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A sea of black witch hats filled the hotel lobby. Outside, a drum circle on the fake grass below the lights of nearby hotels boomed its ever-changing rhythms into the night as the giant lighted name Trump peered down over the garden wall from across a dark No Man's Land of downtown. The mermaid in the hotel pool swished her tail and ate fish from the tapas bar.

I was at the Halloween Soiree put on by Sin City Witches. That morning, I was preparing for renfaire when I got a message on the book of faces inviting me to a witch event that night. I had not originally planned to go to the Halloween Soiree because it was literally the night before the Renaissance Faire started, and I did not want to poop out before Saturday night because that was when Phyllis's funeral was going to be held at faire (see my previous post for my adventure that night.) But they offered me and my housemate free tickets and sent a car for us, and said I could hang out with guest of honor Jason Mankey and be a surprise extra guest of honor, so how could I say no to that?

All Hallows Eve

The witches' new year. Time when the fields lie empty and the year lies down. The gates of life swing open, the dead lean in. Our world's veil is at its thinnest; we peer through the lace to find that growing edge. We meet in Deep Time, everywhere and nowhere, to greet the triple goddess who is the circle of rebirth. Over one shoulder lean the ancestors; over the other, unborn future beings peer. 

Remember this: we are 4 billion years old. It's taken evolution all this time to produce us, and our action will express that genius. We're an unfinished animal, fighting metaphysical battles in the physical world; flesh and breath in confrontation with abstractions. This is the battle of the human epic. Modern stories of our powerful vision express a reclaimed, authentic future, a remedy. Exalt in the never-ending journey of change. Seed becomes fruit. Fruit becomes seed. The beloved dead surround us, calling us to use our lives while we can in the service of the bigger life. The unborn future crowds 'round, waiting. It's up to us. This chaos is a seedbed for the future. 

This year Halloween will have a full moon. It should also have full bellies-- full of candy. Just like all years. Instead of having trick or treaters come to the door and ring the bell, my neighbors and I have decided we're going to set up tables and chairs outside and give away candy outside near the curb. I keep seeing people on the net saying Halloween is canceled, but plenty of other events are happening outdoors and Halloween is an important community ritual. Plus wearing masks is part of the tradition! There's no reason it can't be done safely. Keep it outside, keep groups apart from other groups, and it's no different from any other outdoor event.

I'm not going to be personally putting candy into the kids' sacks this year, I'm going to let him help themselves from the bowl. I'm just going to be out there to be sure one kid doesn't take it all, just like my neighbors will be doing. This is going to be a no contact event for me and Halloween still goes on.

Did Halloween—as Variety section writers would invariably have it—really originally mean 'Holy (or Hallowed) Evening'?

Short answer: no.

'Halloween' is an eroded form of 'All Hallow's Even'. ('Even' here = 'evening, eve.') 'Hallow' is a dialectal form of the Old English word that also became Modern English 'holy.' Anglo-Saxon hælig (pronounced, roughly, HAL-ee) was a fine old pagan word denoting something in a state of radical wholeness: a holy thing or person.

It's the latter usage that gave rise to 'Halloween.' After the Conversion, the word came to denote a 'saint,' a (Christian) holy person. So All Hallows' Eve originally meant 'All Saints' Eve,' the eve of the ecclesiastical feast of All Saints.

('Saint,' of course, was originally a French word from the Latin sanctus, both of which—like hallow in English—mean both 'holy' and 'saint.')

Successful divination requires focus, perseverance, and a little faith. Sometimes our paths come to a fork in the road, and much like that forked divining rod, we must follow our strongest intuition. Interestingly, life paths can indeed come full circle. I've come to believe that if we tune into what the divine is trying to whisper in our ears, we will take the paths we are intended to at the right moment in time. Perhaps we aren't ready for a certain direction at a given interval. That doesn't mean that roads aren't meant to be revisited. When I was a young girl, my favorite toy was a tape recorder. I delighted in creating radio plays and acting out favorite movies and TV shows with my closest friends. Conducting interviews was also a beloved pastime.

Flash forward several years later to graduating with a master's in digital communication strategies at Marquette University. Although I have a background in journalism and filmmaking, podcasting was something I naturally gravitated to with my studies and projects. It felt like coming home, and conducting interviews in this medium and editing them was the perfect way to express myself creatively. Since I recently decided to embark on a full-time freelancing career, it seemed like the perfect time to launch a brand new podcast: "Women Who Howl at the Moon."