The Gothic Descent: Life, Death, and Transformation
October Newsletter
Happy almost Halloween, Gothic soul!
As Halloween approaches and the veil thins, I’m excited to welcome you to this month’s journey through life, death, and transformation. Thank you for being part of this community.
This October marks a new era for both my newsletter and YouTube channel, now under the banner The Gothic Descent: Into Death and the Unconscious. From now on, I’ll focus more deeply on the themes that have been central to my life—death, the unconscious, and life cycles. These are universal experiences, and through reflections, exercises, and cultural insights, I invite you to explore them with me.
In order not to be too overwhelming, I have decided that this newsletter should just focus on the educational and reflective part of my content, such as holidays, Jungian psychology, and reflections on death and transformation. With this, I intend to add more value and a much more enriching experience that will help me delve deeper into our seasonal worries.
As for the new focus of the channel, this responds to my need to work more closely on topics that have been central to my life for some years and that I think resonate deeply with many people. Death, the unconscious, transformations, and life cycles are the spaces that occupy my mind on a daily basis. If being authentic means to deep dive into my head and share my discoveries, learnings, readings, experiences and thoughts with you all, so be it.
After years of researching the fascination that some people feel for gothic literature, horror films, fear and the workings of the human mind, I have realized the power that some work and narratives have when it comes to helping us understand these inevitable and universal processes.
I know that many of you, like me, have felt and feel that inexplicable attraction towards the dark, the mysterious, and the beauty that we can also find in death and transformation. Therefore, I want to invite you to join me on this profound journey.
For those of you who follow me on my channel, this coming Saturday, the 26th of October, I will upload a video in which I will talk to you in more detail about the content there.
What you can learn this time of the year
As the veil between the world of the living and the dead grows thinner, we feel there is something in the air: a call of sorts to look within and connect with what lies hidden deep within us. Whether we are celebrating with lights, with offerings, or with memories, all of these festivities remind us of something profound about our own psyche and our process of transformation.
It has been thanks to the study of Jungian psychology that my previous worldwide cultural curiosity has increased exponentially.
Learning about other celebrations at the same time of the year doesn’t only broaden your mind but it also offers us new ways of finding peace in difficult moments of grief, loss and transition.
Across cultures, this season calls us to reflect on life, death, and transformation. Whether it’s the flicker of a candle on a grave or the light of Diwali pushing back the darkness, each celebration connects us to universal themes. That’s why this is a perfect opportunity to delve into our unconscious, make peace with our shadows and allow ourselves to be reborn.
Let’s explore together some common and less-known traditions that take place at this time of the year and let’s use the exercises as food for thought.
Halloween/Samhain (31st October): As many of you already know, this is a celebration that marks the border between the world of the living and the dead. According to Celtic tradition, it is a time to honour the ancestors and let the hidden emerge. This festival resonates deeply with Jungian psychology, as it is an opportunity for us to explore our own shadows, those aspects that we tend to ignore, but which are key to our personal transformation.
Exercise:
What aspects of your life or psyche have you ignored, but which continue to draw your attention from the shadows? This is the ideal time to sit down with those unresolved parts and begin to transform them.
Day of the Dead (1st-2nd November): In Mexico and other parts of Latin America, this holiday reminds us that death is not the end, but a transition. As in Gothic literature, death becomes a transformative force, a portal to a deeper understanding of the self.
Exercise:
What lessons can you learn from death as a portal to a new understanding of yourself?
Diwali (India, 1st of November 2024): Also known as the Festival of Lights, Diwali celebrates the victory of good over evil, of light over darkness. It is a time to reflect on the triumph of inner light, knowledge, and hope. Diwali can be seen as a representation of individuation, a word that in Jungian terms describes the process of integrating all the parts that make up us in order to achieve greater self-awareness.
Exercise:
What emotional burdens or fears could you let go of this month, allowing yourself to flow more easily on your path?
Loy Krathong (Thailand, 15th November 2024): In this Thai celebration, people send small boats of flowers, candles, and incense floating on rivers as a symbolic act of releasing past sins and mistakes, letting go of what no longer serves. This act of letting go connects with the process of emotional purification that Jung described as part of the work of integrating the shadow. Releasing emotional burdens and letting go of what is unnecessary is essential to advancing in our personal development.
Exercise:
What personal release ritual could you create that symbolically lets go of what's holding you back?
Mevlid Kandili (Turkey, 14th October 2024): In Turkey and some Muslim communities, the birth of the Prophet Muhammad is celebrated with prayers and meditations. It is a time of spiritual reflection and gratitude. This celebration can represent an inner rebirth. In Jungian psychology, figures of prophets or teachers can be interpreted as archetypes of the Self, a guide towards the total integration of our personality.
Exercise:
What aspects of you need a fresh start?
Obon de Otoño (Japan, around the 21st of October): Although the main Obon is celebrated in August, some regions of Japan celebrate it in the fall. Obon is a holiday that honours ancestors, guiding their spirits back to the world of the living. This holiday connects directly with the archetypes of death and ancestors. It is an ideal time to work with ancestral figures in your unconscious, confront fears related to death, and reflect on the connection between generations.
Exercise:
Reflect on the role of ancestors in your life, both literal and figurative. What influences from the past are guiding or holding you back?
Festival of the Ancestors (Madagascar, variable dates in October-November): Known as Famadihana or “turning over of the bones,” this festival celebrates the ancestors in a literal way, by exhuming their bodies to clean and wrap the bones in new cloth, and then returning them to their graves with dance and celebration. The direct connection with the ancestors and the act of “renewing” the bones resonates with the Jungian process of revisiting the past to heal old wounds and traumas. The confrontation with physical death also symbolizes the confrontation with the shadow.
Exercise:
Reflect on how ancestral patterns and traumas influence your life. How can you transform them and make peace with them?
Chung Yeung Festival (China and Hong Kong, 21st of October 2024):
This festival is dedicated to remembering ancestors by ascending hills to pay homage to them. It is a day of reflection on life and death, as well as protection from bad luck. The ascension to the hills can symbolize the conscious effort to elevate our psyche, to reach a higher perspective on our lives and their purpose.
Exercise:
Use this day to raise your consciousness. Symbolically climb your own “hill” and contemplate the deeper aspects of your life. What does this elevated perspective teach you?
I’d love to hear from you! How do these celebrations resonate with your own rituals or reflections? What personal traditions help you connect with this transformative time?
Share them with me!
Each of these celebrations, whether illuminating the darkness, releasing what no longer serves, or connecting with ancestors, reminds us that transformation is always within our reach. It's a time to look within, listen to what the unconscious has to tell us, and rise from our own ashes.
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Thanks for reading!
Happy Halloween,
Hugs,
Alice