrate what remains. To listen to the place between heartbeats where life and death hold hands beneath the autumn sky.
Halloween at its truest is about connection, not monsters or candy. It is the poetry of endings and beginnings to remind us that all things fade and nothing is ever really gone. Remember that shadows are not empty. So on this day while you laugh, dance, and share your sweets. Pause a moment in the stillness and remember that shadows are the memories of everything we’ve loved and that they are waiting to walk with us once more.
The Poetic Truth Beneath The Play
Halloween has a duality like the way it wears a mask as we do. Underneath the candy and costumes an old truth lies: Life and death are not enemies. They are dance partners. When you celebrate Halloween, you stand in both worlds laughing in the face of darkness, still honouring what came before.
Continue to dress up, carve pumpkins, share sweets and stories-just remember when the night quiets, light a candle for your ancestors, memories, and your own becoming. Stand beneath the moon a moment and feel the veil thin and remember that Halloween at its heart is not about monsters or fear it is about connection. The poetry of endings and beginnings. Remembering that every shadow once belonged to light.
Closing Reflections
We are invited to remember not just to revel. Halloween is the one night when the world slows down for the living and the departed to meet halfway, and if you listen closely you will hear the whisper of the old world still alive in ours.