Published by While children (and big kids) the world over are trick-or-treating and dressing up as witches and ghosts (at least what the secular mind thinks of as witches and ghosts), we as pagans will be thinking about the ancestors, without whose lives ours would not be possible.
To remember them is a matter of respect. To invoke them and invite them in is far from frightening. If you weren’t afraid of your ancestors in flesh, why would you be afraid of their spirits? It makes sense that a loved one misses you on that side as much as you miss them on this. Death is the only guarantee in life, but pagans do not believe that death is the end of life: it is simply a transition from one life to another.
Of course we cry when we remember, but not because death is final. We cry because we miss our grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts, uncles, even pets. They’re not here with us any more, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never see them again. We frequently do see them. Perhaps it’s a movement, a shadow, something in the corner of an eye. We just as often feel them; that sense that we’re not alone in a room, perhaps, or someone is there helping us when we need them the most. It’s a comfort that I, for one, would not want to be without.
So, whether you bolt your doors against unwelcome visitors at the end of October or whether you hand out sweets like confetti, remember those of us who remember the others. The others who should never be forgotten.
