With Halloween falling on a Monday this year, it seems like most costumed debauchery occurred this past weekend. Regardless of the week day it falls on, October 31st is traditionally a time of transition. And for me this day of the year where the veil is thinnest between this world and the next, between the present and what has come before, is for reflection.
Reading through grandpa Kammerer’s journals, there are sporadic references to “Halloweening,” either himself in early journals from his high school days or my dad in the 1950s and 1960s.
But many entries for October 31st focus on the end of the growing season - noting the total length for that year and often how much rainfall Chicago received. It seems fitting that a man who dedicated his life to plants, religiously noting weather conditions and nature observations in his daily diaries, would reflect on the changing seasons on this particular day.
Keeping with his theme of celebrating the changing seasons, my grandpa often wrote about flower arrangements he made for the house and the Arboretum this time of year. October 31st of 1951, he described a Chrysanthemum and Pachysandra arrangement he created for their living room.
The years he was up at the Michigan cottage on the last day of October, he made note of the changes in foliage color and the spectacular autumn sunsets over Dewberry Hill.
This day, besides being Halloween, is also Samhain, a holiday stemming from Druidic tradition. Spanning October 31 to November 1st, celebrates both the end of the growing season and the thinnest point in the veil separating us from our lost loved ones. This day asks us to connect and open a dialogue with those who are gone but continue to guide us on our path.
For me, this is a day of remembering. For reflecting on how this shift in seasons reminds me of where I’ve been, and how the family that has come before me shaped who I am today. That connection to my ancestors is especially front of mind for me, given that I regularly visit my grandfather and his life through reading his journals and poring over slide and images he captured. Even so, these past few years I’ve made a particular effort to connect to the thread of my family members who have passed and remember their lives on October 31st. It has been a valuable exercise to take a few minutes to meditate on how I’m carrying on their legacy and consider everything they’ve taught me, even after death. Whether tapping into the cycle of nature or noticing the ways family that is no longer with us are still present, albeit in a less tangible way, I’d encourage you to take advantage of whatever thin veil calls to you today.
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