Latest / Digital Soulspace - Musings Of The Metaphysical, Magical, And Nonsensical / What Halloween & Samhain Bring Forward

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What Halloween & Samhain Bring Forward · Digital Soulspace - Musings Of The Metaphysical, Magical, And Nonsensical

• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And hey everybody, in a very blessed Sawin and happy All Hallows Eve to you.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Mike Robert, and I'm super excited about this time of year.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought I'd create just a little special episode about what this time of year means to me and what it represents.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't know, there's actually a big difference between All Hallows Eve or Halloween and Sawin, which is uh a Celtic or pagan festival that dates back over many thousands of years, and it's to celebrate the harvest and the uh end of all the work of, you know, and we're getting ready for the winter.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's time to harvest all that uh amazing stuff we've planted in the ground and celebrate it and celebrate the abundance, and then we have All Hallows Eve, which is a Catholic uh Christian holiday, believe it or not, uh, which comes from All Saints Day in on November uh first.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's the eve of All Saints Day and also the Eve of Los Dios de los Muertos, the day of the dead in uh Latin culture, uh especially Mexico.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, uh two different holidays, both at the same time of the year, and you might argue that the Christian church uh developed Halloween or all Hollows Eve themselves as a way to transition from the pagan Sawin festival.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of our holidays that we have in Christianity are actually rooted in paganism.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Christmas trees are rooted in paganism.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's even a verse in the Christian Bible that talks about, you know, uh Christmas trees and that they're to be, you know, to be avoided.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say they're really evil, it just says that they are uh not of this world and that they're pagan in origin.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, let's move away from that.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does Halloween mean for me and this time of year?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's often said that the veil gets thin this time of year, and I totally believe it.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of cultures, especially around Sawin, believe that the veil is especially thin, and even in Los Dios de los huertos, you know, the the dead can cross over that night, so it's very interesting how cross-culturally you see this pattern of the dead being able to cross over.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think that it's uh the veil is thin this time of year, but for me, this magic is only getting started because for me this runs through Yule, and I'll explain that in a little bit.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: But it's always been such a magical time for me, and as a child, this time of year was just absolutely wonderful.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was spooky, but I wasn't really scared of it.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I used to think it was so interesting and so cool.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I just loved anything to do with Halloween, especially it's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I had to watch that every single year.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So here in South Florida, we don't get seasons like you would experience up north.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the way we interpret seasons in South Florida is the level of humidity in the air and the temperatures come down a bit.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say a bit, it means that the temperatures will be maybe in the 80s and they will have low humidity.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, like low 80s, every now and then we'll get a cold front that comes through and brings the low temperatures, the lows maybe into the 40s at night, and maybe a high in the 70s or upper 60s in the day.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't happen often, it and it doesn't last for long.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's only maybe a couple of days, or even one or two, or you know, and then it returns back to temperatures in the lower 80s with low humidity.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're someone like me, you also notice the change in the shadows, the light changes, and um, that's what you know we associate with fall here in South Florida.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Leaves don't fall from the trees, everything's green year-round.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: We do have some trees that shed their leaves.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that usually happens later, though.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh around uh I think February, we get mahogany trees shed their leaves and they don't turn color, they just fall off and they grow right back.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so we don't have these cues like other people do up north with the seasons, you know, like summer and spring and the flowers.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, things are always blooming here year-round.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a lot different.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: So when the seasons do change here, when the temperatures fall and the humidity changes, when when those differences are noticeable, for me, it's a big deal.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a big deal for everybody here, aside if you're a witch or psychic or anything.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I find it so interesting that as a child I was just fascinated with this time of year, and that fascination continued right through Yule.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, in my opinion, the veil kind of stays thin through Yule.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think Halloween is is like almost the beginning of the veil thinning or getting thin enough.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you, um, right around Yule, wow, I think that it's very strong.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: The magic I feel around Yule going through to the new year is quite amazing.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I discovered not too long ago, I was like, you know what?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: As a child, the thing that fascinated me the most about the holiday wasn't really the story of Jesus.