Hallows - Celebrating the Dark Half

There are many iterations of the wheel of the year- the sacred calendar that helps us to more intentionally acknowledge and engage with the dance of the seasons and the breath of nature. The way I follow the wheel, which is focused very much on the ways of the plants and on agrarian festivals, the year itself is split into two halves: a dark and a light. From May Day through the last day of October we’re in the bright half where the plant spirits are invested in our side of the hedge and are growing, leafing, flowering, and fruiting. From November first through the last day of April, we’re in the dark half of the year when the plants recede down into the rootworld to rest and engage with their own verdant mysteries.

Hallows is the honoring of the transition from bright to dark. Known in many Pagan traditions as Halloween, Samhuinn, Samhain, All Hallows Eve, and Day of the Dead, this is a time of great power when the hedge which generally separates our world from the otherworld is at its most thin and permeable. I’ve posted a free class below which will share with you just why this hedge or veil becomes thin from the perspective of plant spirit work- you’ll have to watch it to learn this intriguing green mystery!

The plants are always our great teachers. They show at this time of year that the energy which ascends, reaches upward and outward, chases the sun, and focuses on growth and production shifts into a downward and inward, slow and condensed, dark-chasing kind of energy. While the plants slide down into the world below to rest and to engage with the ways of their own world, we human folk can follow along. We can start to slow down, settle into the body, center our own rest and recovery from the active months of the bright half, and turn inward to our own dark mysteries within. Here, darkness is in no way equated with concepts of evil- it is a space of silence, mystery, and potential. This is a darkness aligned to that of the womb, the cauldron, and the soil- all dark places from which life emerges.

The plants teach us that below, underneath, parallel to, or hidden within the usual, obvious, and expressive aspects of nature and of ourselves is an otherness, the stuff we’re made of. In nature this otherness is of course the world of spirit upon which our own world floats like an island. Personally, this otherness is the truth of who we are- the depth of our own spirit.

So, Hallows invites us to acknowledge the part of us that is likened to the otherworld and to do the same for others. We do this ritually and folklorically by honoring the ancestors who are proof that the spirit survives the initiation of death; we reach through the parted hedge of Samhain to work with them.

The most important way to engage with the sacred season of Hallows, the shifting of energetic tide, and the parting of the hedge, is to honor the ancestors. In my work, I honor the ancestors of blood, land, and tradition- and I pay a special homage to those herbwise ancestors who have passed on their green wisdom to me via folklore, traditions, stories, charms, and the like.

The plants teach us that death is an initiation, a mystery… and that inevitably life will emerge from the depths of the death state. All that dies becomes the fertile ground upon which the next season of growth is nourished. So, we can confront our own fears and apprehensions about death at Hallows- and we can reach out to our good, noble, and blessed dead to send our continued love and memory of them while also asking them to remain part of our lives.

For those who are new to ancestral work, let me share this with you: the dead remain an active and invested part of our lives. While they are other now, they were once just like us and they continue to see themselves in us. We are the current expression of a long line of life of which they were once part. When we honor them and invite them to walk with us, they do, infallibly. Their otherness gives them access to a wealth of perspective, wisdom, and power which is radically different than our own and which can transform our lives into something quite magical when we allow it.

So, I invite you to celebrate Hallows alongside countless others and pour a libation for your noble dead, share a portion of a meal made in celebration of them, and remember that they live on through you.

Blessed Hallows, all!

Here’s the free class I mentioned above…