by Nancy Robbins
All Hallow’s eve is celebrated in many countries on October 31st, and is also known as Halloween, Hallowe’en, Samhain, All Saint’s Eve or Day of the Dead. It is the eve before the Christian All Saint’s Day. It begins the observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. It is also the eve of the Wiccan/Celtic sabbat – New Year Day, which is also the third and final harvest festival. It is a time when the veil thins between this world and the next. It is a time to connect to spirit and honor those who have departed this world – loved ones and ancestors.
Samhain is a Gaelic word that means “summers end”. It is an annual festival of death that occurs at the conclusion of the Celtic agricultural cycle. The ancient Celts wisely noted that endings and beginnings are united and flow endlessly like a wheel. It is a time to honor those who have passed as the veil thins at this time allowing for connection and communication with otherworldly spirits. It is a time to honor the ancestors and the dead. It was known to the Celts and ancient Egyptians and Mexicans as the Day of the Dead – a night to remember loved ones and honor their ancestors. It is also a celebration of reincarnation in noting the absence of the Sun God who will be reborn at the Winter Solstice (Yule) as the Child of Promise.
All Hallow’s Eve Meditation #1: Ancestral Healing
Imagine that you are sitting at the base of a great lofty tree that creates a beautiful canopy overhead and has deep secure roots. You feel the heartbeat of the tree and take in its aroma. You feel you are the tree with your spine strong like the trunk. You feel the current of life force energy moving along its column. Feel the roots of your spine as it sinks deeply within the coolness of Mother Earth. Feel any heavy energies of thoughts or emotions within you drain down into the ground. You feel purified and so light that you could float into the air.
Now feel a gentle flow of energy moving up your spine from the heart of Earth to the tips of your branches reaching for the warm golden sunlight. This energy rejuvenates you along this alignment with your parents. You focus now on how deeply rooted and lovingly supported you feel by your Mother Earth and cherished with her love. You are also strong and secure even as your branches reach towards the light of the sky.
This is a tree of your ancestry, and you are here to connect with your ancestors. You feel a touch on your hand, and you see the image of a woman from your ancestral line. By looking into her eyes, you sense the strengths and weaknesses inherited from the maternal line of ancestors and issues that need healing. Your female ancestor steps forward with a specific issue that needs healing and she relays this to you. Receive impressions of this issue. You bring in divine light to burn away any negative qualities, and transform the issue with the divine light for the highest good of your female ancestor, and consequently the entire maternal line.
Your female ancestor receives this transformative healing. Your female ancestor requests that you extend out both of your hands palms up. In your right hand she places the awareness of a skill that you inherited from the maternal side of your family. You take a moment to comprehend the gift. In your left hand she places a loving gift from the maternal side. You thank her for these gifts.
Now a male ancestor appears before you and reveals an issue that requires healing. You bring in divine light to burn away any negative qualities, and transform the issue with the divine light for the highest good of your male ancestor, and consequently the entire paternal line.
Your male ancestor receives this transformative healing. He also has gifts to place in your hands. He places in your right hand a gift that symbolizes a skill that you inherited from the paternal side of your family ancestry. He places in your left hand a loving gift from the paternal side of your family. You thank him for these gifts.
Now, all your female and male ancestors unite and form a circle around you, as if you are the family tree. They celebrate their togetherness with you, and surround you with their love, wisdom, and support. Take a moment to gaze into their faces and feel the solidarity around you. Feel the expanding joy in your heart. The pulsing heartbeat of the Earth unites all together under the divine heavenly light. Feel a deep connection within the family circle.
All Hallow’s Eve Meditation #2: – Ancestral Connection
Light a black candle and some incense and hold a Smoky Quartz crystal or Petrified Wood in your hands. Observe the smoke rise into the air. The flame represents spirit and the process of transformation. The smoke carries the spirit into the air. Visualize that as the smoke rises, it also carries your thoughts of love and respect, forgiveness, and appreciation to your loved ones or ancestor. Let any negative thoughts, anger, resentments, or disappointments connected with your loved ones be transmuted as it rises into the higher atmosphere – so that there is only love in the connection. Allow yourself to have freedom with forgiveness. Communicate from your heart and let the smoke carry it up to your ancestor/loved one.
All Hallow’s Eve activities:
- Explore your genealogy, and the many gifts you have received from your ancestors. Feel the connection.
- Cemetery visit – Visit and tend the gravesite of a loved one at a cemetery. Call to mind memories and consider ways the loved one continues to live on within you. Place an offering there such as fresh flowers, dried herbs, or a libation of water.
- Light a candle in remembrance of past loved ones with a picture or artwork of them. What wisdom have you gained from them? What are your fondest memories of them?
- Create an altar dedicated to your ancestors.
- Bake and create a feast with apples, pumpkins, and fruits and vegetables of the season.
- Go on a hayride, pick apples, go to a pumpkin patch.
- Dress up as one of your ancestors, or be a magical nature spirit or angel.
- Meditate with Petrified Wood – Petrified Wood is a Stone of Ancient Knowledge. It is fossilized wood or agatized wood and a member of the Quartz family. It is a stone of patience and steady spiritual growth and teaches you to trust the flow of life, evolution, and divine timing. It assists with past-life recall and in connecting to ancestral knowledge. It connects you to the ancient trees of Earth and in accessing the Akashic Records.