Tonight, clad in black and donning a pointy hat, Susan Granby will take her children door to door in what, for many young parents, is part of an annual Halloween ritual. Later, though, while her children eat popcorn and watch a Scooby Doo movie, Granby and two friends will practice a ritual of their own. The three women will light candles and pray before an altar that honors the dead. They are witches, after all, and Oct. 31 is their most important holiday. Marking the beginning of a new year, it is a time of reflection and celebration.
New life is anticipated.
The dead are remembered. According to Wicca, tonight the veil between the spiritual and material worlds will be thinnest and the stroke of midnight will mark the most auspicious hour for communing with the spirits. For Granby and her friends, members of the Compass Coven, tonight's observation will be particularly poignant. And Sunday, Granby, who was raised in the Jewish faith, will join worshipers at St. Petersburg's Unitarian Universalist Church for another observation of the holiday. A special liturgy has been planned, during which the congregation's ancestors and friends will be remembered, said the Rev. Dee Graham, minister of the church at 719 Arlington Ave.