If you think Halloween is just a bag of treats (and tricks, depending on who you hit up), you may want to think again. The real treat lies in the day’s rich spiritual symbolism. The trick is to tap this wealth to renew your spiritual life.

Halloween is harvest time—and not just in the agrarian sense. Among neo-pagans, for whom the holiday marks the start of the Wiccan new year, it is a time to reflect on the emotional and spiritual harvest of the last year and to set intentions for the new one.

When I look back on the last year, I see that I reaped a mother-lode. A year-long stint as as a hospital chaplain intern is seriously hard labor. But the rewards are great. I know myself better. I’ve straightened a few “unhealthy” kinks in my personality. And I’ve firmly set a new course for my life. But I have more work to do. It seems the new year is bringing a new set of challenges.

Tending the empty field
One challenge is to deal with the inevitable emptiness that follows the harvest. After finishing my chaplaincy training, I stepped into a void. No job. Few prospects. No significant other (few prospects there, too). No money. And sometimes, little desire to do much about it.

The sense of barrenness and the creeping fear that my life is going nowhere are overwhelming, a fine recipe for sleepless nights. But if I step back for a moment and consider my fat harvest, my current state seems to make more sense. After all of last year’s work, no wonder I don’t feel like doing anything. And instead of panicking over my astonishing non-productivity, I could just see my fallow-ness, my down-time, as part of a natural cycle. I have to remind myself that I’m not a machine designed to churn out stuff 24/7.

And what about that proclivity so many of us have to shore up our self-worth with external roles and expectations? It’s a precarious position, because when it all falls away-when you lose that job or that relationship, what’s left to stand on? It seems the barren field, like the emptiness of Lent, is an opportunity to shore up our inner resources, to build a treasure in Heaven.

Waking the dead
Which leads me to another big Halloween challenge: shifting our focus to God’s love and intentions for us requires a valiant act of dying. The falling leaves, the rotting vegetation, the ubiquity of skeletons, ghosts, and other deathly images all call us to move with the rhythm of the season-to let our absurd expectations of ourselves fall to the ground and wither.

They also remind us of what has lain dormant within us-dreams, hopes, gifts, and talents. The neo-pagans, and our own Catholic traditions of All Saints Day and All Souls Day , encourage us to honor the dead, not just our ancestors and wise spiritual guides, but also our own deadened parts.

Visiting the Underworld
Reclaiming the dead means journeying to the Underworld , the dark and hidden realms within us where our potential and true nature reside. For the neo-pagans, the time between Halloween and Yule (a.k.a. Christmas or Winter Solstice) marks our time in the Underworld, whether we realize it or not, whether we go willingly or not.

And it behooves us to go willingly. The Underworld is the place of dreams, magic, and transformation. Like the hill of Calvary , it is the place we must go if we seek new life.

For more on the Catholic origins of Halloween, click here.