In different faiths this time of year is when we honour our dead.

In the northen hemisphere we are in the season of the last abundance, then withering, dying and slumber.

The trees have started to burn bright with autumn colours and dropping their leaves. Plants in our garden, the local meadow and on the hills around here are a mixture greens and browns with some hardy flowers still in bloom.

I am preparing for Samhain for the first time in my life. I have participated in harvest events and lantern/light events before and attended church to listen to the names of people who have died in the year being read out.

I have never celebrated Halloween and feel uncomfortable with the intense commercialisation of this very special time of year. Like so many other things it feels disconnected from the reality of what this time of year represents and what is happening in nature around us.

I love the idea that this is the time when the veil between worlds is thinnest.

I have made a Samhain wreath which is withering by our front door and I am looking forward to making pumpkin lanterns.

Celebrating death and dying, making space for mourning, honouring our dead and being with our mortality and vulnerability feel very important to me.

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As some people may know I live in a place where we had an annual death festival for 5 years. We are going through a time where it seems more relevant than ever to make space for death and dying and come together as communities and de-professionalise the powerful transition that death, dying and loss is for all of us. The Pushing Up Daisies festival is in a fallow period and I don’t know if and how and in what form it may return one day. So I will mourn that too this year.