Where Did All the Meaning Go? How Halloween Lost Its Roots by Heather Michet

Once upon a time not that long ago, the end of October brought celebrations of gratitude, reverence and honoring: the harvest was in, plants and planets that sustained life were thanked, and people readied themselves for the coming darkness and quiet of winter while acknowledging the dead and their part in the natural order of things.

 Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Now this time of year in the US means more plastic junk, too much sugar, ghoulish décor and wacky outfits.

How Did We Get Here?

What began as a ceremonial, earth-based, spiritual time with bonfires, harvest foods, and communing with the dead, has become a ghoulish, commercialized observance.

Here’s what happened (in a very simplified form):

• Ancient Celts celebrated the end of summer, the harvest, and the threshold between light (summer) and dark (winter) with their Samhain fire festival.  Happening over 3 days - October 31st–Nov 2nd – spirits of the dead were believed to be more visible and approachable during this liminal time.

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• Catholic popes attempted to “Christianize” Samhain.  This was done in an attempt to spread their religion and wipe out pagan traditions. Nov. 1^st became All Saints Day, aka All Hallows Day, making October 31^st All Hallows Eve.  Nov. 2^nd became All Souls Day. Note that the word pagan comes from the Latin ‘paganus’ which means villager or rustic, ie. a country dweller.  The Church moved the meaning to heathen.

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• Romans had their own fall festival which included honoring Pomona, the goddess of fruit and trees. There’s where our bobbing for apples at Halloween parties came from!

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• Irish immigrants in mid-19th century left the potato famine to come to the US, bringing many of the familiar Halloween traditions that we see today, including Jack-o-lanterns.  The early carvings, however, were out of beets, turnips and potatoes.

From Bonfires to Billions

Trick or Treating was popularized in the States in the 1950’s, beginning the rise to the celebration’s big revenue producer that it is today: More than 179 million people celebrate Halloween in the US, spending $10.6 BILLION.  Yes, billion with a B.

Photo by Lucas Ludwig on Unsplash

What Happened to Remembering the Dead?

By disrespecting our dead and death itself with our Halloween traditions, we have fueled our fear of death.  With the dead portrayed as gruesome, gory monsters and zombies, who wouldn't be scared of talking about death and dying?

In her wonderful book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, Katherine May states it perfectly: 

“Our contemporary celebrations forget the dead altogether…We are, after all, a society that has done all it can to erase death…the idea that we might be intimate with death is now some kind of a gothic joke.  Today’s Halloween simply reflects what we secretly think – that death is a surrender to decay that makes us monsters.”

Who Wouldn’t Be Afraid of Death?

I feel that in disrespecting our dead - and death itself - with our Halloween traditions, has fueled our fear of death.  With the dead portrayed as gruesome, gory monsters and zombies, who wouldn’t be scared of talking about death and dying?

Photo © Heather Michet

Mexico Saves the Day

Thankfully, one culture’s practice of celebrating and honoring the dead is thriving: Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos.  It is colorful, respectful, bright and meaning-filled, taking place on November 1st and 2nd.

I love this holiday!

Photo © Heather Michet

The best way to learn more about this festival is to attend a celebration in your community.  

If that’s not an option, watch the film Coco, one of my absolute favorite movies.  The story portrays the practices and meaning of this holiday beautifully. 

You can also read about the rituals I include at this time of year here.

You Can Be a Meaning Maker

Talk with your children, grandchildren and other adults about the true meaning behind Halloween.

It will make a difference in their lives and in our world.

Heather Michet is an impassioned healing artist, educator and Ceremonial Songstress who weaves lyrical, a cappella vocals throughout a wide array of ceremonies in a myriad of settings.  From weddings in the woods, graveside memorials, and ashes scatterings at the shore, her Celtic style voice embraces the heart and stirs the spirit of all who gather honoring life events.  You can connect with Heather and her work in any (or all!) of these ways:

• Learn about her wellness tools (including Fresh Air Fare) and services rooted in nature at Iris Healing Arts

• Listen to her music on YouTube 

• Read about her Ceremonial Songstress work at Purple Crow Sings

• Facebook – Heather Facebook – Purple Crow Sings   Facebook – Iris Healing Arts

• Instagram - @heathermichet

A Funny Thing Happened...

