Sweet Samhain

Today is Halloween. For the most part, our neighborhood is decorated for celebration: yards are bedecked with giant inflatable ghosts, houses are strung with blinking orange and black lights, and jack o'lanterns are perched like watchmen on front steps. The kids have been discussing their costumes with their friends for weeks and diligently scoping the candy aisle at the grocery store, cataloging available goodies and deciding ahead of time what they're hoping to receive when it comes time to trick-or-treat.

But there are the few houses that remain unadorned, that the kids will race past tonight, whose porch lights will not be on, whose owners will not be delighting in the clever or cute or frightening costumes, who will not be handing out candy to the eager and anxious neighbor kids. It makes me wonder: why?

Perhaps it's the economy. Times are tough and, when making decisions about which bills to pay, buying a bag or two of candy might seem like a frivolous and unnecessary purchase. I get that. Or perhaps those people have plans for tonight and know they will not be home to celebrate; maybe they chose not to decorate because they don't want kids to assume treats are waiting.

But part of me wonders if it is something else. I wonder how much of it is due to the belief that Halloween is a pagan holiday, something evil, something that shouldn't be celebrated.

Halloween does have pagan roots. I don't think anyone can deny that. Samhain (pronounced "sow-en", the Scottish Gaelic word for summer's end) was the traditional time to celebrate the ending of the Light Half of the year and the beginning of the Dark Half. It was a time of reflection and celebration, a time to spend with family and friends, a time to honor and remember those who had already left this life. The Church melded its own beliefs and rituals to this holiday, creating Hallowmas -- All Saints' Day. Their intention was to have people celebrate this holiday only; however, the original customs persisted.

I'm not going to delve into more of the history here; there are enough websites out there with far more thoroughly researched information than what I can provide. But what I do know, what I do believe, is that Halloween -- Samhain -- is not evil. Nor are its pagan roots.

In our house, we do a variety of things to celebrate this transition in the year. Despite the fact that it is not the meteorological equinox, I do see it as a clear delineator between the two halves of the year. The days are markedly colder and shorter, the trees have all but lost their leaves...winter is imminent. Using apples and pumpkin and other harvest foods, I bake as a way to celebrate: breads and muffins and other delicious treats to freeze and savor later. And I feel the shift inside of me, tiny deaths that always leave me a little melancholy.

At this time of transition, I do believe that the veil between this world and the spirit world is fragile and thin. We remember our loved ones who have passed on by setting up an Altar of Remembrance, complete with photos and notes and small gifts, too, should their spirits pass through during this time. It is a time to reflect, for us to talk about the friends and family missing from this life, gone but not forgotten. It is a heartwarming time, knowing their memories live on within us. And it is special to have a time set aside to do this, to create a beautiful and meaningful tradition that we can look forward to, year and year.

But we dress up, too. And we carve pumpkins and read silly Halloween stories and go trick-or-treating and embrace the new meanings of Halloween, what the old customs have morphed into. We celebrate the fact that it is a time for other barriers to become thin and fragile, the barriers between adults and kids. Think about it: on Halloween night, kids let down their guard just a bit and learn that the nameless neighbors can be OK. Adults let down their guard and learn that the neighbor kids are not always just a loud-mouthed group of hooligans: they can be sweet and endearing, or clever or frightful, in their costumes. And with donning a costume, kids and adults alike can let down the barriers of who they are; for one day, they can become someone or something else. This veil, the one between reality and fantasy, becomes thin and fragile, too.

I like to think that the barrier between Christians and non-Christians becomes thin, too. That people can see Samhain for what it is meant to be -- a time of transition -- and not something wicked or evil. In its purest form, this celebration is simply a way to recognize the turning of the year and loved ones who have left this life. A decidedly sweet celebration, I think.

Leia Mais…

When Life Gives You Apples...

We made apple cider yesterday. We made it the old-fashioned way, using a hard press cider mill, after we collected wheelbarrows full of apples. Every apple -- mottled, dented, even slightly bruised -- was collected. We shook apples from the boughs and picked them up off the ground. We must have collected thousands of them! And we hauled them back to our host's driveway, the owner of the apple trees and the cider mill, a sweet and gracious woman who invited us to collect all of the apples we wanted -- for free! -- and who welcomed us to use her ladders and wheelbarrows and, most importantly, her cider machine.

Making cider is hard work. It takes a lot of apples (we should have counted, but hundreds were involved. Trust me.) to produce a gallon of apple cider. It takes all kinds of apples -- a mixture of tart green Granny Smiths and sweet State Fair, and yellow Golden Delicious -- to make a good-tasting cider. We loaded apples and cranked the wheel to mash them up. We watched the bucket below as it filled with apple cores and stems and pulp and when it was full, we moved it to the press. We hand cranked that thing and pressed down hard and watched as the sweet-smelling amber liquid rushed like a mini waterfall through the open slats of the bucket and dripped into the waiting container below. We took that container and funneled it through a sieve, into our empty containers, filling them to the brim with frothy, foamy, apple cider. And we tasted it, the hard fruits of our labor, the sweetest cider on earth. It was delicious. Divine. Like nectar, the drink of the gods.

After three hours of hard, strenuous work, we came home two gallons richer. I stowed them in the refrigerator and started making dinner. I was physically drained but I felt more alive -- renewed, refreshed -- than I had in a long time.

Because, you see, that afternoon I learned much more than how to make apple cider. I learned that life is a lot like apple cider. You need all different kinds of experiences -- the sweet, the sour and all the flavors in between -- to make a rich life. You don't focus on simply collecting the best experiences, the shiniest ones, the most perfect ones; you collect them all, bumpy, bruised, as ugly as they may be, because all of them are valuable and necessary. All of them are required to make a rich and vibrant life. Just like apple cider.

