It’s dark by five, and you turn the porch lights on before dinner. If the late-October pull to stay in, curl up, and go quiet is intensifying, you may not be so different from the rare flowers that only open when night falls. Have you heard that some things in nature only bloom in the dark?
This Sunday, November 1, the clocks fall back, and we gain an hour. That same day, Día de Muertos begins, and families from Mexico and beyond will light candles, burn copal, and set out water, cempasúchil, and favorite foods to welcome their loved ones home from the land of the dead. This season gives staying up a little later a purpose: to reconnect with what matters
These traditions are distinct, each with its own history, and they deserve to be understood on their own terms.
Samhain is a Gaelic festival, celebrated from sunset on October 31 to sunset on November 1, that marks the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, the "darker half" of the year. It was traditionally observed in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man.
Día de Muertos is traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though some communities also observe it on other days. Families build an ofrenda, an altar of offerings, to welcome the souls of loved ones home. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Latino describes its main objects as symbols of life’s elements: water, served to quench the spirit’s thirst after a long journey, and fire, carried by the candles. Copal smoke rises over the altar, and the bright color and scent of cempasúchil (marigold) petals guide souls home. Salt, photographs, bread (pan de muerto), and other favorite foods or drinks complete it. Every family’s ofrenda is its own.
We must also recognize that Día de Muertos belongs to a much larger family. Throughout the Americas—from the Wendat Feast of the Dead to the Lakota Keeping of the Soul—many Indigenous mourning traditions share a belief that no one should be left to grieve alone.
Each tradition has its own cosmology, and none is interchangeable with another. Set side by side, though, they share common threads: a burial pit shared by many families, words of comfort spoken by the steady to the unsteady, a meal set out for the returning dead, and many others. Because mourning happens together (with ritual, food, and witnesses), tending to a grieving heart is understood as a collective responsibility.
The Wendat Feast of the Dead
The Wendat (Huron) of what is now Ontario moved their villages every ten to fifteen years, and when they did, they brought their dead with them. Families lifted the remains of loved ones from their first graves, cleaned them and wrapped them in beaver furs, and honored them with feasts and gifts in relatives’ homes. Then they carried them, sometimes for days, to a single shared burial pit, as crowds sang and called out. In 1636, the Jesuit Jean de Brébeuf described one such feast near the Wendat town of Ossossané. When archaeologists excavated the site in the 1940s, they found at least 681 people laid to rest together: one grave for many families.
The Haudenosaunee Condolence
The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, a separate nation and historically a rival of the Wendat, carries the Condolence Ceremony within its Great Law of Peace. It remembers how the Peacemaker consoled Hiawatha, who was lost in grief after the deaths of his daughters. When a leader dies, those gathered divide into two sides, the clear-minded and the grieving, and the clear-minded offer words of comfort to the bereaved. One translation of its opening words: “Now, then, we say, we wipe away the tears, so that in peace you may look about you.”
The Lakota Keeping of the Soul
Among the seven sacred rites of the Lakota is Wanáǧi Yuhápi, the Keeping of the Soul. A lock of the departed person’s hair was purified with sweetgrass smoke and wrapped in sacred buckskin, and a relative kept the bundle, generally for about a year, before a ceremony released the soul to travel the Spirit Path. Collective mourning carries on today: in 1990, riders on the Big Foot Memorial Ride held a Wiping of the Tears ceremony at Wounded Knee, ending more than a century of mourning for the 1890 massacre carried by seven generations of Lakota.
The Mexica feasts of the dead
The Mexica (Aztec) calendar held two festivals for the dead: Miccailhuitontli, the “little feast of the dead,” also remembered as a festival of flower offerings, and Huey Miccailhuitl, the “great feast of the dead.” These ceremonies have mostly been lost, but in Puebla, a community group has revived Miccailhuitontli to mark the opening of the Día de Muertos season.
The Maya: keeping the ancestors close
Ancient Maya families often buried their dead within the household compound, rebuilding their homes right on top of ancestral graves. “By keeping the dead close by,” archaeologist Patricia McAnany writes, “critical tenets of social order seem to have been maintained.” In Yucatán today, families keep Hanal Pixán, “food for the souls”: October 31 for children who have died, November 1 for adults, and November 2 for all souls, with altars of atole, tamales, and mukbil pollo, a tamal cooked in an earth oven.
As Adriana writes in the first chapter of The Rainforest Herbal Apothecary, “Healing is a collective responsibility.” She also notes that healing ceremonies are often communal “because they reflect the truth of our interconnectedness.”
While most of the garden sleeps, a small group of flowers wakes up. Several of them share the name “Queen of the Night.” Gardeners call a planting of them a Moon garden or night garden, and people have planted them for centuries for aromatic evening walks and moonlit gatherings. These flowers evolved alongside night pollinators, such as moths, bats, and other creatures that feed after dark. Botanists describe their shared traits as the moth pollination syndrome:
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Pale or white petals that catch and reflect moonlight, so they can be found in low light.
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Heavy, sweet perfume that carries far on still night air, guiding pollinators from a distance.
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Long, narrow tubes that hold nectar deep inside, within reach of a moth’s long tongue.
