Samhain

Here, candles and bone-cold nights; where you are, who waits on the other side of the door?

Samhain is the hinge of the year—the night when the old year dies and the new year has not yet begun. Between them: nothing. A gap. A breath held between exhale and inhale.

The veil between worlds thins. This is not metaphor but description. The dead draw closer. The spirits walk. What was separated grows permeable. We feel it in the cold that is more than weather, the dark that is more than absence of light.

This is not a night to fear, but a night to attend. The dead are not strangers. They are ours.

Practice

Set a place at your table for the dead. A plate, a cup, a candle. Simple offerings: bread, salt, water, perhaps a taste of what you’re eating. Name who you’re inviting—speak it aloud. The dead like to be remembered by name.

Leave your door unlatched after dark, if you can do so safely. This is not invitation to danger but gesture of welcome. The ancestors do not need open doors, but they notice the courtesy.

After midnight, extinguish your candles and sit in the dark. Listen. The communication may not be in words. It may be in feeling, in memory, in sudden knowing. Trust what comes.

Reflection

Who are your dead? What do they want you to remember? What needs to die in you before the new year can begin?

Notes

The bonfire at Samhain was lit from need-fire—flame kindled by friction, not carried from elsewhere. All household fires were extinguished and relit from this communal flame. Consider what needs rekindling from a fresh source.