Death – When Life Gives You Lemons

Remembrance

In the UK, after the pumpkins have been removed from the porch and the treats given away, we tidy up and thoughts turn to the next celebration – in our family’s case, Thanksgiving.

**A trio of pumpkins. I think you can guess which one each of us carved .**
Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

But in much of the world, Halloween, or All Saints’ Eve, is a prelude to the main event. For this period, which commemorates the dead, can begin on 31st October and continue until 6 November with Remembrance Day observed on the 11th.

Samhain

I was surprised to discover that this predecessor to Halloween begins on the 31st October at sunset and continues until sunset the following day. In the Celtic calendar, it marked the end of harvest and the beginning of the lean months of winter. It also signals the new year. Old and useless items would be burned in great bonfires, in a ritual clearing of the old to make way for the new.

As a liminal time, when the veil between this world and the next was especially thin, the bonfires were also used to ward off evil spirits and the ghosts of one’s enemies. Knowing the general bad behaviour of my Scottish ancestors, I’m sure such a precaution was wise.

Yet, twined with this is the remembrance of those we love: welcoming them back with lights, and food and prayers. I chanced upon this blessing, whilst researching this post and thought it rather lovely.

Tonight is a night to call out those who came before. Tonight I honor my ancestors. Spirits of my fathers and mothers, I call to you, and welcome you to join me for this night.

Celtic blessing, Irishcentral.com

All Saints’ Day

All Saints’ Day is a public holiday in much of Europe and an opportunity to pay a visit to a beloved who has died and to tidy graves and leave flowers. The ‘Saints’ in All Saints’ includes those in the religious calendar and those who have either died in faith or have brought others into the faith. It is wonderfully inclusive!

**A Swedish graveyard lit by candles** Image: Nikola Jonny Mirkovic on Unsplash

With the very short days of winter in Sweden, they have come up with the ingenious solution of lighting candles and leaving hardy flowers like heather at the grave site.

Dies des Muertos

In Mexico, elegant Scandi-chic is eschewed in favour of more vibrant and light-hearted celebrations. Each home creates a small shrine with flowers and food for the departed who is represented in a photograph.

**Well remembered** Image: By Eneas de Troya flickr.com

Not everyone will have such a lush display. My lovely daughter-in-law, who spent some time in Mexico, often makes a simple one with photos and candles to remember those they love and who have died.

Rather than a day of mourning, these days are seen as ones of celebration, with feasting, special foods, dancing and parades. Death is mocked rather than feared with crazy costumes and an abundance of colourfully painted skulls. The departed is remembered with joy. Amusing stories and events in which they were involved are recalled and retold. And I hope that after I have gone, people will remember be in the same way – in stories filled with laughter rather than in hushed, serious tones.

Because really, death is as much a part of life as birth is. We need not always refer to it in euphemism or avoid mentioning the deceased or shy away from honest discussions about how we would like our deaths to be managed.

In a world where anything goes, death alone remains taboo and as a consequence, the bereaved or the dying are left on the margins of society. Perhaps it is time to take advice from the vivacious Mexicans and to celebrate those we love even when they are taken from us and to greet life with exuberance, while we are privileged to enjoy it.

The Darling Buds of May

**Apple blossom** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Wandering about the garden and admiring the blossoms and new buds, I could not help but think of these immortal lines. Many of us will have studied this sonnet in school, but I think that it is worth revisiting. Whilst Shakespeare was clearly writing a very flattering portrait of his patron, he also touches on some truths that might aid us in these uncertain times.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare

**A surviving tulip** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Rough winds

As in many parts of the country, the beginning of the month was marked by extremely high winds. We live at the top of the hill, so their force is felt even more strongly here. One night, we wrestled in the garden furniture and retreated to the safety of our home. The next morning, our beautiful swathes of red tulips were no more – only the slender stems that had supported them. The lawn was covered in blossom confetti and the trees, so richly dressed the day before, were naked save their vibrant, unfurling leaves.

The same happens every year. Our fruit trees entice the pollinators with their delicate blooms. The wind decimates them. And often life seems to behave in the same way. No sooner have we found our perfect place, than something comes along to destroy it: an ailing relative, our own health, life struggles.

Yet, more often than not, during the brief spell of their existence, the blossoms are pollinated and though the flower may be gone, the fruit is set to grow and thrive. The previous decade of my life has felt more like a hurricane than just rough winds. At times, it seemed that there was nothing more that could be stripped away. Only somehow, like the blossom, I had been ‘pollinated’ with a sense of acceptance and gratitude; that despite the storms of life, there is so much to live for. It is only when we are challenged, sometimes to the very limits of our being, that we can grow. My mind is much calmer now than ever before and equally, I have never enjoyed the natural world in all its guises so much. Though cold and rain are not my favourites, they only whet my appetite for spring and they are as vital to nature’s cycles as sunshine.

