Lighting A Candle

Besides putting our clocks back to winter time this weekend, we’re also entering a time of year that I always find heavy – and confusing.

I think I pretty much explained the why’s of my heavy feeling last year in a post entitled The Dreary Misery of Halloween.

The confusion, to do with dates, did not really come into it last year because then the dates kind of fell into place by themselves. This year they don’t.

We have two All Saints days in our calendar, and on top of that an All Souls day. The original All Saints was 1 November. Nowadays Swedish All Saints Day falls on the Saturday immediately preceding All Souls Day, which is the first Sunday in November. However, 1st November is still also marked All Saints Day in the calendar, whatever day of the week that may happen to be.

I’m telling you this because it means that while in most countries Halloween has just been celebrated, in Sweden Halloween/All Saints is not until next weekend.

Since the American kind of scary parties and trick-and-treating etc do not really belong in our old traditions – even if picked up by some people in later years though the influence of TV etc – that just adds to the confusion. Internationally tuned people might have celebrated Halloween during the weekend past, while others wait until next weekend.

I have no idea so far what I’ll be doing next weekend. But today at twilight I did what I wrote last year that I might do if I was on my own: I went to an old family grave in the cemetery closest to where I live, and lit a “symbolic” candle there. Turned out that someone else had already also done so, and that felt kind of nice.

Resurrection part 2: The Beskows

In Saturday’s Resurrection post I presented some people who were “raised from the dead”  in one of our local graveyards last week to give a history lesson to the public gathered there.

This post is about three people that I excluded from the previous one because I needed to do a bit more research before presenting them to you (or else it would just have been more pictures of the same actors dressed in different clothes).

Only one of them was actually buried in this town (or lived here): Emanuel Beskow, a dean of some importance in the church back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Better known locally than nation-wide. There is no Wikipedia article about him.

But he did have a couple of relatives by the same surname – Beskow - that were more famous: Nathanael and Elsa. And they were invited to the “resurrection party” too:

  

 
Photo of the real Nathanael and Elsa, 1937

Natanael Beskow (1865 – 1953) was a Swedish theologian and school headmaster. He was also active as a preacher, writer, artist, pacifist and social activist. He published a number of collections of sermons and also made substantial contributions as a hymn writer. He was involved with the campaign for women's suffrage in Sweden (which was granted in 1919), and with the labor unions. Beskow was a radical pacifist and also became a prominent negotiator. He was even nominated for the Nobel peace prize in 1947 (but did not get it).

His wife Elsa Beskow (née Maartman) (1874 – 1953) was a Swedish author and illustrator of children's books. She studied art at a university college. She met Nathanael when she was teaching at a school where he was the headmaster. They got married in 1897. They had six sons.

In her books, Elsa frequently combined reality with elements from the fairy tale world. Children meet elves or goblins, and animals talk with people. Central themes were the relationships between children and adults and children's independent initiative.

Elsa became one of the most well known of all Swedish children's book artists. Many of her books became classics and are continually reprinted.

Searching for images on the web, I found that quite a few of her books have been translated into English. Like these, which I remember well from my own childhood (in Swedish):

Did you ever come across any of these books?

Resurrection

Now where are all these people headed on a warm summer evening?

A graveyard chapel? You must be kidding?
Doesn’t really look like a funeral…

Actually it’s rather the opposite of a funeral.
More like a Resurrection!

Guests of honour arriving from the past: A 19th century district judge with his wife, greeted by a woman journalist from their own time; she too brought back from the dead to do one more scoop.

Must be an odd feeling looking at one’s own headstone…

So, what’s going on? It is a live history lesson: a guided tour around a 19th century graveyard. Represented by actors, some old prominent citizens are brought back to life for a short visit, to be interviewed and tell us a bit about their own lives, and the history of the town.

The resurrected old car they arrived in. (No use asking me for car details; I don’t have them.)

Another guy risen from his grave – local artist and art teacher John Hedaeus (1872-1967). I managed to find only two of his paintings on the internet. He also did some paintings in churches.

Left: Watercolour by John Hedaeus
Right: Oil painting by John Hedaeus

 
Another (less well known) artist, son of the journalist who was our guide for the evening, also turned up to “surprise his mum”, and escort her back to their own grave:

 

Actually three more people were “raised from the dead” on this Tuesday evening, but I think I’ll let these photos be enough for one blog post.