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, as a young uh as a child that was brought up in a uh kind of Catholic paranormal household, because my mom was very into ghosts and paranormal stuff, and I actually chose to be baptized myself at the age of 14.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a whole nother different story about my journey through spirituality and religion.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: But as a child, I wasn't really, you know, the the story of Jesus and Mary and Joseph, it was it was very cool and it felt wonderful.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: But what really got me was the story of just magic about, you know, of course, Santa Claus, but also like elves and fairies, and there was just such this sense of magic in the air.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then bringing in the Christmas tree, oh my god, the lights on the Christmas tree, uh, the the smell of pine uh to have a live tree in the house for me was huge.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I used to sit under the Christmas tree and look up through the branches and look at the lights and the tinsel.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I would get lost because for me it was magical.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, I would I would just imagine that there was fairies living in the tree and all these sorts of little creatures living in there and running around and enjoying Christmas, and it was such a whimsical, amazing uh feeling.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized, you know, like as an adult, it's not magic that made the season special, it wasn't the religion, and that's what I'm trying to get out here.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the religion that made this also special, it was the magic, the sense of magic.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: It also uh didn't make any sense to me that all of this was one day, that all of this happened on one day, and being the 25th, right?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I got older, I started attending about wow, 10 years ago, maybe more.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: We have a Tequesta drumming ceremony here in South Florida that takes place on every equinox and every solstice.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I started attending it on the winter solstice, and this year it's coming back because they had said last year it was it was gonna be over.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: But we're fortunate enough to have another one this winter, and it's in a beautiful natural, protected area, and you go there and they have this huge bonfire, and they have it managed by a pagan church, but they have law enforcement there, you know, to make sure everything is safe, and it's it's just a wonderful feeling.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: People even bring their kids and they'll have a uh winter uh solstice ceremony, and they'll often have the high priestess of the pagan church there, or maybe an indigenous person doing a ceremony for Pachamama.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: I even have a video of it on my uh on my YouTube channel for my other blog.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I should probably put a link to that because it's really special.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I started going to this winter solstice fire ceremony, and I realized I was like, wow, it's Yule.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is what feels so magical, and this it's not just one day, it's that entire time from the winter solstice to usually January 1st is is Yule.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like a 12 days.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's pretty amazing, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: The 12 days of Christmas.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just a wonderful magical time, and it's when I discovered all these innate feelings that I had about being a witch or a pagan that were very just ingrained in me for a long time.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So when you have your awakening, you're like, oh, wait a second, all this stuff that was just so innate for me, it it there was a reason behind it.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I used to walk around with incense sticks, and I would always walk in a clockwise motion.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody told me that, it just felt right, and I would be like, No, I have to do it this way.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that smudging was a thing.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I literally thought something was wrong with me because I used to like to walk around the house with incense sticks in the and I was it again, no one ever I didn't know it was even a thing.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: I used to think something was wrong with me.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so quite fascinating how on our journeys we discover who we are, uh often through our past by looking back at things and saying, wow, I I used to do this and now I know it's a thing.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I this whole magical time a year for me uh when I was a kid actually makes total and complete sense now for me as an adult because we have Sawin and All Hallows Eve, Los Dios de los Muertos, and as a psychic medium, I love giving readings around this time because information just seems to flow a lot easier, and maybe part of that has to do, you know, with the the idea in my head that you know the veil is thin, but it definitely seems that way, and it's amazing time of the year for me.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a time where I really enjoy anything that's scary looking.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I am not into gore, by the way.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I do not like horror films, I don't like blood, so it's very hard for me to watch anything gory, but I do like things supernatural and kind of spooky because and I've always been this way since I was a little kid.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of feel like I want to make friends with whatever is spooky, and I don't know where I got that from either, but I always felt like I wanted to make friends with if there was a bad witch in a story or something, I wanted to be her friend because I wanted to understand her perspective.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds really woo-woo, but when I was a kid, that's that's I I I felt really bad for the witch in the Wizard of Oz when she melted, and she's like, I'm melting.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I will never forget that I always felt so sorry for her, and I didn't understand why.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because every you know, I knew what she was doing was bad, and I'm glad you know Dorothy was able to get away, but the fact that she killed her at the end, oh my god, my heart broke.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: So so yeah, this all leads up to you know who I am as an adult, and looking back at that, I'm like, wow, now I get it.