Death & Halloween
Happy Halloween, my spooky friends! And welcome to Samhain.
Samhain—what many know as Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day—is a brief, sacred-strange window that cultures across the world mark in their own way.
A full anthropological treatment of this observance would be its own book (or series).
But whether you look to Celtic customs, Hindu śraddha rites, or the Mayan Day of the Dead, during the time between October 31 and November 2, the veil is thin.
The living pause to tend the dead, listen to spirits, and connect with their ancestors.
There is a celestial mechanic to this time.
Samhain is what is called a cross-quarter day—the midpoint between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice.
If you think of the solstices as peaks in the calendar year (solar maximums and minimums), and the equinoxes as the balance points (day and night in equal measure), then days like Samhain and Embolic (around February 1) are the diagonals.
And the diagonal is an etheric lever. In Kundalini yoga, we call it the “Z” energy.
In a square, the diagonal is the swiftest way through.
In astrology, we might say it carries a trine-like ease across a tense configuration: less push, more glide.
When conversation is stuck or grief is armored, try the diagonal—approach from the side of kindness, image, breath, or ritual instead of argument.
The diagonal is neither the obvious front door (busy, defended by habit) nor the heavily guarded back door (bound by fear), but the elegant angle that opens what seemed closed.
Because of this diagonal current, perception thins. Contact is possible.
Many cultures honor this time for ancestor work—building altars for the deceased, laden with marigolds, photographs, copal smoke, and offerings of food and drink.
For me, Samhain is more of a window to connect with natural law.
Natural law is the pattern of the universe that governs apparent reality—the way things actually move when left to their own divine order.
When we take the plunge—submerge in the cosmic current:
Life runs with less friction.
This is where the juice of revelation lives.
And where the future unfolds with true originality, fulfillment, and surprising glamour.
With Samhain’s diagonal energy and the Sun’s placement in Scorpio—the sign of deep mysticism, deep space, and death itself—there’s rarely an easier time to “go galactic,” as it were.
It is, in fact, what the yogis have always done.
The original outsiders—brave yogis would often visit cremation sites for practice of gaṇacakra—a tantric feast at a burial ground.
There they would chant mantra, partake in a sacramental meal of taboo items like fish, meat, or wine served out of skull cups.
The feast would culminate in the performance of tantric dances, improvised “songs of realization,” and music that must never be disclosed to outsiders.
While the ganacakra, the circle ritual, is far in the past, and today’s serious practitioners suggest tamer, but no less effective, affairs, what remains is the most terrifying rite of all: jivanmukta.
Dropping the constructed self long enough to merge with what is deathless, then returning with that knowledge still breathing in the chest.
Liberation…while alive.
During Samhain, you don’t have to go to the charnel grounds to experience the beyond—the ground comes to you.
We let the false dissolve, we touch the stars beyond, and we come back to tell the story—the story of holy outrageous, ecstatic, exquisite, eternal life.