However, with a theme like this I can’t resist also “doing a Ginny” at the end (referring to my friend of the blog Let Your Light Shine), and finish off with a Bible quote:

“… we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.”
2 Corinthians 4:14

Ashes and Dust

The April sun went into hiding for the weekend. Saturday was all grey here, and very windy. All the sand that has not yet been swept up from the streets after the winter, whirling around... Suddenly it seemed much easier to "believe" in that cloud of vulcano ashes that has been putting a lock on all our airports in Northern Europe over the last few days; leaving people stranded all over the world, suddenly not being able to go where they intended to go. Bad enough for those who were going away; and even worse for those headed back home (expected back at work, and having spent all their holiday money).

Yes, I do know that the clouds I actually see now are "ordinary" clouds. The news just seemed all the more incredible when I first heard about it, and at the same time saw the sun blazing down from a perfectly clear, blue sky! (Ashes? What ashes?)

A powerful reminder that we really have very little clue what's going on around us, most of the time!



"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust..."

A walk earlier in the week (still under a blue sky) took me across the town's oldest cemetery. It has a lot of these really impressive graves with huge memorial headstones in enclosures surrounded by heavily decorated iron fences. (I always wonder: Why? Yes, I can understand the need to mark the place... But iron fences?!)



But in the same cemetery I also found the hepaticas (cf previous post), growing "wild" outside the fences, reminding of new life...

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection into eternal life”
~ Book of Common Prayer ~

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

~ Gospel of Matthew 24: 35, 36 ~

All Saints Day Pictures

Thanks to my Aunt, we had a good meal.
And Harry-the-dog was happy to help with the dishes!



Partly thanks to the weather (and the rest thanks to each other), the visit to the churchyard went well, too. Unlike most of my memories from Halloweens past, the sun was shining from a clear blue sky, it was very still, and we went before dark. Which means we found our way among the graves, could see what we were doing, the wind did not blow out the candles, and we did not get too icy cold.



Someone commented on my post yesterday:
"-- a candle on the ground?"

In our graveyards, this weekend, there are such candles burning on almost every grave. Some put theirs in special lanterns instead, but just as many or more are put directly on the ground.  These are designed for the purpose and supposed to last for about two days or so - a plastic container with a metal cap on top, to protect as far as possible from wind and rain, and still let enough air in to (hopefully) keep it burning.

Swedish Halloween/All Saints Day

Friday was a chilly, grey day, but without rain or wind. I was in town in the morning - the streets outside the florist's shops and supermarkets are all lined with grave decorations and candles (have been for a couple of weeks, culminating on this weekend). I live near an old cemetery, with a lot of very old graves, and very few new ones - but already on Friday afternoon, there were candles and lanterns lit on just about every second grave. More will be added... There are lots of people about, all the time - putting down decorations, lighting candles... There is very little talking; all is very hushed and quiet.

In a couple of hours, my aunt and uncle will come to pick me up, and we'll go on to my dad's house outside town, where my brother is also waiting. After a meal, we'll go together to mum's grave (and a few other family graves). This is the first Halloween after her death. (If you missed my Monday post, I've written more about my feelings and the family situation there.)

The pictures in this post were all taken yesterday. As you can see, most of the trees are now bare; just a few golden leaves left on some (next time the wind blows, they will go, too). The air is chilly, and darkness falls early in the afternoon, since we set our clocks back to winter time last weekend.

The Dreary Misery of Halloween

I can imagine the title causing a raised eyebrow or two, especially among the American readers. That is why I have to write it. During later years, the American pumpkin-horror-trick-and-treating has made its commercially inspired efforts to find its way into our tradition, too. I'm sure it has had its effect on the younger generation - for better or for worse is still debated. For most people, I think they still feel like foreign traditions rather than "our own". Personally I'm still not comfortable with them - even post-Harry Potter. (Which did open up my mind a bit about pretend-scary being a way of dealing with real-scary...) But then again I'm not comfortable with "our own" traditions either...

Swedish Halloween-All Saints Day traditions are basically of much more solemn nature. It's actually the only holiday that has sort of grown more and more 'religious' in later years, while every other holiday has grown less and less so. Not necessarily Christian-religious, but still religious. It is the holiday when thoughts are turned to the dead and loved ones no longer with us. Graves are tended, covered up for the winter, and on this weekend thousands and thousands of candles are lit in the graveyards. This is also the time of year when all of nature dies and darkness falls; we pass from autumn to winter. The trees drop their last colourful leaves. The very last flowers shrivel up and disappear. The weather is totally unreliable - there are often rainstorms, sometimes frost or sleet or snow. More often than not, Halloween night is stormy, wet, icy cold, and pitch dark. At least, in my memories, it is. And still people insist on spending this night of all standing about in graveyards, trying to strike fire to matches and candles that the wind immediately blows out again and the rain will drench.

