Today is All Saints’ Day aka All Hallows aka the Feast of All Saints aka the Solemnity of All Saints aka (my fave) Hallowmas.

Tomorrow is All Souls’ Day, when we commemorate ‘all the faithful departed’.

And yesterday of course was Halloween, when we scared the hell out of ourselves watching episodes 3 and 4 of Midnight Mass.

I was going to post an All Saints’ Day writing experiment based on the idea of celebrating our own personal saints, but I realised I’ve done that before: Saint’s Day.

If I were writing about a saint today, I’d have to write about Saint Guinefort, the dog saint from France. Guinefort was a greyhound who saved a baby from a snake but whose humans mistakenly thought he’d attacked it and killed him. (Note to self: I called the baby it. Oops.) Discovering their mistake, they created a memorial to Guinefort at a well, where they planted trees. Locals visited, made offerings, brought belongings to be blessed, such as baby clothes to be protected. It became a shrine, it became a cult. Sounds like my kind of religion.

We find echoes of that story in the Welsh folk tale about Gelert, who gave his name to Beddgelert, where I went camping in my teens. It also makes me think about the scene where Tramp saves the baby from the rat in Lady and the Tramp. Dogs are the best! Dogs are saints, they are angels walking among us. They are tricksters. They protect us, they guard our homes, they teach us how to be patient, they teach us how to love.

Of course: I’m remembering today Charlie, our beloved whippet, who died at the start of last month. How will I ever forget. Grief is an ongoing process. Typing messages about his passing still makes me weep – every time.

Words really do fail – writing seems pointless. Limits are shown, particularly when we think about the vast power of those nonverbal forms of communication we share with dogs. Charlie understood an extensive English vocabulary – naturally! Two dads who’re writers, and a house full of books. But so much more was expressed in other ways: soulful eyes, shake-a-paws, a sigh. The heavy weight of a resting body using your ankle as a headrest. The electricity of another presence in the room. A subtle nod of his head in a certain direction told us exactly what he wanted. He was a playful imp – so much is expressed when we play with a dog. And there is no sight on earth more beautiful than a whippet running at full speed.

How can words replicate all that? What good does does writing do? We can write I Remembers. We can testify to the power of stories [insert generic writing festival cliché]. But I’m not feeling that currently. Doesn’t bring him back. A dog, a wood, a well … ingredients for a story, maybe. And there are other things to say. But another time.

Though maybe I’m wrong. Writing this, and posts (finally) on Instagram, have perhaps made me feel – not better, no. But fractionally more at ease and maybe able to get on. But never better, really. Maybe we never are – maybe we never should be.

I had to make those posts on Instagram today though. It was time. It’s just pictures we share of dogs (and plants and cakes and books), but there is a community there, and friendships have been made.

What I am now understanding more deeply is why people take part in temporal and physical acts of memorial.

The word memorial has often for me conjured up the Cenotaph-and-poppies style of memorial. Sorry – though I once honoured family who made sacrifices in wartime by wearing a poppy, of late I’ve found myself resisting the idea; it’s turned into a mawkish cliché remote from the suffering of war, doing dirty work for the liar classes of politicians and the media. Each to their own, but I guess I’m not performative in that way. I’d probably prefer to wear a pansy anyway. Not least, their blooms are more resilient.

I am talking about memorial in terms of personal things. Gathering things to remember your people. Things you can touch, hold. Little things, knick-knacks of no monetary value that are priceless in other ways, ornaments, toys. Things that resist institutions, playful things that enjoy intimacies. Things that hold memory and association.

More and more I find myself drawn to the idea of the Day of the Dead. I have been confused as to whether the Day of the Dead takes places on All Saints’ Day or All Souls’ Day, and I imagine there is all sorts of liturgical hairsplitting we could get into about who qualifies for being remembered when. Maybe we should plump for a three-day festival called Hallowtide for this time when the veil between the worlds is thin.

What attracts me to the Day of the Dead, though, is its earthiness – how it uses tangible objects to remember and conjure up those who are no longer with us. I love the skeletons, I love the neon colours, I love the fancy stitching, I love the flags. I love the pagan reference points: the devils, the little imps (those imps). I love the candles and smoke, and the cloying sweet smells, I love the marigolds and the chrysanthemums. I love foody offerings: the breads, sugar skulls, tamales, hot chocolate. I love the music. The colour and rowdiness and gaudiness of all these mortal objects are joyfully embodied in the movie Coco – where Miguel’s Xolo, named Dante, is surely a type of whippet, and is even silver-grey too?!

And then too there is the idea of visiting cemeteries en masse – families, friends, strangers, all backgrounds and walks of life – a jumble of people dressed up to celebrate those they have loved and those who’ve gone before them, making merry and shedding tears as they sweep vaults and clean gravestones and say prayers and tell stories. I love this community of reverence and the irreverent. These rituals unify us with an honest and collective acknowledgement of not only that common destination, but also what is left behind – and how we got here.

Here I am thinking many of us could gain from a mark on the calendar for this sort of collective commemoration of body and soul, this festival of memory. E.g., I’m not sure the British are very good with how we handle our past right now, and I’m not sure we’re very good with religion either. We seem to just fudge it, e.g., by watching The Crown, or by wailing on Twitter.

The Day of the Dead is associated with Mexico, but holidays celebrating our ancestors are found all over the world. As with many religious celebrations, institutional observances have grafted church rituals on to local traditions such as Samhain, but too they have subsequently been adapted by family rituals and personal practice, accommodating the household and the everyday. We could/should think about cultural appropriation, and we should certainly be respectful of others. But I think personal shrines have a magpie glory all of their own.

I’m also thinking of friends and relatives with shelves or ledges where they keep photos and tchotchkes and vases of flowers for those who’ve gone before. I’m thinking of my friend Bhanu, who has taught a writing class called Shrine, Ritual, Installation. I’m thinking of my friend Alex, whose shrine has a picture of Tolstoy (Alex is obsessed with Anna Karenina).

As a writing experiment: create a shrine for Day of the Dead. Memorialise your own inspirations – writers, artists, influences, and especially those beings you’ve loved and been loved by, who are in truth your greatest literary influences. Your ancestors. Frame photos, clip postcards. Arrange knick-knacks. Light candles. Burn incense. Share some candies or biscuits. Put some dahlias in a jamjar.

Take some time there tomorrow, All Souls’ Day. Every day. You could of course draw upon the energy of your shrine to do some writing, and there’s plenty to consider there. Memoirs, elegies, prayers.

But perhaps, for now, just let the shrine be. Light a candle. Listen, behold. Just be with it, be owned by what’s there. Soak it up, and feel it.

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Another post for this time of year: Bring In The Light. Though Saint Guinefort does ask that you refrain from letting off bangers and firecrackers. Saint Guinefort is probably a better saint than I am, but – in memory of Charlie, and on behalf of all small creatures and the easily cowed – I might have to ask him to curse anyone who lets off noisy fireworks, okay?! Oh, and let’s also curse Thor and the thunder gods while we’re at it?!

And a sidenote: I dithered whether to add apostrophes and at first decided they’re fussy and to go for a streamlined style: All Saints Day and All Souls Day. Consistent in my villainy. Then I found further justification in thinking of All Saints and All Souls as adjectives rather than possessive nouns, but then I wondered: should these terms describe us, or should they own us?! So I shifted back to the apostrophe, and the idea of being owned by the dead. A haunting. See: punctuation is important! The devil – or the imp – is in the detail.

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And most of all: RIP Charlie – remembered always, and enshrined forever. He was such a good dog, and always will be. Such a good boy.