Winter was a fearful prospect if unprepared for. Fearful, sometimes too, even when well prepared.
Samhain was a time of feasting. A rich time at the end of harvest before the lean months of February, March and April.
Cattle that would not survive the winter would be slaughtered. Better a swift death, than a long, lingering starvation. The bones and inedible parts of the beasts would be burned in bone-fires (the early November bonfires of my childhood).
Samhain is, too, a time of sadness. Watch the final leaves begin to fall and sadness threatens to overwhelm. The seasons mark the passage of time. The passage of time speaks of aging, and aging of loss. To experience loss is to grieve. But grief is natural. It is a step along the way. "Weeping endures for the night, but joy comes in the morning." The yang of joy would be meaningless without the yin of loss. Embrace both, as both are life.
It was natural as the nights drew in to think of those who have gone before, those we have lost, those who were taken before their time—or at least taken before our time to let them go. Our pagan forebears celebrated the dead, the ancestors, the ghosts. Our Christian forebears spoke of all saints and all souls (a rose by any other name). The repeated remembering, the anamnesis, made Samhain a "thin time." At Samhain, the dead are close to us. Their shadows touch our faces. Why so many ghost stories from now until Christmas? Because the dead are close by.
In Chinese lore the winter is the time to slow down, to conserve energy. The greater yang energy of spring and the lesser yang energy of summer give way to the greater yin energy of autumn and the lesser yin energy of winter. According to the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Chinese Medicine, winter is the time to "close and store." What to do in winter? Be guided by the sunlight. Go to bed earlier. Rise later. Don't engage in activities that make you sweat—fine for summer, poor for winter. Conserve sexual energy. Spend more time in meditation, or in taiji, or qigong, but with more emphasis on closing (fall less on fa jin). Eat hot and spicy foods. Avoid cold foods. Enjoy hot soup. Travel less.
Look at nature. Nature shows you the way.
The new year begins not with the birth of spring, but the womb of winter. Snuggle down in winter's womb. See you in the spring!
+Ab. Andy