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh being someone who identifies as very pagan and very witchy.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't uh I've heard some people call me a hedge witch.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily know how to label it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely consider myself a witch.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely consider myself very pagan because I just love the sun and the moon and the change of seasons.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, the goddess, uh goddess energy, goddess spirituality.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love that there's different gods and goddesses from different religions and backgrounds that are very special to people.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, very connected to anything earthy, very earthy.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was walking around as a kid, you know, uh wanting to collect sticks and then herbs and you know, not herbs, but like leaves, you know, from things and feeling that I had to put do something with them, and I had no idea what it was.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, this time of the year reminds me of those early beginnings, and it really connects me to who I am as a person, who I am as a spiritual practitioner, someone who really respects uh nature and at the same time sees the magic in like everyday things.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: I love anything witchy.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have this like haunted house I built.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I ordered it from Amazon, and it's supposed to be like a Victorian house, and I painted it black and brown, and it I I love it.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have little tea lights in there that come on automatically at night and it lights up the windows, and it just looks so spooky.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I got some branches, and it looks like there's dead trees around the house.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I love all of that, and it's so interesting again looking back at your childhood and seeing where you get that from and how you're not scared of it, it's fun for you.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's fun too because I uh when I was younger, I used to see and this is interesting too, because when I was younger, I would have downright traumatic experiences with seeing things, some of which were really terrifying, right?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as an adult, I I look at them now and I try to figure them out from the perspective that I have, right?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And like I remember as an as a child uh seeing a shadow figure uh that was sitting on top of me in bed, and I opened my eyes in the middle of the night and I saw a shadow figure wearing a mask and had a knife in their hand, and they were raising the knife, and I was terrified.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't move, and I wanted to scream, and I thought it was my mom, believe it or not, because it looked like my mom and had the same hair, and I was like, oh my god, my mom's gone crazy, and I wanted to scream out to my dad, and for some reason I screamed out to a deity that was part of a religion that my dad followed, it was an Afro-Cuban religion, and and to this I still have issues to this day, um, because I got very close to some of those deities as a child, and then I there was a lot of trauma associated with that particular religion, and so it I still struggled to this day trying to separate the deity from the trauma.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so I screamed out to this deity, um, and the figure disappeared.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I I do have to say, skipped one part that I closed my eyes really hard and I opened them again, and it was still there.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I was very sensitive as a child seeing things.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one day I was in the shower, in the bathtub, uh, or in the shower, in a very shallow shower, and I was filling it up with waters uh as much as I could because I loved everything to do with water, right?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw the figure of a woman through the frosted glass wearing a blue gown, long black hair, and she was approaching the shower, and then she just disappeared.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And people told me that that was the African goddess Yamaya, the goddess of the sea, and I loved all things fish and ocean as a child.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: So as a kid, I would I saw a lot of things that were traumatic.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a whole bunch of ghost stories that I could go on and on about that I saw that were terrifying.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And as an adult, I look back at them and I'm not scared of it.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm like, where'd you all go?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, now that I, you know, I'm a very much a psychic medium and I have conversations with people who have crossed over during readings, and I'm not scared of that sort of thing.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I sort of like, where'd you go?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I see you anymore?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: I do see things occasionally, but not at the frequency that I used to.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it depends too on the location, right?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like I used to work in a haunted office building and I saw someone's head moving around.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to be fair, it was like, you know, if you work in an office building and you have cubicles, you'll see people's heads all the time.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it was that sort of thing.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I saw somebody's head walking, and I and then I was like, oh, uh, they stopped, and then I was like, oh, I'm gonna scare them.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I jumped, it was on the weekend, and I jumped out into the hallway, and there was nobody there.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And but I had seen this head moving through the hallway, and it was a very haunted office building.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: I got poked in the butt once in a computer room, and where I got poked in the butt, another coworker of mine literally said, Oh, that's where somebody grabbed me by the shoulders and and and pushed me out of the way.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: And another time I saw somebody standing there with their arms folded, and I thought it was my boss.