When I was a kid, my parents went all out for only one holiday, Halloween. All my friends thought my parents were the best, the neighbors, I'm sure, thought they were crazy! My father hung up a lot of home made skulls that he painted with flat white paint, and deep. flat black. He would hang these along this long hallway that was at the entrance of our door. I once asked him why so many skulls and he told me it reminded him of how his grandmother would decorate with little skulls on her porch in Scranton.
It took me many years to find that my great-grandmother, and my grandmother had a deeper reason for enjoying this very American holiday so much. It falls just two days before the traditional Festa dei Morti in Italy.
There are many names associated with the days that fall from October 30th through November 2nd; All Saints Day, All Hallows Eve, Hop-tu-Naa, Halloween, Samhain, All Souls Day, Oiche Shamnha, Ahoppa awan tewa and many others.
In Italy, and for Stregas, the day is Festa dei Morti - Feast of the Dead. Traditionally in Italy the feast begins the evening before with food being prepped to be taken to the cemeteries On 2 Novembre you will find entire families parading to local cemeteries - they make a special day of, dressing in their finest, singing songs, greeting one another in the street. Families lay out entire feasts at the gravesides of relatives and picnic there. They decorate the grave site with flowers and garlands, and sometimes can be seen polishing the stones. This can, and often does, last long into the night, with strings of lights strung up, giving the graves an eerie glow.
Families will spend the day in the cemeteries, often moving between one side of the family and another, greeting friends and neighbors. Some cemeteries have Nuns who for a small donation will pray a special prayer for your relatives on this day.
So what does a Wild Strega do on this day?
For me this is a day of remembering and honoring those who came before me in my family. I will pull out more photos than I normally have sitting out, I arrange them on an old oak wash stand in my dining room. (in the photos below you cannot see the pictures on the wall also) I place any of the funeral cards from their services there as well - as I believe in holding those in the presence of the last party given in their honor an energy is attached to those cards. In the morning I will place a small piece of our coffee cake I make from scratch (my G-Grandmother wouldn't accept less!) and a small cup of espresso, in the evening I replace these with a small dish of our meal, which is always a hearty stew, and a glass of wine.
For me personally, this is a bittersweet time. I only knew my g-grandmother and grandmother for a short time. I never knew the male side of our family, and have never been to our family seat in Ribera, Sicily. I hope some day to get there and pay my respects to the land that my ancestors loved.
In the late evening, once most of my family has settled down for the night, I gather up with candle and the funeral cards and set outside. Under the Gaze of my Goddess, Diana, I speak each of their names out loud to the night sky. If it is a clear night, and the Face of Diana, the moon, is showing, all the better! I ask for each of them to be happy where ever their spirit's are now, I sit and meditate and picture each of them in turn, I get a smile from each as we say our goodbyes. I burn the candle down completely, and light bay and rue leaves, sending my thoughts with them.
This may not seem very dramatic, or theatrical in the way you might think it should be, but it is a very personal day. My grandmother would go to church on this day, then to the cemetery and then home to bake bread There was always bread on her table of photos, and always a lit candle. She said if we shared our bread with our family, they would make sure we always had enough to eat.
I believe being a Strega starts right here. Honoring the traditions and lives of our ancestors. I carry that connection with me daily, and it in turn, carries me though some of my dark days.