Get your own Free Home PageDeath was all around as summer came to a close. Leaves on trees were dying and turning colors in their final days. Winds ripped them from branches and whipped them across pastures and hills. Fields lay fallow. Nothing planted now would survive the winter's coming blasts.
Harvests were in. Tidy bundles of grain were put into granaries and barns. Herds of livestock were culled down to both provide meat for the wintertime and to save on the grain it took to feed the flocks and herds for the winter. Preserves were put up, seeds were dried and saved.
And yet, the trees which had lost their leaves and were now standing bare and harsh in the cold wind, were not dead but merely dormant. They were waiting for the warm spring winds and rain to refresh them and bring forth new leaves. Grass would grow again, weeds would once again invade the fields and bedevil the farmers. Life was waiting to be reborn.
In our tradition, Samhain or Hallowe'en is the embodiment of death and
rebirth. The dead will not stay dead, but will rise again in the
spring. Such is life, such is the cycle of the earth.
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