Happy Samhain, Pagan Dopers. Let me embrace my inner DARKNESS. It’s the reason for the season. In contemporary Stregheria, Samhain is called Festa dell’Ombra—which means ShadowFest. The dead revisit the earth of the living. Three days: October 31, November 1 & 2, comparable to Día de los Muertos. The dead joys of my life rise from the grave and want to party down with me.
Thinking of Stregheria because Samhain puts me in mind of my ancestors. The grandmothers of my grandmothers in Sicily.
In Persian, they have a striking expression meaning to suffer extreme grief, perhaps tinged with remorse: khûn-e jegar kh[sup]v[/sup]ordan, literally ‘to drink the blood of the liver.’ The liver was the traditional home of bile, and later melancholia (black bile) came to be associated with it too.
Johanna D’ark