Winter arrives bringing with it the dieing down of nature, yet if Winter did not come there could be no pathway for Spring. The sunset brings darkness over the land, yet the Sun must go down, or how could the world sleep, and the Sun rise again. What we call death, leaving or completion is the same thing, yet it is indispensable because it completes the circle.

We will surely melt away even as the snow-flakes that fall upon a running stream.

Time is the root of all beings born and unborn of pleasure and of pain. Time destroys and it also renews everything continually. It remains unaltered, unassailable, the creator, preserver and destroyer.  

Within our dissolving bodies and the results of our harvest is a spiritual seed that is unconscious of change or decadence and will not be appeased except by a return  to the source of its existence. This seed  is born from the present and returns to the present. Born from darkness it returns to darkness. From being nothing it grows into something but must return to nothing. Unity to diversity and back to unity.

NOW is outside of nature, unseen, unheard and silent. Nature is seen, and manifests every sound. Now appears in the material world through the four elements of fire, water, air and earth, it is the womb of the Universe that gives birth to form. It is a space that provides the materials to build a body and at death these materials are redistributed back to nature. The same principles operate through all endeavours.

At Samhain we do not celebrate a persons struggle to become materially successful.  We celebrate the life, the year or the moment of the hero, who died or completed the circle between the intention and the harvest of their endeavours. We honour their struggle with their own habits, through their journey to learn how to act, feel, think, love, know and to serve. We can all become victims of our own personality yet a hero faces up to themselves in the shadows of their mind and does not give up trying to become a better instrument to further the needs of humanity.

We leave behind  the selfish motives that  we used to profit from nature and from others. In the long term life does not support the selfish use of material or people. We leave behind all of those things that we have symbolised as Halloween, with its orange and black scary ghouls.

Halloween is now just  a superficial commercial opportunity for the new shopping cathedrals.

What is selfishness and how does it manifest itself? We are addicted to using others for profit,

I give you one and you give me four back. In all contexts this results in a growing division between those who have more and those who have less. We need to have friends  whom we use to make us feel good about ourselves and we need  enemies to represent those things we cannot accept about ourselves. We have a need to blame, ridicule and make fun of someone else to make ourselves feel better. On an emotional, mental and spiritual level we use others for our own benefit. We have built a social system based on self interest and self protection. Resentment, being a bully or a victim is rampant. We have created the scary fun of Halloween in an attempt to belittle our fear and guilt about not taking responsibility for the world of unfairness we have created.

Samhain is letting go of the past, it is the motive that drives our endeavours that is important, not the result. Seeking excessive profit, Power over others, not sharing, holding back diversity and transparency are all motives that drive unhappiness, disease and poverty.

We could choose to do that which benefits the whole space, creating diversity,  controlling  the desires of our own mind and striving to become better human beings for ourselves and everyone else. Then we will not be left behind to be chased by the scary monsters of guilt,  we will be hallowed into the Universal chamber of transformation (womb). This also applies to being free to allow ourselves to be renewed by the process of sleep or winter.

Burn your grudges, resentments, blame, justifications, excuses and guilt on the bonfire of loving the whole of yourself and life..

Without leaving these grudges behind, Samhain will be no better than what Halloween has become.