All Hallow's Eve

It's almost time.
 The squirrels are feasting on all the pumpkins on the front steps and the neighbors are out-doing each other in creativity.
 I remember one year when my kids we small and we were trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, the same place where we currently live. One corner house had its front door open and the storm door closed so that you still had to ring the door-bell. Their staircase faced the open door. My little nephew stepped up, rang the door-bell. The most horrible skeleton came whooshing down the stairs, causing my nephew to jump fifty feet straight backwards! No amount of candy could entice him back to that front door.
This year, I plan on dressing as Medusa. Naturally, my little granddaughters also want to be Medusa and they insist that their mom also dress as Medusa. I've got a lot of snakes to make!
 I want to do Medusa justice.
She's been given a bad rap these last few millenia. According to  The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (1983), Medusa "was the serpent-headed Goddess of the Libyan Amazons, representing 'female wisdom'. She was the destroyer aspect of the triple Goddess, called Neith in Egypt, Ath-enna or Athena in North Africa. Her inscription at Sais called her 'mother of all the gods, whom she bore before childbirth existed'." Many of the sites I visited while researching her spoke of her great beauty which, unfortunately, caused Poseidon to be so smitten that he "had his way with her" against her will. Athena was so angry that this event took place in her temple that she punished Medusa by changing her beautiful hair into snakes! So much for justice.
And, while I have your ear, or your eye actually, let's talk about Halloween. In The Women's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects (1988), Halloween (or Samhain) is described like this - "Our Halloween rituals are relics of the pagan (pagan means "country dweller" from the Latin Paganus) All Hallows Eve, the original night-time festival according to the Lunar calendar, preceding the Solar day-time version that was Christianized as "All Saints". It was a "feast of the dead", when the cracks between the worlds was the thinnest. Relatives who were deceased could attend the feast and visit their loved ones.
 Let me say it again- LOVED ONES.
No demons or devils or ugly intentions. At least, not in the beginning. That's the celebration I have always honored. I put out an "ancestor plate" and a glass of wine before I take the kids out for some fun. My neighborhood is very kid-friendly and we all know each other so its great fun. This IS one of my very favorite holidays.
 Have a boo-ti-full evening!


Walker, B.(1983) The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Harper and Row, New York, New York

Walker, B.G. (1988) The Women's Encyclopedia of Symbols and Sacred Objects. Harper's Collins, New York, New York