It is a time to honour our ancestors. A time to understand that there we people who went before us. People, who saw the world through a different perspective, and who were still in awe of Nature's power.
This year we are celebrating the changing time in a new location. Our journey from Thunder Bay, Ontario to Saint John New Brunswick has already begun. Packing, packing, packing, well, it is a good way to sweep your Life clean.
We leave town on the 24th so will have enough time to get established and celebrate the harvest. We are excited about being in a new place. People to meet, restaurants to discover, a farmer's market to explore and all this takes place during the final days of the Autumn Harvest, well at least here in Canada, that is.
Over the past fourteen years, the ghosts, goblins, superheroes and rock stars knocking on our door have been few. Each year we have 5 to 6 shape-shifters seeking sweets. Apples are what we give. The apple is a harvest food and has an honoured role during the Final Harvest.
The game bobbing for apples seems to have evolved from a much earlier tradition, that of that snatching a bite from the apple would enable the person to grasp good fortune. Apple bobbing was a marriage divination. The first person to bite an apple would be the first to marry in the coming year.
Apple peeling allowed you to see how long your life would be. The longer the unbroken apple peel, the longer your life. In Scotland, people would place stones in the ashes of the hearth before retiring for the night. Anyone whose stone had been disturbed during the night was said to be destined to die during the coming year. For the Druids, Samhain literally meant Summer's end. Samhain recognizes one of the two great doorways of the Celtic year.
The Celts divided the year into two seasons: the light and the dark. The gateways swung open at Beltane on May 1st and atSamhain on November 1st. Some believe that Samhain was the more important festival, marking the beginning of a whole new cycle, just as the Celtic day began at night. People believed that in dark silence comes whisperings of new beginnings. One could hear the stirring of the seed below the ground.
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