By Robin Weaver

A couple months after my husband died, a well-meaning friend suggested a book might help—a self-pubbed collection of grief memoirs written by my friend’s friend. Somehow, I managed to don my polite face, while I inwardly cringed. And re-cringing. And cringing again.

First, nothing was going to help but time; I had accepted that. During that period, the only way I could get through my day was to play happy music and pretend my grief didn’t exist (in full disclosure, a lot of Ben & Jerry’s was also involved).  Yet this friend wanted me to read about more death? I already knew I wasn’t alone in my experience, but to this day, I don’t really understand how people think hearing about another tragedy can possibly make another person feel better.

You can relax, I’m climbing off that soapbox. 😊 But on to the next… Second, (and I repeat: “Second!”) he wanted me to read a collection of memoirs? By an untrained author? Was he nuts? Maybe my friend was trying to kill me.

Anyway, I accepted the book with a semi-smile, and promptly donated it to Goodwill.  Only a few months later, at a music festival (yes, the music actually helped 😊), I met the memoir author. And formed an instant connection. Not only because we had a shared widowhood experience, but because Mary is actually one of the coolest people alive.

Even so, I still couldn’t read her book.  My philosophy is to never intentionally do something that’s going to make me sad. And knowing the author would make Mary’s pages even sadder.

Only Mary decided to turn her Loss World Monologues into a play. And I was asked to participate.

“Say what?” It’s like these people don’t even know me. What part of I can only handle grief with humor did my friends not get? Even worse, haven’t they heard my squeaky voice?  And even though I can get loud with the best of them, squeaky voices do not project.  Not to mention my acting experience is zero.

Not being able to say, “NO,” or even no, or “I don’t think so,” I auditioned, thinking I’d finally found my way out.  Only I didn’t realize (THEN) I had a major advantage—I could memorize quickly. In hindsight, I might have flubbed a few of those lines.  More important though, I had lived through the subject matter.

Anyway… I somehow survived the three months of rehearsals; rehearsals which entailed hearing (and speaking) about the despair that follows the death of a spouse. Despair I felt but didn’t want to acknowledge. And before you ask—no, it didn’t help. After every rehearsal, I’d go home and play Bon Jovi and Def Leppard at earsplitting volume. That helped.

What did help was the lasting friendships I formed, especially with the Mary. When we were celebrating the end of a successful show, someone jokingly asked, “When are you and Mary going to write the sequel?”

I replied honestly, I can’t do this weepy, but if you want to do a comedy, I’m in?”

One of Mary’s monologues detailed her boy box—a cigar box that she used to keep the cards of guys who asked her out out after her husband died. After ten years, she had a lot of cards.

Thus, The Box Box was conceived.  😊

The ebook is scheduled for release April 9^th, and the print book will follow shortly.  If any of you in the RTG world would like to be a beta-reader and provide us some feedback, we’d love to send you a free electronic copy.

Until then… Happy Wednesday!

    What would you do if the undertaker’s son made a pass at you?

At your husband’s funeral?

    Jana Byrd stuffs the cougar-hunter’s card into a box and forgets him.

As she struggles to focus on one-day-at-a-time after her husband’s death, Jana acquires several dozen cards from wanna-be-lovers, friends-seeking benefits, and the occasional nice guy.  All the cards remain in the Boy Box, until Jana’s friends decide they should all date again and decide to draw names from the box.

    Forty-something Jana scoffs at the idea of seeing other men.  She’s still in love with her five-years gone soulmate and chats with him daily.  

Her BFF Nanette Meeks is equally appalled by the dating scheme.  How can she possibly date again after her ex-husband divorced her to marry his bimbette-a mousy little thing barely out of her teens?  What man can be trusted? Other than her former spouse’s younger brother?

