For me Halloween is a holiday, but a holiday of Mother Earth, not the party store. It’s half-way between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice. Otherwise known as the beginning of Winter. Winter deepens as it nears the solstice and then it starts lessening its grip — never mind that the cold is still fierce. As the hymn says: “Light is returning, even tho’ this is the darkest hour, No one can hold back the sun.”

This is the time for looking within, for remembering our ancestors and our heritage and our lineage. This is a time of releasing the grudges — anything that hold us back from a good night’s sleep and the Sacred Dreaming that is to come. The only goblins I believe in are the hobgoblins of our thoughts that haunt us and hold us back. Let go!

I get a little whiny about commercialized, over sexed halloween… I dislike that it’s another opportunity for greed and materialism. I guess I’m a humbug. So today you get not one, but two (count ’em, two) poems about being a Witch on Halloween. (the first one’s in paragraph form, because Word press is not a fan of poems, keeps leaving a space between the lines… Funny all this time i’ve been writing on Word Press, I’ve never known this…) I’ll spend some time in this six week season thinking about the possibilities of letting go… But in the meantime, here I am, in all my glory, Grumpy Witch!

It’s not easy to be a witch on Halloween — Where’s your hat, everyone asks me? And then they laugh. Like they’re the first person that ever thought to say that. Ha!

I’m a witch. This is what a witch looks like. I look like this every day.

Of course I wear black, I’m an edgy, New York kinda witch.

But my spiritual practice is not about wearing a pointy hat and riding a broom. My spiritual practice is about honoring creation and all who dwell within.

I don’t even like cats and as for snakes, no thanks! I must confess, the whole thing makes me grumpy.

Yes, there are witches, real witches, who wear their silly hats and carry a broom around. But then at Christmastime, you can find Christians in some pretty scary outfits, with flashing pins that have very little to do with any baby born in a manger, destined to claim the world for peace. And Easter Bonnets do not make much more sense.

 While people run around this Halloween, dressed like goblins and harlots, the world is slowly dying. On this sacred day, when it is believed by some that the veil between this world and the next is the thinnest, that our ancestors can whisper their wisdom in our ears, the din of battle over-rides the still small voice.

Divine Spirit can shape and change us and all we want to know is, “What do you have for candy?” and “What are you wearing on Halloween.”

So yes, I am a witch. And no, I don’t wear a hat. and if the Gods had wanted me to ride a broom, vacuum cleaners would never have been invented!

So, color me a little bit grumpy and a whole lot grateful. No hat, it ruins my hair. Yesterday I had a ride through Autumn’s dying colors and I rejoiced. Boo! There, witchy obligations handled, I wish you Peace and a spooktacular, sugar laden evening if that’s what turns you on! Consume responsibly.