The past few weeks have been tough. They have been filled with an influx of emotions -- happiness, regret, remorse -- and I am finally at peace with all of them. I welcome them. I embrace all that I am and all that I have experienced because these are the things that make up me. It is my own personal recipe, a blended mixture that, I think, is a pretty sweet brew.

Everyone knows the saying, When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

I've got a new one: When life gives you apples -- all kinds of apples -- make apple cider.

I'm glad I did.

Leia Mais…

We Walked A Mile...And Then Some

Our family participated in a charity event this weekend, a walk-a-thon to raise money for our sister school in Vietnam. It was a terrific cause with the money raised going towards helping these kids afford school, buy supplies and improve their classrooms. And I didn't want to go.

If it had been any other weekend, I would have been thrilled to participate. Really. But I'd just finished up an all-day homeschool conference -- you know, the kind you go to and volunteer at, where your feet ache from standing all day, directing foot traffic, and your mouth feels all stretched out from smiling so much? -- and I was beat. Exhausted. I didn't think I could walk five steps, much less a mile. But we had signed up and the kids were excited and I was not about to let the other families down who had invested so much time and effort in setting this up. I would go and I would somehow find my smile. And I would leave the 3 year-old home with Daddy; even though he'd had the kids the day before while I was at the conference, I figured he could handle the youngest while he stayed home and watched football. She'd have a much better time playing cars than traversing the trails in the Refuge.

My hope of leaving her home was looking a lot less promising as she followed me around the house, scrambling to put her own shoes on as I laced mine up.

"Don't you want to stay home and play with Daddy?" I asked, my voice much too hopeful.

Her lip quivered. "I wanna be wif you." And then her eyes welled with tears. "You were gone all day."

Yesterday. The conference. Guilt flooded me and I relented. It was an easy walk. Just a mile. She could do it. She'd hiked all throughout Yellowstone and the Badlands, hadn't she? Besides, it would be good practice for our trip to California later that week -- and all of our day-long visits to Disneyland.

So we headed out. I tried to be in a good mood as we drove -- late -- to the Wildlife Refuge, the location of the walk. I tried not to grumble as the wind whipped about and the skies darkened. I tried to smile as the clock ticked and we still hadn't started, waiting for those who were even later than me. And I tried my hardest not to complain as we finally started the walk and Julia decided she much preferred being carried than walking on her own two feet.

"Just let her walk," someone suggested as I lifted her into my arms. "She'll catch up."

Yes...shrieking at the top of her lungs. Since I didn't want to a) leave my child wandering aimlessly through the wildlife refuge or b) listen to her blood-curdling screams, I adjusted her on my hip and followed the trail. After all, it was only a mile.

I voiced this out loud and someone corrected me. Apparently, the title of the walk was slightly misleading. The coordinators decided Walk a Mile In My Shoes flowed a little better than Walk Two Point Five Miles In My Shoes.

"For real?" I asked. "It's really two and a half miles?"

Yep. Did I also mention we were hiking to the highest point in Sherburne County? On a steep and narrow dirt path? Single-file, with people going up and down at the same time? With poison ivy lurking dangerously close to the trail? And wild pumas just waiting to pounce?

OK, so I'm being dramatic. There were no wild pumas. But there was poison ivy -- and I was still carrying 35 lbs. of extra weight squarely on my hip. I was not a happy hiker.

But I did it. No, I didn't carry her the whole way and no, the hike wasn't that miserable. The scenery was beautiful and I was hiking with good friends, which definitely sweetened my rather sour deal. Still, I was happy to reach the parking lot. I was happy it was almost over and I could set the preschooler down, gather my belongings and go home.

I was heading to the car when the two older kids reminded me of the raffle.

"There are going to be prizes!"

"And we could win them!!"

So I heaved a big, heavy sigh and we stayed for the raffle. Which meant, of course, that we had to wait for everyone to get back from the hike. I thought I was the last one to finish but apparently some brave (i.e. foolish) souls had decided to hike the longer loop -- as if 2.5 miles wasn't long enough?? -- and were slowly trickling back in to the registration area.

Finally, everyone returned and we were ready for the raffle. The first ticket was being pulled from the box when we all noticed the dark clouds racing across the sky and the winds picking up in intensity.

"Let's hurry up with this," someone said. "Looks like it's going to storm."

No sooner than the words were out, the skies opened with a heavy downpour of ice-cold rain. The wind whipped furiously, hurricane-strength gusts that tore the tarp off of our tent and threatened to upend tables. Kids were screaming, huddling under tables or taking cover near the bathrooms while the adults raced around, grabbing items and throwing things into any available car.

The storm was an eye-opener for me. You would think, based on my day, that it would be the final nail in the coffin of my bad mood. But it wasn't. Instead, I felt invigorated. It suddenly hit home why we were doing this walk and my earlier surliness melted away with the rain.

I didn't have to do this walk; I chose to. When this was all said and done, I had a car to seek shelter in, a car with a wonderful heater that would warm my chilled bones in a manner of seconds. I had a cozy house to go home to and a microwave that could easily ready a hot cup of tea the minute I walked through my door.

The kids we were walking for didn't have those luxuries. If they wanted to better their lives and have any hope of ending the cycle of poverty they existed in, they had to make that walk. Even if it rained. Even if it was windy. Even if it snowed. Even if they had to carry a book bag or help a younger sibling along the way.

These kids did this walk every day, to school and back home. I doubted they complained and I realized -- rather belatedly, of course -- that I shouldn't complain, either. I should be grateful for walking that two point five miles today, grateful that I had the experience and grateful that, by taking part, my family was taking one small step in making someone else's life a little better.

It was definitely a mile worth walking. Well, two point five miles worth walking...

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