    Faith Chanton, a former Miss Georgia and jet-setting preacher’s widow, refuses to be thwarted by her friend’s dating resistance.  She demands the four ladies draw cards from the Boy Box and “get back out there.”

The hot blonde, with loads of charisma and an even bigger bank account, shouldn’t need a Boy Box card to have men worshipping at her temple.  Only the man she seeks doesn’t exist – one who walks on water and is deliciously devilish in the dark.

    Faith’s dating enthusiasm is buoyed by Sapphire Bellona, the youngest of the group.  She exudes the overconfidence that only occurs at age twenty-eight, and believes she can have any man she wants. Sapphire is continually mystified when date number two never happens.

    Only nothing is as it seems.  Will the friendships endure as the four women start the arduous journey of dating after death, divorce and bra fat?

A little bit too dead

It's Halloween this month, so naturally we're talking about DEATH! Eek!! Eenie, meanie, chili beanie, raise that zombie from the grave… or close your eyes, let go and reach for the light.

As an author of paranormal stories, you'd think I'd be all over the near death experience.

And I am. Sort of. I'm the first to admit I don't think the whole 'bright light at the end of the tunnel' thing means anything. I'm not a religious person. When I die, I'm not convinced I'm actually going anywhere. Most likely, I'll just… stop.

Then again, if the near-death thing happened to me, maybe I'd change my tune. There's a character in a Stephen King novel (I think it's Thinner) who says, "The definition of an a**hole is guy who doesn't believe what he's seeing." If I ever see that bright light? You can bet your fur I'll be running towards it.

Likewise, if one dark night, I get jumped in a greasy alley by a hungry bloodsucker and resurrected into a razor-fanged soldier for the hordes of the ravenous undead, you'd think I wouldn't be strutting around afterwards saying, "You know that whole vampire thing? Bollocks. Life after death? It's rubbish. Trust me."

Because denial only goes so far when it's actually happened to you.

Same with zombies. If civilization crashes to a halt, The Walking Dead style, I've got no illusions that I'll be among the survivors. With my luck? I'll probably be among the first to change into a rotting corpse who shambles around groaning and lusting for the flavor of warm living flesh. Urrrrrgh… and then, the joke will be firmly on me. No foolish nay-sayers will be able to claim the afterlife isn't real then, eh?

But until that happens, folks? Death is death, and—just like taxes and Justin Bieber—there ain't no escaping it. And if you do get a second chance? It's probably a scam.

My horror romance, Demon Chained, is about a dead guy named Tam. A murdered guy, in fact, who was a bad dude in life, so he got dragged straight to hell. Only he did a deal with a certain childish demon prince—yeah, alarm bells—so he could return, to walk the earth and avenge his own murder.

Nice plan, eh? Only Tam forgot to specify that he should come back alive. And blam! Back he goes into that body of his, the one with the bullet hole and the imminent decomposition problem. Cheers, Tam. Enjoy your day. He's about to learn the hard way that being dead – specifically, being undead, stuck halfway between life and whatever comes after – isn't all it’s cracked up to be.

Especially when he meets the girl of his dreams. Oyy. For a guy who used to have all the right moves? Talk about a body image problem.

But hey, romance is all about inner beauty, right? It's not what's outside, but what’s inside that counts. Tam's problem isn't being undead; it's his angry, vengeful heart. And if love can heal those wounds? Fixing a few physical ones should be a piece of cake.

So yeah. Halloween. Horror romance. Get some sweet un-death into you :) and if you should see that tunnel with the bright light shining down? Well, y'know. Why not?

xx
Erica
www.ericahayes.net

The Near Death Experience

I died for a moment (Near Death Experience!)
By Marcia King-Gamble
http://tinyurl.com/l9t2pcz

Near death experiences have always fascinated me. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard countless stories of people actually dying and being brought back to life. The newly revived all share a similar experience. They talk about their lives flashing before their eyes, of going through a tunnel and of following a white light.  There’s this enormous feeling of peace and love coming over them. Some have said they were floating above, watching people gather around their remains.  They could see and hear everything clearly.

