Samhain is a time of transition, the Celtic end of summer, the time of the last harvest, and a moment to reflect and honour the spirits and the dead. It is a good day for divination, and as I laid the cards on the evening of Halloween I was surprised at the synchronicity of picking the Hermit. In the 15th century Visconti-Sforza deck the wise old man is carrying an hourglass, symbol of time, Kronos and Saturn. In the Tarot of Marseilles he carries a lantern, and in the Rider-Waite the lantern contains a star. The earliest hourglass appears in the 1338 fresco Allegory of Good Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Written records from the same period mention the hourglass, which appears in lists of ships stores. As the year retreats into the time of the Otherworld, the light is to be found within. Today is the Day of the Dead in Mexico, when we honour the ancestors. In a sense time stops still and turns into reverse.