I’m not one for the macabre or ghoulishness, never have been. My kids have always had hand-made costumes: horse, cow, southern belle, cell phone, giant baseball glove. I always have candy for trick or treaters. About a decade ago, I was moved to fill my yard with paper bag luminarias on Halloween night. I’ve done it every year since. To say that it’s become a tradition is oversimplified; it’s more of a reverent endeavor.

In our city we still have night time hours for Trick or Treating, so in the late afternoon of Halloween, I am assembling little brown paper bags, folding a cuff around the edge, adding kitty litter for weight and balance, positioning votive candles inside, lighting them and placing the resultant lanterns around the outlines of my yard and the brick ledge on the front of my home. Each year I am grateful for the task made more streamlined by the fact that many paper bags with kitty litter still intact have been saved from prior years because my husband (whose inability to throw things away that might be useful another time often drives me to distraction) had carefully collected them the morning after; folded and rolled them; boxed and stored them in the attic; and retrieved them again for this day.

While in the process of this assemblage, I make sure to percolate a pot of strong black coffee - the kind my Dad used to take to work in his thermos every day - because it is an important component of the evening’s unfolding. As the dusk settles in, a spell begins to cast; my yard turns into a sanctuary. I don’t sit inside the warmth of my house in between the groups of trick or treaters; I bundle up and blanket up and situate myself outside. The lights inside my house are all turned off so the glow from the candlelight is more prominent. There seems to be a momentary pause, a brief silence before the voices of groups of children begin that unique echo up and down the block in the night air. I hear their sounds coming closer and just as they come upon the soft glow of our yard, there is an audible hush. It almost seems to make them want to tiptoe, so a not to disturb and once treats are in buckets and they turn to walk away often the littler ones have to pause to stand over and peer down into one of the bags to see what is making the light and their sweet faces are illuminated from beneath in a golden aura. Everything, it seems, is bathed in a golden aura. The leaves and dried flowers in the decaying flowerbeds cast magic shadows. The addition of glass jars with candles placed in the bottoms boughs of the bushes whispers hopefully that there is more inspiration to come. 

To the escorts with the children, I offer a hot cup of apple cider which has been mulling in a kettle with cinnamon sticks in anticipation of a chilly evening. I admit to being a little prideful inside when thanked for my efforts in the name of comfort and beauty.

From the first year of this effort, some latent aspect of my Catholic upbringing and perhaps something long, long before even that has bridged a connection between our commercialized ritual of Halloween to a celebration of All Souls Night. So it is my custom that in between the little groups of pilgrims, I sit in hallowed silence, sipping my coffee and feeling a sense of my Dad smiling with me. I think about other dear ones who have departed this life too, but mostly it is my Dad whom I linger with. This year, of course, there is my brother Tim too. We are in a church of our own making.

Each year, as the designated closing hour draws near and silence reclaims the night, I purposely choose not to extinguish the lights of the lanterns but leave them to burn until they cease on their own, which is well into the early hours of the next morning. It is as though my yard becomes a prayer and I rise at frequent intervals throughout the night to gaze out one of my windows and commune with the sanctity. 

There was one year during such a communion, that the face of an ancient Viking Warrior appeared in one of the lanterns. We gazed at each other for a long, long time. I do not know how, but I do know that we acknowledged in each other what we had been and the mysteries in our separate existences before we both turned away.

And so it is, as I sit at this writing, anointed in this year’s prayer, still wakeful from the coffee, still caught up in the spell and the lanterns still burning.

Blessed Be.