All Saints' Weekend

 

On Friday (All Saints' Eve) it was still too windy in my opinion to find it worth while to go and make any attempt to light candles in the cemetery. So I put that off until Saturday afternoon; which was calm and sunny, but almost wintry cold. 

Not a lot of leaves left on the trees after the stormy days earlier in the week - but in some places, the sun did its best to highlight what was still there.

In the background behind those golden leaves above is the cemetery chapel - which is also kept open on this day, so that people can go inside and light candles, or search for names in the registry book (of people who had their ashes scattered in the memorial grove outside), or just sit and meditate for a while.

 

 

Family grave from my mum's side of the family (her grandparents). Someone had already lit two candles there - probably the day before, as both of them had obviously got blown out by the wind very soon after being lit... I lit those again, and added two of my own. 

 

(Today I passed by there again, and then all four candles had burned half way down but had then been extinguised by wind or rain. I lit them again and hopefully they burned for a few hours more.)

At home, I struggled to wrap my balcony bench "properly" (legs and all) in its winter covering (a plastic tarpaulin); and put it back out again, with the strawberry box hibernating underneath, inside the "tent"... 

 

 It has worked every winter before, so hopefully it will work again. (I'll be keeping an extra eye on it if we get more storm warnings, though...)

"Fall Leaves Us in Awe"

Still some autumn colours to be seen in nature, this last week of October - in spite of rather wet, grey and foggy weather. The photos below were taken during a walk into town and back yesterday, along the river.

 

And in the cemetery, the gardeners are being quite creative with the winter coverings of the public flower beds.

 

We don't see all that much of the British/American kind of Halloween celebrations with spooky garden decorations and kids going trick-or-treat-ing around here; but it's very common to light candles and put winter decorations on the graves of one's ancestors, for what we call All Saints' Weekend (Allhelgona). (In church: All Saints' Day on Saturday, and All Souls' Day on Sunday.)

 “Fall leaves us in awe with its colorful magic!” (Unknown)

 “As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas, and colors enough to paint the beautiful things I see.” – Vincent Van Gogh

All Saints' Weekend

 

We had a wet and grey All Saints' Weekend. On Friday afternoon (All Saint's Eve) there was a break in the rain, though, and I manged a walk to the nearby cemetery and the one family grave we have there (my maternal great-grandparents), to light a candle.

 

Larch trees

"Weeping birch"

Giant horse chestnut leaf
stuck on a bush beneath the tree

Empty playground...

I got out for short walks on Saturday and Sunday as well, but for the most part, it was a weekend to just "stay in and read" (cf. my previous book review post)... 

Not a whole lot of interest on TV either, so I've picked up what has almost become an annual tradition of mine this time of year: Re-watching Gilmore Girls, a favourite American TV-series of mine from 2000-2007 that since a number of years back now runs on Netflix. (I also have it on old DVDs, but on Netflix it has been adjusted to modern flatscreen TV format. There's also a 4-part sequel from 2016.) I never really get tired of it because it's so full of quirky details and characters and clever repartee - and hints and references to like a million classic books and films. (It also goes totally overboard in making fun of American small town life - but in a very loving way.)

Have you got any favourites like that to which you keep returning over and over...?

31st October

Today, all over the internet, there are lots of Halloween posts from American and British friends. Here in Sweden, it's just an ordinary Tuesday, though.

In this country, the holiday All Saints' Day was moved (in the 1950s) to always be celebrated on the Saturday falling between 31st October and 6th November; and followed by All Souls' Day on the Sunday. Traditionally, it's also mostly a rather solemn weekend here, when we remember family and friends who passed away, and visit graveyards to put candles and winter decorations on their graves. 

In later decades, the American tradition of Halloween parties and trick-or-treat-ing etc has also spread - but there is no real consensus about when to have these celebrations. Some insist that they belong on 31st October, never mind what day of the week that happens to be. Others find it natural to have them on the Friday before All Saint's Day, whatever date that happens to be. Or even the weekend before 31st October. (I heard someone on the radio this morning sighing about having had random trick-or-treat visits for a whole week already.)  

On the housing estate where I live since 15 years, I don't think I've ever seen or heard any signs of Halloween celebrations. My own autumn decorations are modest and won't get any scarier than two friendly ceramic owls and some candles (real and fake) to light up the dark.

 

 

Barbie and Skipper have settled down to read - as do I from time to time...

If anyone is wondering what it's like outdoors, the answer is: grey, went and windy! 

On Sunday I did not set foot outdoors at all. Photo taken from my window.

 

Yesterday I did venture out as it was less windy for a while. Still very wet, though!

Today I went out again, to go and post a card to the husband of a close friend of mine who died back in January.  I managed most of the walk without getting too wet, but had to turn up my umbrella before I got back home again. I had also brought a candle for a family grave (great grandparents) in the cemetery close to home (which I passed on my way back). I managed to light it, but suspect that it probably got put out by wind or rain behind my back not long after. The forecasts for the All Saints/ Souls weekend are so far not looking any better, though.

