Wow, time really does fly when you are having fun. And I’ve had so much fun this Halllowalimuertos!

I had planned to post so much more about everything I’ve been up to and discovering during this holiday. However, since this thing rose up spontaneously, I already had plans for many of the days between October 31 and November 5. For example, just this weekend, I got to spend Friday night watching the premiere performance of a new local community theater that a good friend of mine (and fellow Broadway fanatic) helped to get started and acted in a role that was perfect for her. Saturday evening, we had appetizers in another good friend’s beautiful garden during perfect autumnal weather, then retired inside for a gourmet meal matched with the perfect wines by her friend who is a Sommelier. Then for my Sunday lunch, I got to go to a wonderful dim sum restaurant with more friends to celebrate those with a birthday in November. So some of the time I had planned to spend writing, I spent instead with people…or recovering from my time with people.

So please forgive me for not having posted as much about how my Hallowalimuertos has unfolded. The short version is, It’s Been GREAT!

So for me, this last night before the final day of Hallowalimuertos, which is also Election Day….well, I’m flying high! I’ve had such a wonderful week, and I’m so happy and excited and joyous about tomorrow, which I never imagined I would be before this concept of Hallowalimuertos was given to me from my higher consciousness. Before I uncovered the idea of Hallowalimuertos, I was expecting this week to be full of stress and fear and obsession about the upcoming election. Instead, I am embracing the celebration of light and am experiencing joy, love, and faith. What a better choice for me!

Tomorrow, I will go and cast my vote for US President and other state and local office. I will wear my sparkliest party clothes, because for me, thanks to Hallowalimuertos, voting is simply a celebration.

I will bring the light I have been feeding for the past week to the ballot poll.

In that space, I will be glad to stand in line for however long it takes…although I don’t expect it to take that long. In 2016, 68.98% of registered North Carolina voters turned out to vote. In 2020, that rose to 75.35%. We won’t know until later how many end up voting in 2024. However, we do know that a record number have voted already. According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections:

As of Sunday morning, including absentee voting, 4,465,548 voters have cast their ballot in the 2024 general election. That’s 57 percent of the state’s 7.8 million registered voters….The 2024 number easily topped the previous early voting record of more than 3.6 million ballots cast in 2020.
https://www.ncsbe.gov/news/press-releases/2024/11/03/person-early-voting-ends-record-turnout-election-day

And something to keep in mind, looking at those statistics, which includes mail-in ballots, is that the mail-in ballots were delayed by almost two weeks due to a last-minute decision by the NC Supreme Court to reprint all the ballots to remove Robert Kennedy Jr. name from the ballot (which was a major pain for students like my son, who is studying abroad this semester). So the early voting numbers really predominate this year.

Wake County, in which I live, has shut down the schools for the day tomorrow because so many schools are voting places. So I figured I owed them to show up at my polling place, which is at a school, to justify their shutdown.

But not really. Really, I just wanted the positive vibrations of Hallowalimuertos to build so that when I cast my vote, it was with the greatest amount of joy and positivity possible.

So almost everyone I know has already voted (including my son abroad). But for those who haven’t, I have two requests:

#1: VOTE.
I don’t care if you disagree with my choices. I just want everyone’s voices to be heard. At least in 2020, North Carolina was towards the top of highest voting percentage states. The number one most voting state in 2020 was VP nominee Tim Walz’s state of Minnesota, with just short of 80% of registered voters participating in the general election. But North Carolina had a 75% voting population, which ranks pretty high, especially among Southern states. And not to brag, but the Raleigh-Cary voters came through with 80% of registered voters actually voting, which puts my area up there with #1 Minnesota.

#2: IF POSSIBLE, VOTE WITH LOVE
Personally, I LOVE both my choice for President and Vice President, along with their spouses. And I love many of the candidates on my state-specific ballot. But you may not feel that way about your choices. Still, I ask if when you cast your vote, please try to cast it with love for our country, for our fellow citizens, and for our state. Many ancestors died to give us this right to vote. And for those of us who are female, there are literally politicians running today who say they preferred when women couldn’t vote (our “wonderful” Republican NC candidate for governor) or who say it is a wife’s duty to vote for her husband’s choice. We take the right to vote for granted, but it is such a gift.

So if you haven’t done so yet, the big finale of Hallowalimuertos is voting with a loving and joyful heart. And after that…maintaining the light, knowing that light always overcomes darkness, no matter what the election results are.

I’ll share some of my final Hallowalimuertos lessons tomorrow or Wednesday or Thursday, depending on how crazy my days are. But I’m so grateful for this experience, which has brought me to election day in a higher state of consciousness than I had imagined from how the general election has gone.