Halloween/Samhain Service

October 26, 2025—Halloween/Samhain Service

UCM—Rev. Rita Capezzi

I’m dressed as a stereotypical witch today—black dress, pointy hat, a broom, a cauldron, a little green in cape and stocking thrown in for Elfaba. I left my black cat at home.  She doesn’t travel well. I saw a recent Facebook post suggesting that the costume of a stereotypical witch mirrors that of a pre-15^th Century Alewife—a brewer of beer—the pointy hat a way to be seen above the crowds, the broom a stick for stirring in a large cauldron, the cat a way to keep mice from the grain used to make the beer.

Costume similarities aside—and some historians contest these connections, 15^th century alewives were often accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake, all part of the various purges over time of women with social power posing threats to male authority.

I have worn a witch costume many times over the years, first when I played the witch in Hansel and Gretal in the 3^rd grade school play. Wearing the costume of a witch became increasingly significant to me because of the symbolism of female resistance to authority. I dress up in the costume of a character who is like me—a woman who has resisted male authority in the expectations set for me by my family, in the response to my professional accomplishments in my PhD. Program, in my experiences at the conservative catholic college where I was a professor. All these places where I was supposed to act in a particular way because I am a female person. All these ways that I resisted. I am grateful that burning women at the stake has fallen out of fashion. Today, I can be playful with my identity, with a costume that conceals and also reveals it.

The world can seem like a terrible place, full of monsters
When the world’s violence shatters the joy of a moment
When despair rises as a monster from the deep and drags down one of our own,
When hatred and anger rage in fire and suffering
When fear whispers “build more gates” “add more locks” “the blessed are those who defend themselves,” we rock those fears to sleep and let them rest
People will do unspeakably cruel and horrible things; we know this fact, we live and die this daily, all around the world, in every community and every wasteland.
Sadness and endings, but we can take comfort in the seasons and rhythms of nature:

*Song inviting us to honor, accept, and cherish the natural rhythms of change.

Prayer/Reflection

Once, many grey autumns ago, I came upon a tree. The tree, a poplar, had dropped all of its leaves but for one, just one. I stopped and looked and marveled at the sight. I wondered what the odds might be that I was the one person who happened to arrive at that one tree at that one moment when but one leaf remained. What were the odds? I felt an instant kinship with the one leaf. I admired its stubbornness. I spoke quietly to it, “Hang on. Never give up. Don’t let go!”

The exuberance of summer is gone. Grand plans and high hopes give way to chilly reality. We loved as best we could, we’ve reaped as much as we could, we’ve traveled life’s journey as far as we could. We count our blessings and our losses. All leaves must fall. The circle of the year comes round. Our hemisphere tilts away from the sun. Green turns to gold. Life returns to the soil. Animals retreat. The nights grow long. The natural world lies fallow. The season of letting go comes as it always comes. Winter begins.

Gather we now into this space, this time when the Wheel turns and the Veil shatters.
Gather we now to tell the Old Stories and sing the Old Songs, to be as we have always been —the Voice of our people eternal.
Gather we now to celebrate that which was, that which is, and that which will be.
Gather we now, as we have always done, united by Story and bound by Love.

Love is what redeems us from fear of monsters , from being monsters.
But we know the answer is found only with one action, and so
Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone can be healed. This is the truth we affirm. We live with courage and with a wider and wider circle of that force that bends our lives to ones of mercy, justice, and compassion.
We pause and reach out for the hands that remain
We bend to pick up the wounded, to bind up ourselves

What brings us together and keeps our hope going:
No matter who—or what—you are, you are welcome here. The scary, the royal, the handy, the superheroes and superstars. In short, we welcome people, monsters, and all other manner of creatures! Here, we welcome you, and all of who and what you are.

*Song inviting us to welcome the unexpected and the exuberant into our lives.
In love with life, in love with the Beloved, we turn to answer that desperation with assurance: you are loved, you are loveable, we will and do love you. Now, attend to your life’s work: to love. It’s the only legacy that matters.
It’s the truth: just by being born you are loved. There is something within you and every person that can be loved.
In love, we pray for those families, those individuals, all the persons here and everywhere who are desperately sure that there is not enough love in the world for them to have some, who are desperately sure that they do not matter.