Whether you believe them or not, it does make you wonder why so many have the same experience.   Are they hallucinating as so many medical professionals’ speculate? 

Dr. Sam Parnia was an honorary research fellow at the University of Southampton in the UK when he began to study these phenomena. His findings are published in the journal Resuscitation. He thinks these near death experiences are real and that people can eventually be brought back to life. According to Dr. Parnia, death is a potentially reversible process.  Does that mean refrigerated immediately, we could live forever? 

The brain supposedly stops functioning within 20-30 seconds of the heart not beating.  Yet patients who were monitored recount seeing and hearing for up to 3 minutes after their heart had stopped. The surviving patients often described the events and sounds in a 3-minute window after technically being dead. Incredibly, their memories are consistent with what actually occurred at the scene.

While I have never had a Near Death Experience, it has to have a profound effect on a person’s life and must change them forever.  Then there are those who missed death by happenstance. I have heard stories of people switching flights at the last minute, or giving up a seat on an airplane only to have the original flight go down. Divine Intervention or merely coincidence?  

A family friend who was never ever late for work overslept the day of the World Trade Center tragedy. She woke up half an hour late and went racing off  to catch the train. It was her day to make coffee.  Mortified, she attempted to go into the building when security pushed her back and pointed upward. The first plane had just struck one of the towers.   Some would say it was Divine Intervention that she did not die that day.

A Near Death experience is something I would like to write a story about. I think it would make for a great internal conflict if my hero never quite recovered from his brush with the afterlife.  I’ve dabbled a bit in paranormals and this concept might be interesting to explore.

In one of my earlier novels, Under Your Spell, I talk about the effects of witchcraft on the Caribbean people. And in one of my bigger books, This Way Home, the heroine’s home used to be a stop on The Underground Railroad where strange, unexplainable things happened.

Have any of you had a near death experience and one you are willing to share?

My heroine,  Andie,  in Tempting Andie, my latest novella, came close.

 http://tinyurl.com/of7wgxs
  http://tinyurl.com/kfnmztl


 http://www.booktalkauthors.com/mkg/newsletter_Oct2014.html
http:www.lovemarcia.com

Near Death Experience, Maybe?

By Diana McCollum

Years ago while living in Michigan, out of town in the country side, one of our friends was the local Sheriff. My husband at the time was doing some remodeling for a fellow who had moved to our small town.

This new fellow, I’ll call him Sam, spent money like crazy, and paid for everything in cash, including the $30,000 dollar remodel my husband did for him.

Sam took us for a celebration dinner after the project was completed. He told us he wanted my husband to build him a safe room in his basement, a room no one would know was there. Of course we were excited at the prospect of more work in a slow economy.

Our Sheriff friend calls us both into his office. He tells us about our “New” friend Sam. Sheriff holds up a rap sheet of previous crimes Sam had been convicted of, including Armed Robbery, Rape, Automobile Theft, you name it, it was probably on the list. His life of crime started at fourteen and he was around forty when we met him. Sam was under surveillance for recent unsolved store robberies in the county. Sam and his wife had moved from another state to our tiny town of four hundred people, right before the armed robberies started.

So we were told to report anything we heard from him or his wife such as if they were going out of town, if they bought something big and new, etc. Sam’s number was on my wall list of phone numbers next to the Sheriff’s. My husband called to say Sam was going to buy a new car in the next town over.

I dialed the Sheriff and Sam answered!! Oddly enough the numbers were one digit off. I said wrong number and hung up. Called the right number and told the Sheriff the mistake I had made. He told me to leave the house in case Sam was coming over. The Sheriff and Deputies had received evidence linking Sam to the local crime wave and were on their way to arrest him.

There’s a knock at the door, I see it is Sam, (this was before cell phones) I hid in the bedroom and called 911. Luckily for me, he left after knocking for five minutes.

