Thoughts on the occasion of the feast of the dead

This is my first time celebrating Samhain, or at least my first time observing it as an actual pagan.

What a fucking year to start.

Okay, two semi-related things about Samhain that have been on my mind, about how this is just about the most appropriate holiday we could be having at this point in the flow of events.

The first is that this day marks the end of the old year. A lot of people say that means it also marks the beginning of a new one, but I prefer not to think about it like that. I prefer the notion that this is the end of the old year, but the new one won’t really begin until Alban Arthan/Yule. From now until then is a kind of liminal no-time, when everything is uncertain and strange, when rules are up for grabs, when borders and boundaries are porous. A time of powerful magic but also potentially much danger, a landscape that must be carefully navigated.

Given what’s about to happen in the country at large, I feel like that’s uncomfortably relevant.

But I also love the idea of a stretch of time like that. I feel like some of us kind of need that in the calendar, a time outside of time. A period of waiting—which I already somewhat grew up with, given that that’s what Advent represents (and I’ll obviously be observing Advent as well this year).

It’s hard to have it. But I think it’s good.

The other thing is just what Samhain means in the context of this year.

Samhain is a lot of different things to a lot of people, but first and foremost it’s a feast to honor the dead, the departed ancestors—those close to us and those we never met. We remember them, and we light a candle to guide them to the Otherworld. The veil between this world and the next becomes thin, and ghosts can walk the Earth and visit old friends and family.

And there are so catastrophically many dead this year.

So in my celebration, I decided to emphasize that. Which hurts, but I also feel like I need it. We’ve done so little actual grieving, as a country. I certainly haven’t. The whole thing is numbing. The numbers stack up until they don’t seem real anymore. But each one lost to COVID was a human life, a person who learned and loved and had people who cared about them—even those who had only the health care workers who tended to them at the end.

I felt like I needed to say a prayer specifically for that. So I went looking for one, and I found it on a Catholic charity site and expanded/rewrote it to fit what I intended to use it for. Here it is. It felt good to say it, although it was also painful.

Merciful God,

On this day of Samhain, at the turn of the wheel,
I am called to remember and honor those who have died,
particularly those who have died in the past year.
As your son taught me to call the stranger 
my neighbor, the fallen are many—

Names I will never know,
voices I have never heard,
some in lands I may never visit,
yet ancestors and siblings all.
And so I pray.

For victims of war, caught in the crossfires of conflicts
and victims of violence of all kinds,
for soldiers and civilians,
adults and children, I pray …
Grant your blessing, O Lord.

For those migrants who have died seeking a
haven where they hoped to find safety
and opportunity for themselves and for their families, I pray …
Grant your blessing, O Lord.

For victims of hunger, denied their share in the
bounty you have placed before me, I pray …
Grant your blessing, O Lord.

For victims of poverty, denied their share in the
wealth their labor helped to create, I pray ...
Grant your blessing, O Lord.

For victims of disease, especially those
who died before adequate care could reach them,
or because care was denied them, I pray …
Grant your blessing, O Lord.

For those refugees seeking asylum from war and oppression,
who died in a land that was not their home, I pray …
Grant your blessing, O Lord.

For victims of emergencies and calamities everywhere,
who died amid chaos and confusion, I pray …
Grant your blessing, O Lord.

For those lost to despair and mental illness,
to suicide and the ravages of addiction, I pray ...
Grant your blessing, O Lord.

For victims of racism, homophobia, and transphobia,
who suffered and died because of indifference,
bigotry, and hatred, I pray ...
Grant your blessing, O Lord.

Today I remember and honor the fallen.
Tonight I light a candle to guide their souls
to the joy and peace of Annwn
and to the promise of life to come.
I affirm that you raised your son from the dead
that all creation may share in his joyful resurrection.

By every great spirit and every righteous power,
in the presence of Ceridwen, the lady of the cauldron,
in the grace of the Holy Spirit,
and in the name of Jesus Christ, I pray.
Remember and bless them all, O Lord.

And now comes the darkness.