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I turned to look at him and say, What now?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: What did I do now?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there was nobody there.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: So just we saw lots of uh eerie and creepy things in that building, but not at the frequency when I was a kid.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Don't see that um anymore.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I do sense more though than when I was a kid, you know, because as a psychic medium, you're sensing things and you're just opening yourself up and you start to receive that information from people who have crossed over, and it feels sort of different, right?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like Teresa Capito on Long Island Medium, she'll get that sense that somebody's trying to communicate.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I do get that, similar to as she gets it.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, I don't have a camera crew behind me, and I am terrified to talk to somebody about it.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I was getting um my eyeglass uh prescription refilled or reordered, whatever you want to call it, and I was at Lens Crafters, I believe.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's lens crafters, I think that's where I go.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I was at Lens Crafters, maybe they'll send me some free glasses, right?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the lady that was uh uh getting my glasses and looking at some of the uh like opening them and and cleaning them up and everything, I'm looking at her and suddenly her dad pops in and her.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Her dad is like, Oh, I'm so proud of her.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: She's such a hard worker.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he's going on and on.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh my god, it's her dad.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's her dad.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, please, sir, you I can't.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not gonna do this, you know.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because he he was like, I need you to tell her, you know, how much I'm proud of her and how I love her, and I really wanted to, but a couple of things is that sometimes you can't do that to people, right?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's considered not nice when you attach to someone's energy without their permission.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's like a big no-no.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: So the other thing is, like I said, I don't have a camera crew, and I can't just walk up to somebody and say, Oh, by the way, I'm a psychic medium.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is, number three, is that I don't want anyone thinking that I am trying to pull that on them.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want anyone thinking, especially in the age of influencers, I don't want anyone thinking I'm inauthentic, right?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I just don't want to say, oh, by the way, I'm a psychic medium.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like who does that?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's people out there listening to this that go, oh, I do that.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I have done it before, but the circumstances have to be right.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to, and it just it's it's hard for me.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I'm I am not that type of person that will that will pull that on somebody, especially if I feel like it's gonna be interpreted as being inauthentic, uh, because I don't want to mess up the message, right?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's better for me at least that I don't say anything at all than if if I give the person a bad experience with a psychic or a medium.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to ruin it for them in the future.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, uh I used to as a child, you know, see these things, but now as an adult, it comes through in a much different way.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: But Halloween and this time of year kicks it up.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my inner child wakes up and remembers the trick-or-treating and how the night seemed so magical.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was spooky, but it was magical too.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I used to think, oh, what's going on out there?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like somewhere, some faraway place, there were spirits dancing or partying, and it was it was so interesting.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, I've probably talked your ear off at this point, and uh I question whether I'm just enjoying the sound of my own voice uh in this microphone and these headsets.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but anyway, I I was inspired to just tape this and talk about why I think Halloween and Sawin is so special for me and how it brings out a connection to the things unseen in this world, and how that feeling for me extends all the way through Yule, and then it kind of comes to this sharp crash, and uh after Yule, things taper off big time, and other things come about, other senses of connection come about.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my connection to the earth becomes greater, not so much the non-physical, and perhaps there's a cycle there that someone can leave feedback on.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you look in the description, there's a place to leave feedback, and I'll get a text message.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um and maybe you can enlighten me about some cycle there where I'm connected to spirit certain time of the year, and then earth, and then maybe water, even right?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we're going through elemental shifts.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I hope this resonated with you, or maybe you just were as entertained with the sound of my voice as I was.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope you enjoyed this little story about my childhood and what this time of the year means for me.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you have an amazing holiday season.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: I hope your Halloween, your Sawin, your Los Dios de los Muertos is amazing and filled with blessings and love.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I will see you next time on the Digital Soul Space Podcast.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Take care, everybody.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Bye bye.