All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Dia de los Muertos, Samhain

What do All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Dia de Los Muertos, and Samhain have in common? Each is a celebration of the dead.

I’m Protestant, but I love the first three celebrations because they are about respect for those who’ve gone before us. How could anyone who loves history and family history as much as I do fail to feel that way? Different Christian traditions define, remember, and respond to the departed in different ways. All Souls' Day is celebrated the first Sunday in November in the church to which I belong. In the morning church service, a candle is lighted for each person of the congregation who has died during the past year as that person’s name is read aloud. Following immediately, a minister offers a prayer of remembrance.


All Saints

 According to Wikipedia, All Saints' Day (in the Roman Catholic Church officially the Solemnity of All Saints and also called All Hallows or Hallowmas), often shortened to All Saints, is a solemnity celebrated in honor of all the saints, both known and unknown. In Western Christianity the celebration is on November 1st. In Eastern Christianity, the observance is on the first Sunday after Pentecost. In many countries, All Saints Day is a federal holiday. 



"Day of the Dead" by
William Bougereau

All Souls' Day commemorates the faithful departed. In Western Christianity, this day is observed principally in the Catholic Church, although some churches of the Anglican Communion and the Old Catholic Churches also celebrate it. The Eastern Orthodox churches observe several All Souls' Days during the year. When they died, the souls had not yet attained full sanctification and moral perfection, a requirement for entrance into Heaven. This sanctification is carried out posthumously in Purgatory.

Catrinas

Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a holiday celebrated by many in Mexico and by some Mexican Americans living in the United States and Canada. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. The celebration occurs on November 2 in connection with the Catholic holidays of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. Traditions connected with the holiday include building private altars honoring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts. Due to occurring shortly after Halloween, the Day of the Dead is sometimes thought to be a similar holiday, although the two actually have little in common. The Day of the Dead is a time of celebration, where partying and eating is common.

Scholars trace the origins of the modern holiday to indigenous observances dating back thousands of years and to an Aztec festival dedicated to a goddess called Mictecacihuatl. In Brazil, Dia de Finados is a public holiday that many Brazilians celebrate by visiting cemeteries and churches. In Spain, there are festivals and parades, and, at the end of the day, people gather at cemeteries and pray for their dead loved ones. Similar observances occur elsewhere in Europe, and similarly themed celebrations appear in many Asian and African cultures.

End Of The Harvest

Samhain ( /ˈsɑːwɪn/, /ˈsaʊ.ɪn/, or /ˈsaʊn/) is a Gaelic festival held on October 31–November 1. The Irish name Samhain is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end". A harvest festival with ancient roots in Celtic polytheism, it was linked to festivals held around the same time in other Celtic cultures, and continued to be celebrated in late medieval times. Due to its date it became associated with the Christian festival All Saints Day, and greatly influenced modern celebration of Halloween. Samhain marked the end of the harvest, the end of the lighter half of the year and beginning of the darker half. It was traditionally celebrated over the course of several days. Many scholars believe that it was the beginning of the Celtic year. It has some elements of a festival of the dead.

Witch at Samhain

Because so many plants and animals were dying, the Gaels believed that the border between this world and the otherworld became thin on Samhain. This it allowed the dead to reach back through the veil that separated them from the living. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities. People and their livestock would often walk between two bonfires as a cleansing ritual, and the bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames. The Gaelic custom of wearing costumes and masks, was an attempt to copy the spirits or placate them.  I've no idea why Samhain became a time linked to Wicca, but I suppose (personal opinion only) it was linked because of Wicca's ties to nature.

Hallowe'en Treat From Cherie De Sues

Chérie De Sues' family heritage is half Gypsy and half Wicca. She writes thrillers, contemporary and paranormal suspense novels in sensuous to sizzling heat levels. Her latest paranormal suspense novel release, THE SEDUCTION OF SIMONE, is critically acclaimed by LASR-Whipped Cream Reviews with 5 Cherries, "Ms. De Sues is a truly talented writer. I was quickly drawn into the characters' lives and their emotions."


Here's a blurb:

Simone Devereaux has inherited an estate on the Northern California coast after her Aunt Celeste meets with a sudden, mysterious death. The hot neighbor, Trent Grayson, insists Celeste was murdered, and wants to be more than the man-next-door.

When clients arrive to pose for their nude portraits over the weekend, Simone realizes she's inherited more than an estate. Two randy poltergeists enter her dreams for a lusty ménage, and a budding serial killer threatens her sanity. Now her Wiccan mother and gypsy father are coming for a visit, just in time to watch Simone lose her heart . . . and possibly her life.

You can read the full first chapter at Noble Romance Publishing
BUY LINK: https://www.nobleromance.com/ItemDisplay.aspx?i=157

When Chérie isn't promoting, speaking with romance readers online or writing her sizzling novels, she writes pagan articles for her website, Irish Gypsy's Parlor at http://www.cheriedesues.com/. With Halloween and Samhain just around the corner, Chérie gave us the following special treat for the season.

         To Keep A Ghost Or Send One Away

Scribed by Chérie De Sues

Thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia, ghosts were considered the spirits or souls of the living who could cause harm to the living if sacrifices were not made to appease the ghosts. Over 2,500 years in ancient Egypt, Egyptians believed in the existence of an afterlife and even the possibility of a second death. Most cultures have a belief in ghosts or the soul/spirit of a deceased person.

The descriptions of the ghosts range from an invisible presence, translucent, shapes that change form like smoke to life-like versions of the dead. When a witch, gypsy or other pagan like a medicine man attempts to summon the dead spirits, that is known as necromancy. The ritual may be called a séance, a spell or many other names, but the desire is the same...raise the dead to make contact.

For centuries, witches, wizards, gypsies and others have been paid to communicate with the dead. Ghosts are known to haunt certain locations, ordinary objects and people they knew in life. On a grander scale, there have been reports across the globe of phantom ships at sea, ghostly trains that rumbled by on broken tracks and ghost animals.

Some places or homes that have experienced great violence, tragedy, murder or suicides have been called haunted. Supernatural activity by ghosts or spirits who become lost or confused after death may fail to pass to the other side. Often an experienced medium is asked to cleanse the home or place of a ghostly presence.

If you want to live with the spirits in your home, honor them with incense, candles and say this chant three times.

A spirit I'd rather not meet!

Spirits of my home, you shall live,
In every chamber my light I give,
To every corner my breath I send,
This home I share you may attend.

To rid yourself of a haunting presence use this method on Samhain (Halloween).

The presence that stands upon the stairs
The unseen hands that move the chairs.
The lights that play across the wall,
The stains that stay, the plates that fall,
The mist, the chill, the wandering scents
This gentle spell must speed them hence.
At midnight, set a table neat,
With cup and plate, and wine and meat,

One of the not-so-dearly departed

 Invite the ghost to sit and feast,
As any host should urge a guest.
Presently, clear the meal away,
Then open the door and softly say-
"Quick or dead, thou art fed,
Cease to grieve and take thy leave"
Bid him depart but should he remain
Be calm, take heart and feast him again.

Thanks to Cherie for her post. Readers, are you scared yet?