Sam was arrested down the road from our house.

Have you ever been duped by a friend who turned out to be not at all who you thought he/she was?

Here's a blurb and the cover of my November 25th release, "The Witch with the Trident Tattoo".

Blurb: 

Gifted witch Ella Stone, born with an inherited affinity for water and the ability to talk to sea creatures, is on a mission. Ocean life is disappearing off the Atlantic Coast, and Poseidon needs her to find out why. She’ll do anything she can to find answers, even if that means hiring handsome, brooding sea captain Noah Drago to help.

Ella leads an isolated existence, keeping her secrets close. To the world at large she’s a scientist, but deep down she’s a lonely witch, wanting a deeper connection but afraid of reaching out. When Noah accidentally learns of her magic, she’ll have to trust him.

Noah has been a commercial fisherman all his life, except for five years as a Navy Seal. He’s seen and done things that scarred him, so he keeps to himself. But when Ella hires him, his life changes as quickly as a storm at sea. The sexy scientist’s kisses turn Noah’s world upside-down. Soon, he’s plunging into a world of myth, magic and passion.

But will their growing connection—their love—be enough to save them from an encroaching evil bent on destroying all life as they know it?

The end of a life

Hi everyone!
I am YA author B A Binns , writer of contemporary and realistic fiction for teens. My tagline says it all - Stories of Real Boys Growing Into Real Men - and the people who love them. This month I join the other Genre-Istas in talking about a more sombre subject.

This month we're blogging about near death experiences.

I could blog about the book I'm just finishing. It's a romantic suspense, my first adult novel since taking three years off to work exclusively on Young Adult novels and short stories. The Last Logan will be out in 2015. Writing that novel meant creating -- and killing -- a lot of people in a lot of unhealthy ways.  One of my critique partners cried when Elizabeth had to go. I did too, I really liked the woman.

I could blog about my first YA novel, PULL, where the hero's mother is murdered just before the story begins. Although that loss happens off the pages, it propels the hero on through his emotional arc as he learns to deal with the loss an help the new girl in his life who is dealing with her own losses

Or I could write about my most recent YA release, Minority of One, where I had to kill off a character I truly cared about. She didn't deserve to die, but the story was all about her end from the moment I got the idea.  She dies on the pages and my hero and heroine have to cope with what her loss means to them and to their future.

Instead I'm going to write about something personal. Its not about near death.

It's about Death.

I have...that is I had a dog named Dakari. She escaped death once when I agreed to give her a chance and take her in. I think she tried to be a good dog. It wasn't her fault her original owners moved to a place stamped No Dogs Allowed. It wasn't her fault she had epilepsy.

It certainly wasn't her fault she got me as her new owner.

She was always a bit stand-offish. I think she liked me, especially when I fed and walked her. But she liked running free more.

Most of all, she hated other dogs.

In the beginning it was just typical dominatrix things. Seriously, I thought her plans for doggie dominion were cute. But I never took into account the effect that long-lasting seizures could have on a brain. her domination turned into a desire to destroy.

She attacked a small dog last year while I was walking her. It was over quickly, and she didn't even puncture the other dog's skin. But that was only the first sign.

Earlier this year she jerked free of the leash, raced across the street and jumped a dog being walked by a neighbor. That dog needed treatment and cost me almost $300. I sought out doggie tranquilizers and talked about behavior modification treatment. I resolved tokeep a closer watch over her.

Until two weeks ago. I was having work done on the house. I locked her in the garage, let the  man in the front door, went through the house with him, and then let him out the back door and closed it. Then, is a moment of absent mindedness, I forgot I had never closed the front door.

Dakarai didn't forget. The second I let her back in the house from the garage she booked it out the still-open door.

I guess I'm lucky she only found one other dog to attack.

