{"id":7230,"date":"2013-10-31T19:15:07","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T23:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=7230"},"modified":"2013-10-31T19:15:07","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T23:15:07","slug":"all-hallows-een","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html","title":{"rendered":"All Hallows’ E’en"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pascal<\/a>This is my dog, Pascal, wearing the devil horns my niece Sandra bought him. It’s appropriate — Pascal is rascal of the first order. But it’s a far cry from what I grew up thinking Hallowe’en meant.<\/p>\n

Sure it meant trick-or-treating, and candy. And decorating the house — more as my mother collected stuff, once we stopped moving.<\/p>\n

But it also meant that the dead were there to speak with. We believed this — at least\u00a0 I did. I don’t know who taught me this — and perhaps I absorbed it from one of the many books I inhaled as a child. But I vaguely recall talking about the ‘veil’ between the living and the dead parting on All Hallows’ Evening. Which I thought of as the Brits do: All Hallows’ E’en<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We weren’t Catholic, and there was no real ceremony about All Hallows. But I knew from Shakespeare that the dead walked that night. And I knew from other places — and who remembers what those sources were? — that you could talk to them, the dead.<\/p>\n

I never tried. Everyone I loved was still alive, then. It didn’t seem like I would ever wish I could talk to the dead.<\/p>\n

But now? This Hallowe’en I think of all my dead: my grandmothers, both beloved; my great-aunts, so many of them; my father, a dear friend, even a couple of dearly missed dogs. And I wish I could visit with them — especially my parents & my elders. I wish I could ask them more about their lives, about when they were my age, and how it was for them. I wish I knew what they knew before they left me.<\/p>\n

I wish there were a way to hear their voices, my father’s deep baritone laughter– echoed in my younger son’s. My mother gabbing happily with her three sisters; my grandmothers in their kitchens, bossing me around.<\/p>\n

This All Hallows’, I am grateful for the living. So very happy that there is a new generation trick-or-treating. But I wish, still, that I could let my dead know I still remember. And that for me, they are still here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is my dog, Pascal, wearing the devil horns my niece Sandra bought him. It’s appropriate — Pascal is rascal of the first order. But it’s a far cry from what I grew up thinking Hallowe’en meant. Sure it meant trick-or-treating, and candy. And decorating the house — more as my mother collected stuff, once…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[671,66,37],"tags":[673,11,1181,1187,262,1195,672],"class_list":["post-7230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-hallows","category-elders","category-family","tag-all-hallows-2","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-family","tag-halloween"],"yoast_head":"\nAll Hallows' E'en - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is my dog, Pascal, wearing the devil horns my niece Sandra bought him. It's appropriate -- Pascal is rascal of the first order. But it's a far cry\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"All Hallows' E'en - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is my dog, Pascal, wearing the devil horns my niece Sandra bought him. It's appropriate -- Pascal is rascal of the first order. But it's a far cry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-10-31T23:15:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/10\/Pascal-Halloween-2-246x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"All Hallows' E'en - Beginner's Heart","description":"This is my dog, Pascal, wearing the devil horns my niece Sandra bought him. It's appropriate -- Pascal is rascal of the first order. But it's a far cry","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"All Hallows' E'en - Beginner's Heart","og_description":"This is my dog, Pascal, wearing the devil horns my niece Sandra bought him. It's appropriate -- Pascal is rascal of the first order. But it's a far cry","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html","og_site_name":"Beginner's Heart","article_published_time":"2013-10-31T23:15:07+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/10\/Pascal-Halloween-2-246x300.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html","name":"All Hallows' E'en - Beginner's Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/10\/Pascal-Halloween-2-246x300.jpg","datePublished":"2013-10-31T23:15:07+00:00","dateModified":"2013-10-31T23:15:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"This is my dog, Pascal, wearing the devil horns my niece Sandra bought him. It's appropriate -- Pascal is rascal of the first order. But it's a far cry","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/10\/Pascal-Halloween-2-246x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/10\/Pascal-Halloween-2-246x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/10\/all-hallows-een.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"All Hallows’ E’en"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner's Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7230"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7235,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7230\/revisions\/7235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}