In my childhood memories, on Halloween, everyone was always in a bad mood. Whatever the weather, the graveyards would be visited - and at night. You lost your way in the dark, you got blinded by other people's candles, you stumbled upon things, your feet were freezing cold, your hands were numb, the wind turned your umbrella inside-out, the candles would not light, there was a lot of muttering between teeth if not outright swearing, and there was not one happy thought the whole day, because at heart, everyone was sad, and just wishing it would all be over. And no one could explain properly why exactly we were going through all this, except that it was what one was supposed to do. (And what would people think if one did not.)

My maternal grandmother died when I was six, some time in the early autumn I think. (While my mother was pregnant with my brother, and her sister with my oldest cousin.) So from then on, if not before, that's where my memories of the Halloween graveyard tradition start. Then my paternal grandfather died when I was 14, and in that churchyard there are several other old family graves as well. We made our rounds...

When as a young adult I moved away from home to another town, in another direction... I always avoided going home/ to my grandparents' town at Halloween. I was thoroughly glad to escape it all. The time of year still always managed to depress me, in spite of that. I never found Halloween church services uplifting either - choirs dressed all in black, solemn organ music, requiems, listings of all the people who died over the year...

Then for various reasons, I ended up moving to the town and neighbourhood of my family roots, after all of my grandparents had already left this earth. Some years later, my parents also moved back to the same neighbourhood. Halloween came upon us again... I still usually tried to avoid it.

Nine years ago, towards the end of October, something happened at my place of work back then, which was the start of my still ongoing vicious circle of chronic pain problems (neck-shoulder-arm). I don't want to put the details about that on the blog. But it's not a happy anniversary, and it does nothing to brighten up this time of the year for me.

One year ago, my father was still driving, but I was not too happy about that. Especially, I did not want him driving all the way into (or home from) town in the dark. I gave my parents two choices: Either I would go to the cemetery in town for them. Or if they still insisted on going themselves, they'd come to me for lunch, and we'd go to the cemetery while it was still daylight, and they must promise to go back home before it got dark. They said they'd think about it.

On Wednesday evening before Halloween last year, my father was brought into hospital after a fall at home, his leg muscles having failed him (he could not get back up on his feet again). He spent two weeks in the neurology ward, and nothing was ever to be the same again. My mother also had a shock and her health after this also deteriorated quickly. She died in May 2009. Dad still lives on in his own home with a lot of help from home care staff. One year ago, we would not have guessed that to be the situation today. But that's how it is.

Friday before Halloween last year, mum and I both went together to the hospital to visit dad. Mum then spent the night at my place. On Halloween Saturday, she went to the hospital to see dad, and then went back home on her own. I went to the cemetery in town, on my own, to my maternal grandparents' grave, and one more, to light candles; so at least mum would not have to think about that. It was an unusual Halloween in that it was a clear day, and very still. I also went before sunset, and alone, and by my own decision. It was peaceful and beautiful, and since it was not pitch dark I could actually see that. In a way, it was also oddly comforting that there were so very many other living people about at the same time, doing the same thing.



Seven months later, mum died. I took care of all the funeral arrangements. I dread this upcoming Halloween. As it looks right now though, my dad and my brother and I will also have the support of mum's sister and her husband, who will be joining us, on Saturday. I hope we'll somehow get through it together. But to say I'm looking forward to it, would be a gross exaggeration.

As I've written before on this blog - the grave next to my mum's belongs to a 16 year old girl who was murdered this past summer. Last week, a picture of her grave was all over the front page of the morning paper, because of the upcoming trial. I can't even put a name on how that makes me feel. It's just a Fact.

Anyway. If I won't be returning cheery wishes of "Happy Halloween" - now you know a bit about why.

If I had no other living person but myself to think of on that day (but I still do), this is what I think I'd do:

Before sunset, I'd go to the grave of my maternal great-grandparents, which is in a cemetery very close to where I now live. They died long before I was born, and I did not even know of this grave's existence until six months ago when my aunt showed it to me; but since I now pass that cemetery almost daily anyway, I have since then sort of adopted it as representative of all the other family graves I never go to. Not that I keep bringing flowers or candles or anything - I just walk by it. But at Halloween, I might take a candle there, and lighting it, let that be a symbolic nod (for myself) to all the other unvisited graves as well. After that I'd go home and make a cup of tea, and listen to some Celtic-inspired music. I'd probably choose the CD Under the Violet Moon with Blackmore's Night, and especially the song The Wind in the Willows. And then I'd watch Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (i.e. the first film) on DVD.

If all goes according to plan (which, however, remains to be seen), that's unlikely to be exactly what I will be doing on this particular Halloween Saturday. But I might do it some other day instead.