**Clematis** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Every fair from fair sometime declines

May is the month of clematis for me: that gorgeous, bountiful herald of summer. After months of anticipation, the buds finally open and a cascade of flowers appear. But they do not last long – a few weeks at most. Like all beauty, it is transient and all the more precious for that.

In Japan, the cherry blossom festival (Hanami), was derived from earlier tree worship. Emperor Saga (reign: 809-823) is attributed with establishing the more modern celebration in which flowers were admired, poems written and picnics enjoyed outdoors. And the idea of transience is at its heart. The flowers, like life, are short-lived. Here is a charming set of haiku to give you a flavour of Hanami.

Drinking up the clouds
it spews out cherry blossoms –
Yoshino Mountain.

Wind blows
they scatter and it dies
fallen petals

Petals falling
unable to resist
the moonlight

Sakura, sakura
they fall in the dreams
of sleeping beauty

Josa Buson

**Ornamental cherry** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade

Though we cannot, like Shakespeare’s muse, be immortalised in his verse, our brief lives do not end with us. Perhaps we have children who will pass on our genetic code; perhaps we have positively touched the lives of others and they revive us each time we are remembered. For though our transient state is sometimes frightening, it is no different from the cycles of the seasons.

So what can we take away from this? First, surely, is seize the day. Enjoy life’s bounty while you can. Second, for all our incredible intelligence and technologies, we are still carbon based life-forms. In the same way that energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed, matter too is not destroyed but only reconfigured. So that even when our physical being ends, and our composite parts are broken down to their atoms, we will not disappear but rather recombine to make new, living things. Who knows? Perhaps the atoms that make up me will join others to make spring blossoms of the future. I certainly hope so.

**Floral reincarnation?** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Things that go Bump in the Night

My Halloween display with cheery origami bats Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

I have a confession to make. Halloween is my favourite festival. It is slightly anarchic; involves dressing up and offers unlimited sweeties. What’s not to like? In addition, you can have all this fun without stressing over gifts or cards or special meals. In other words, it’s perfect!

When I was a little girl, I remember donning a costume to go to the Caledonian Society’s Halloween party. There was bobbing for apples and other games and I’m sure they snuck in a little Scottish country dancing. Which is fair enough, because Halloween is really a Celtic tradition.

Origins

Though there are festivals to celebrate the dead throughout the world and across all cultures, ours is based on the Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked summer’s end and the beginning of the New Year. Like Beltane, it’s summer twin, this period is seen as a liminal one, where the barriers between our world and that of the spirits is thinnest and for this brief window, the dead might travel back home.

For those who had enemies who had died, this might lead to an unpleasant interaction, so it was best to disguise oneself by donning a costume. For the majority though, such visitations were not seen as some terrible, fearful haunting, but an opportunity to welcome back loved ones. Places were set at table and food laid out; candles lit to guide them home. Children and the poor would venture abroad to receive soul cakes. These treats were given in exchange for prayers for the departed. This practice continues in some churches, though for most of us it has transformed into the American tradition of trick-or -treating.

A tradition transformed by affluence. Image: Haley Phelps on Unsplash

Facing our fears

Halloween is a bizarre mixture of what scares us and the joyous recklessness of a party. We watch terrifying horror movies and decorate our homes with creatures that in real life appal. We dress in costumes pretending to be skeletons or phantoms or witches. We scare each other witless with terrifying, ghostly tales. (Though, interestingly, ghost stories were most popular at Christmas during Victorian times. I always thought the Victorians a bit strange.)

This simulation of danger and facing death is, for me, the most important aspect of Halloween. I’ve spent days puzzling over the question. What is Halloween for exactly? And the only satisfactory answer I could come up with is what the Stoics were talking about millennia ago. Epictetus said:

I cannot escape death, but at least I can escape the fear of it.
Epictetus

For our ancient ancestors, the advent of winter must have been a terrifying time: cold, short, dark days with little food except what you have stored from harvest. Seeing the coming spring would have been more hope than certainty, which is perhaps why Halloween is also a time when people try to predict the future. It would be nice to know.

Yet, for all this, they made it a time of celebration. Communities came together and stood by bonfires in a sort of defiant act against the encroaching darkness. Our own fears have a very different feel – yet we are united in our mortality. So I suggest that like our ancestors, we embrace our fears, mock them even and live our lives with joy. It is the only way to navigate the dark.

Happy Halloween!