Most people mourn the end of summer. Not me. When the sun starts setting earlier, and the days get cooler, my thoughts turn toward some of my favorite things. Autumn brings Mellowcreme pumpkins, Native American Corn (Brach's calls it Indian Corn, but we like to be sensitive), apple picking, cardigans, the smell of a wood fire on a cool morning, leaves changing to glowing shades of red and yellow, Halloween, and endless marathons of every ghost hunting show on cable. This is truly my favorite time of the year. I know I'm not alone in this.
It's only October 1st and already the Halloween decorations are going up. This morning, I spied a porch sporting a life-sized mummy complete with Egyptian headdress and a haunted butler greeting visitors. That kind of hard-core decor always makes me smile. But only the most dedicated Halloween lovers are decorating right now.
Which brings me to an interesting question: how early is too early to decorate for Halloween? Some years, I'm so excited for autumn to start and the heat of summer to leave me the hell alone, that I'm set to pull out the spiderweb table runner and eyeball lights the day after Labor Day. This year, it didn't start feeling like fall had arrived until -astrologically - fall had actually arrived. So is the Vernal Equinox the ideal date? I say yes. Early September is still too hot to evoke the spooky dark nights of the Halloween season. By the time the equinox rolls around, the sun is going down earlier and the nights are getting chilly. If Christmas can start the day after Thanksgiving, then why can't Halloween be more than just a single day? I say let it be a full season. Let's all do it like they do in Salem, MA.
Speaking of Salem, I've heard the time between the fall equinox and Halloween referred to as "the season of the witch". In Wicca and Paganism, the equinox is the second of three harvest holidays, and is called Mabon. October 31 is the final harvest holiday, and believed to be a time when the veil between the worlds is at it's thinnest. It's a time to connect with and honor our dearly departed. To me, the entire season between the equinox and Thanksgiving crackles with a different energy than any other time of year. Perhaps it is the cool air, not so cold that it's hard to cope with, but too cool to forget ourselves with the sun and all of the activities that come with the season of light. We tuck in, wrap ourselves in warmth and the spoils of the growing season. And on those breezy, dark nights, we sense the dying of the light and the coming dormancy of the natural world. This changes our perspective somehow, turns us inward, and prepares us for the winter. And just maybe, it quiets us enough to hear the voices of those that have come before us.
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