Samhain reflections: Following the Dead into The Underworld

I well remember how I thought and felt in the early weeks and months following my former partner’s death from chronic alcoholism. I felt utterly lost, and this was an understatement.

We’d divorced two years before he died but maintained contact as there’d been a profound bond and love between us which had become misshapen by his addiction. A frequent hospital inpatient, I visited him several times, and especially the weekend before he died when it was evident that his hours were limited.

The months following his death were punctuated by my wondering where he was, and whether he was alright. I felt less connected to my own life even though my working life was interesting and contained enough challenges to keep me on my toes.

I longed for him to come through the front door. I longed for him to sit with me, talking over the day. I missed the immeasurably interesting conversations we used to have, and the deep love which we shared.

The longing for him which I experienced was a physical ache in my body which nothing could shift. I wished with all my being that I could spend just one hour with him.

My longing for the man I loved was utterly normal. This type of longing is experienced by thousands of people, whether they mourn a partner, a parent, a child, a close friend.

Clients tell me “I don’t want to be here”. They say, “I just want to follow him” Words tumble out, “I don’t see the point in being here.” “When she died, a part of me went too.”

These powerful words and their equally powerful underlying emotions don’t necessarily mean that the grieving person wants to die. They’re telling me that, for them, at this time, there’s no joy or meaning in their life. They’re rootless, lost, all at Sea. Yes, how could it be otherwise?

For there are moments in grief when the longing to follow the dead becomes almost unbearable. It’s not always a wish to die. Often it is something far more subtle, stranger: a yearning to be near again, to go to the place where love has gone.

It carries no pathology, only the raw ache of a heart that has touched eternity and cannot easily turn back to daylight.

Following both the Boer War and the First World War when many thousands of soldiers and civilians lost their lives, people in Britain sought reassurances and comfort in Spiritualism which became extremely popular.

Spiritualism provided a way for traumatised and grieving people to find meaning in the midst of immense devastation. People needed to feel that this life, so full of struggle and sorrow, was not all that there is.

Grief awakens a part of us that knows there are other worlds.

Grieving people continue to seek from Spiritualism both meaning and connection with their loved one through the gate of Death.

Whether or not Spiritualism is for you, it’s important to recognise that each generation finds its own ways of listening for the voices of the dead.

What Myths tell us

In the old myths, the instinct to follow was never dismissed as madness.

It was recognised as a call to initiation, a summons from the soul to cross a threshold few dare to cross consciously.

In Greece they told of Orpheus, the musician who descended into Hades to bring back his beloved Eurydice.

His song softened the hearts of the dead, even of Persephone, the Wife of Hades, Lord of the Dead. But, desperate to be sure that his beloved Eurydice was indeed walking behind him as he made his way back to the opening and away from Hades, Orpheus turned to look, and, as he did so, Eurydice vanished into the shadows.

This story warns us that the way between worlds is delicate and that love’s light must be steady if it is to guide us through darkness.

Long before the Greek myths, the Sumerians told of Inanna, radiant Queen of Heaven and Earth, and her dark sister Ereshkigal, who ruled the Underworld.

Feeling an irresistible call to descend, Inanna left her shining realm and passed through seven gates, surrendering one symbol of her power at each: crown, beads, breastplate, robe, and more. By the time she reached her sister, she stood naked and bowed low, stripped of every worldly adornment.

Ereshkigal, heavy with grief and shadow, looked upon her and struck her dead. For three days and nights Inanna hung lifeless upon a hook, until tiny beings of compassion, sent by the god Enki, mirrored Ereshkigal’s pain. Their empathy moved her heart, and she released her sister back to life.

Yet Inanna could not return without another taking her place. Her consort Dumuzi was chosen, descending for part of each year. This tells us of the cycle of dying and renewal that echoes in the turning of the seasons.

This is one of the oldest stories ever written: the soul stripped bare, meeting its shadow, and returning with the knowledge that death is the midwife of transformation.

In the Celtic tales, mortals like Oisín crossed into Tír na nÓg, the Land of Youth, riding with the fairy woman Niamh. On returning to the mortal world Oisín discovered that centuries had gone by. The timeless realm had changed him; he could not remain as he was.

Each story carries the same message: that those who follow into the Underworld never return unchanged.

The Underworld.

In Shamanic understanding, the Underworld, sometimes called the Land of the Dead, isn’t a place of punishment, but of memory and transformation.

It’s distinct from the Lower World, the fertile realm where we meet guides and animal teachers.

The Underworld belongs to the ancestors, to endings, to the deep current of love that continues beyond form.

To descend is not to fall, but to listen. The drumbeat that leads us there is the heartbeat of the Earth itself. When we enter consciously, through dream, ritual, or deep remembrance, we don’t lose ourselves in death’s gravity. We touch mystery, carrying back to our earthly realm wisdom, clarity, compassion, insight.

Many who grieve find that this journey happens of its own accord.

Dreams open doorways. The dead visit in the quiet of night. The air grows thin around certain dates or places.

Grief itself becomes a kind of Shamanic rite of passage: stripping, emptying, awakening.

Samhain: the turning of the year

Now, at Samhain, the old Celtic new year, the veil between worlds grows thin.

Our ancestors called this the hinge of time, when the harvest was gathered, the fires banked, and the living paused to honour the dead.

Halloween, with its masks and candles, still carries an echo of that older reverence.

We feel it in the air: the hush, the pull, the invitation to remember.

When we open our inner and physical doors to our unseen loved ones at Samhain, it’s not a ghostly, ghoulish act of scary spookiness. Rather it’s a profound acknowledgement that death and life are intertwined with each other.

Samhain helps us turn towards who and what has been lost, and in doing so we learn a little more how we may both grieve and live fully.

At Samhain we affirm that, while our breath will cease one day, love does not end.

In doing so, we honour the bridge between the worlds: a bridge built of memory, gratitude, and continuing bond.

A simple act for tonight, and the following days of Samhain

If you wish to mark this night, you might sit quietly with a single flame before you.

Breathe. Feel your heartbeat, like a drum, in your chest.
Then whisper:

To those who’ve gone before me into the mystery of death
I offer my love, my remembering of you, my sorrowing for you.
May the path be clear.
May my heart remain open.
May love find its way, again and again,
between the worlds.

In remembering them, we affirm our own life, listening, part of the same great turning.