Their scent runs on a clock. Many night bloomers release fragrance on an internal daily rhythm, so the perfume rises after sunset whether or not anyone is there to smell it. That is why a single jasmine bush can seem faint at noon and overwhelming at midnight. They are fleeting by design. Some open for only a single night. That brief bloom has made them, across many cultures, symbols of mystery, secret beauty, and the preciousness of a passing moment.
The night-bloomers teach us about hidden beauty, presence—a bloom that lasts one night asks us to stop and witness it—intuition, dreams, sensuality, and love. They open in the hours ruled by the Moon, the subconscious, and the dreaming mind. Perhaps that is why their perfume has been used for romance and attraction for generations.
The name “Queen of the Night” has been given to several different flowers around the world, each crowned for the same reason: an extraordinary bloom that belongs to darkness.
Night-blooming jasmine (Cestrum nocturnum)
Native to the West Indies and Central America, it opens every night in its season, with scent peaking after dark. Despite its name, it isn’t a true jasmine; it belongs to the nightshade family. It is called raat ki rani in Hindi and dama de noche in Spanish, and its perfume has long been linked to romance, dreams, and the sensual hours of the night.
Learn more about night-blooming jasmine here.
Night-blooming cereus (Selenicereus grandiflorus)
Its genus name joins Selene, the Greek Moon goddess, with cereus, Latin for candle. Each flower opens for a single night and wilts by dawn, and people have long gathered to watch it unfold. Erasmus Darwin opened the final canto of his 1791 poem, “The Botanic Garden,” with this flower:
Refulgent Cerea!—at the dusky hour,
She seeks with pensive step the mountain-bower,
Bright as the blush of rising morn, and warms
The dull cold eye of Midnight with her charms
Source: NYBG Poetic Botany
Orchid cactus (Epiphyllum oxypetalum)
Its flowers open in the evening and reach their peak around midnight. In Chinese, the idiom tán huā yī xiàn (“the epiphyllum blooms only briefly”) describes a beautiful moment that passes quickly. In parts of India, it is popularly called Brahma Kamal, and a bloom at home is treated as a blessing.
Moonflower (Ipomoea alba)
A night-blooming cousin of the morning glory, it opens at dusk, fast enough to watch it unfurl. Its broad white blooms are the classic centerpiece of a Moon garden.
Evening primrose (Oenothera species)
Its blooms open at twilight and close by midday, symbolizing the threshold between day and night.
Tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa)
Its scent intensifies after sunset. The Aztecs cultivated tuberose as omixóchitl, the “bone flower,” named for its waxy white petals, and it was associated with Xochipilli, the prince of flowers. Also prized in perfumery and in garlands in India, it has long been associated with sensuality and seduction.
Jasmine (Jasminum sambac and J. grandiflorum)
Its buds open toward evening. Strung into garlands for temples, weddings, and hair across South and Southeast Asia, it is celebrated as a flower of devotion, love, and the Moon.
When every other tree has dropped its leaves, the evergreens stay verdant. For thousands of years, people have seen them as living proof that life endures through the darkest, coldest time of the year. At midwinter, many cultures brought evergreen boughs indoors as a promise that the sun and the growing season would return. Romans decorated with greenery during Saturnalia, Northern European peoples hung evergreens for Yule, and the German custom of the decorated tree became today’s Christmas tree.
People around the world have also burned evergreen needles, resins, and wood to purify and protect. Juniper smoke was used in Scottish “saining' blessings” at the New Year; juniper and other conifers are central to Himalayan smoke offerings, and cedar remains sacred in many Indigenous traditions of North America.
In 1982, Japan's Forestry Agency coined the term shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing: spending slow, mindful time among trees. Trees release aromatic compounds called phytoncides, celebrated in traditions of mindful time outdoors. Many people simply know the feeling: a deep breath of pine air slows everything down.
The two candles were designed as a pair. One to bloom, one to restore. Both made with our exquisite essential oils and hand-poured in Brooklyn. Queen of the Night opens the heart and the dreaming mind; For-Rest grounds and protects. Light For-Rest at sunset to clear the day and settle your body. When night has fully fallen, light Queen of the Night beside it and turn to your dreams, desires, and intentions. Close by extinguishing Queen of the Night first, then For-Rest, grounding yourself before sleep.
On the winter solstice, December 21, the longest night, light both at dusk, dim the lights, and clear a small surface. Add white flowers, a bowl of water to catch the moonlight, and your journal.
Light the Queen of the Night and take three slow breaths of its scent. Ask yourself: What in me is blooming in the dark, unseen? Write freely for a few minutes, documenting what you are releasing with the old sun and what you are calling in with the returning light. Name one thing you want to call in, and speak it aloud to the candle.
Sit with the flame in silence for as long as feels right, then extinguish it with gratitude before bed. Note: Never leave a burning candle unattended.
At 2 a.m. on November 1, clocks in most of the U.S. fall back to 1 a.m. It may be the year’s gentlest gift: one hour that belongs to no one’s calendar. What if you spent it by candlelight?
If you are carrying a loss this season, you don’t have to light the candle alone. Invite someone to sit with you at your altar, tell a story about the person you miss, or set a place for them at the table. What is most precious doesn’t always show itself in daylight.