Halloween / All Saints', Owls and Candles

As mentioned before, in Sweden we celebrate All Saints' Day on the first Saturday in November (i.e. today), rather than on November 1st. (The holiday was moved here back in 1952, which means it's been like that all my life.) It's a rather solemn holiday, mostly about remembering the dead, tending to family graves, and church concerts with requiems.

Nowadays it also tends to get mixed up with American Halloween traditions, though - even if many still claim that those do not belong in our culture; or should at least be limited to the night of October 31st (never mind what day of the week). Others argue that as All Saints has been moved, then Halloween should also be celebrated on the Friday before All Saints. And with schools nowadays also closed a whole week for "autumn leave" (no such thing back in my own school days!), Halloween time now tends to sort of spread out to cover two weekends + the week in between!

For me, All Saints used to be a rather gloomy holiday (sad rather than festive and child-friendly). Nowadays, I feel more free to celebrate or ignore it as I please, though.

In my own home, decorations for autumn/Halloween/All Saints are sparse. Basically, I just change the display on the old chest in my living room a bit - adding a bit of orange, and featuring my owl collection. (If you can call just a handful of something a collection!)

 

These tiny ones sit on the rim of my vase of fake twigs.
(They can also sit on a plant pot.)

 

The big one used to be my mother's. You can put a tea candle inside it. With a real candle, it gets very hot, though... So I sometimes put a battery candle in it instead.

 

Back in summer I found this little one in a souvenir shop and added it to the "collection". It's small but heavy - made of solid concrete. I fell for it because it reminded me of the bigger hollow one, and I thought they might like each other's company... ;-)

On another wall (all year round) hangs an owl made in batik technique, made by my maternal grandfather back in 1976. He made quite a lot of batik art back in those days. I think I got this one for either my birthday or Christmas that year.

 For this weekend, I put a lantern with a battery candle in my living room window. That's for all the family graves that I don't visit... The lantern may get stay up until it's time to put up Advent candles instead, though. (Or until the battery runs out; whichever comes first.)

I did also go out to put a real candle on the one family grave we have in the old cemetery nearby where I "always" walk, though. Someone else had been there before me:

 

All Saints' Day

Some of you celebrated Halloween last weekend. In Sweden there is a bit of confusion about this holiday, because historically, All Saints' Day was/is 1st November, but in our calendar the holiday was moved (1953) to the Saturday before the first Sunday in November. Since then, we have sort of re-introduced some American Halloween traditions again, so have kind of ended up with two similar holidays which sometimes coincide, and sometimes not. This year, with 31st October being a Sunday, followed by a week with the schools on autumn leave, followed by All Saint's Day this weekend, it has seemed like a very long holiday!

Last Sunday - Oct 31 - when it was sunny, I went for a walk to the larger cemetery on the outskirts of town (opposite direction for me compared to going into the town centre), and put a candle on my maternal grandparents' grave.

Yesterday (grey and damp but not windy) I went and put one on an older family grave (my mother's grandparents) in the old cemetery closer to where I live. I never met them, but because I walk by that grave very often, it has sort of come to represent for me all the others that I can't visit. Yesterday when I got there, there were already three candles lit - some other relative(s) must already have been there.

Today it's been raining all day, and for the first time in a long time, I've not set foot outdoors at all, but chose to just stay in. For exercise, I took the vacuum cleaner for a walk through the flat... I also spent quite a bit of time on a Sepia Saturday post on my family history / old postcards blog, Greetings from the Past. The Sepia prompt included a donkey, which led my thoughts to the photo of my great-aunt Gerda below... Click here it if you want to know more! ;)

 

Halloween 2

In my previous post (Oct 31), I showed some photos from a large woodland cemetery on the outskirts of town. The photos in today's post are from an older and smaller cemetery, closer to where I live. Not quite "next door" as there is a railway and a road to cross in between... But with a footbridge over the railway (which runs in a narrow valley down below), only a few minutes away. In fact, I usually walk either along, across or around this cemetery several times a week. Either on my way to/from other places, or just for a walk. Having lived where I live for 11+ years now, I estimate that I have probably walked across or along that cemetery like 4000 times - whereas during the 50+ previous years of my life, maybe I visited a graveyard once or twice a year (at most!). In some ways, it probably helped to take the "edge" off some of my own losses (and fears) over the same time period... Because while each walk in a cemetery is a reminder of death, at the same time it is also a reminder of Life...

A week or so before Halloween, before the trees dropped all their leaves, I walked around that cemetery taking photos of some of the old graves that have more recently been recycled. (The system here is that when there is no one left to care for a grave, and a certain number of years/decades have passed since the last burial there, it can be reused.) When there are lots of "extra" decorations added on an old grave, that usually indicates a more recent burial - and often of someone young, or someone with roots in another country and culture. (In the photos I have avoided including names, though.)

So many stories...

Inspired Sunday #340