I can feel the spirits kicking up already...

...Not all of you will agree with what I mean by spirits. I should get that out of the way now, and no, I do not hear voices.

Despite Halloween being commercialized as a night of horrors and costumes and sugar rushes, it is actually a religious holiday.

Kicking off the Pagan New Year, it is the night when the veil between the living and the dead is thought to be the thinnest. It is on this night that individuals who have lost anyone dear to them over the last year are invited to cast spells and to commune through the elements with their dearly departed to let them know that it is okay to move on.

Last year, the jack-o-lantern that I set upon our stoop read SPIRIT. I let the departed know that if they needed to use it in any way, they could, and I let them know in my own way that I understood the significance of the holiday.

I remember last Halloween being particularly quiet spiritually. It was almost devout. This year, the spiritual energy in the days leading up to Halloween is almost overwhelming. It's very crowded this year, and the departed are restless. Friends across whom I've run this information and who believe in it have all agreed with me.

Alot will be going down after dark on the 31st.   

I went to Mahoney's today and scooped up a 30 pound pumpkin to carve on Halloween night. It's huge. It has an indentation (not a dent) smack dab in the middle of the pumpkin, right where the nose would be.

I knew I had to have it, so I wheeled it, and my daughter on the cart up to the checkout (I got a good price on it).

I wish I had some idea where the carving kit was. I'm sure they hike up the prices around Halloween. Maybe I'll buy one on November 1st--when all the Halloween paraphernelia goes on sale so they can liquidate it for Thanksgiving and Christmas--and stash it in my closet until next year so I know where it is.

Hopefully Olivia will be old enough to appreciate Halloween by then. She's going as a super hero this year and there's more and more talk of her costume as the big night approaches.

I'm already feeling that feeling, the same one I get when I look quietly upon the pauper grave markers in the State Hospital Cemetery, the one I used to get as a kid going door to door for candy I didn't need, the feeling I get every year on Halloween night.

Only this year I'm feeling that feeling four days early. What in the hell is going on out there?

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