The vet and I discussed about her escalating behavior issues. Tranqs were not going to work. Work with a dog specialist might, but the truth was how could she ever be trusted around other dogs again? And how could I ever guarantee I would never make another mistake, or lose control if she lunged at the end of her leash. her seizures were growing more frequent and longer-lasting, sometimes ten or fifteen minutes.  That, the vet says, had probably caused brain damage. And because there was no way to stop her seizures, there could be more behavior changes in the future. She would attack again. The question was when, not if.

So I signed the papers and had her euthanized. On paper, I have taken the lives of men, women and children. In reality, I took the life of my best friend, so she would never injure another animal or human, or God-forbid, cause a death herself. As hard as it was for me to let her go, it would have been harder for me to someday have to turn to someone else and say "sorry for your loss." Especially since I could have done something to keep that from happening.


Authors are told to write what they know.  Today I know a lot more about emotional depth. I know about having someone else's future in my hands. Feeling like a murderer, and like a victim's loved one all at the same time.

It's no longer a cliche to me, a house really can feel empty when you walk in the door.

Cat People/Dog People

Hi everyone!
I am YA author B. A. Binns out here on the snowy tundra of the land that was once called Chicago but has now been renamed Chi-beria. In the words of one of my favorite songs, There must be dome kind of way out of here!!! 


I have always wondered if my antipathy towards cats springs from an incident in my childhood. I was in second or maybe third grade and I found a kitten left alone out in the cold (at least it wasn't as cold as these last few days or I would have had frozen kitty) I took it home, but I already knew what my parents would say, so I tried to keep it hidden. I think I had two days before I was caught.

The cat had to go, and no questions would change anything. No tears either.

I remember bundling the kitty inside my coat and taking it to school with me. That wasn't a real solution, but I was young and the only thing I really knew was that I would not just toss it out int he cold again. Instead I left her in a stairwell inside the school.

I never heard any commotion. There were no announcements on the intercom, no gossip about the stray cat. I went home and made myself believe someone with more understanding parents than I had found her and she was happy.

That's probably true.

But I never had or even wanted another cat. Never even wanted to be around them. I hate the purring, the staring, the obnoxious way they walk. I don't want to see another cat, not ever.

I'm now a dog person, through and through.

That's why the main character of my work-in-progress, tentatively titled Duet owns a cat. Her pet has to die and I won't kill a dog. Not even an imaginary one. I had to put my dog down over twenty years ago. She was an American Eskimo and she knew me better than I knew me.

I named her Melinda B. When I bought her she was just a few months old and could fit in my hands. She grew up to be about twenty pounds, the perfect pet (except for the shedding issue). I called her my mini-Samoyed. Smarter than me, she could be left alone and handled herself well. After one aborted bout with a great dane she decided friendship was the way to go with people and dogs. And especially with kids. I was warned the breed could be a little snippy with small children, but she loved them, even when they pulled her tail or her ears. She was my companion through college and my "New Adult" years, and then my real adult years.

But all good things come to an end, even really great dogs.  She lived for 17 years, unusual even for a small dog. But her legs got wobbly and she developed cancer. The vet said I needed to let go.

I couldn't. I took her home. And I watched struggle to keep being a good dog. I could tell walking was painful. She had lost control of her kidneys, but she kept trying to walk with me, to play ball. She was relieved when I sat down and just let her lay in my lap.

We went back to the vet. I chose to sit with her while we waited for the drugs to end her suffering. I stoked her and talked to her and I hope she didn't get that I was unhappy because she always wanted to cheer me up when I was sad. I didn't want her to feel she had to do anything except relax and fall sleep. And then stop breathing.

I managed to get all the way home before I burst into tears. And even though it has been almost thirty years, I have to push back tears to write this.

So I guess I'll stop.

But I hope you won't. Instead enter my Goodreads Give Away for an autographed copy of my new release, Minority of One. I promise you, no pets die in this story.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Minority Of One

by B.A. Binns

Giveaway ends March 01, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

P. S. You can also win a copy by liking All The Colors Of Love.
Five additional winners will be chosen from Facebook.