There are so many Youtube videos, books and articles talking about the supposed history of Samhain, so I’m not going to go into that aspect. I want to talk about the magick and the mystery of this time of the year. I’m sure you’ve all felt it!
When I was young in England, we did not celebrate Halloween. When we came to Canada I was six years old, and the first Halloween was amazing! We were allowed to dress up, go out into the dark, knock on doors and get a bag of candy!! We were excited beyond belief! But it wasn’t the treats that made us so excited, but being out on the streets in the dark, feeling different, being wrapped in expectations. We felt that something was going to happen!
Now I am older, I don’t put on a disguise or go trick or treating. We live way in the country and no trick or treaters come to our door. And yet as the time goes by, I feel a significant shift within me. It starts on the full moon in October, which was probably marked as the beginning of the dark half of the year because our ancestors long ago had a lunar calendar, not a solar fixed one like we have now. It’s then that I make my Samhain altar, and it’s then that I start to remember. I think of my beloved dead and I get out their pictures. I put tokens of them on my altar. I remember my connection to them and what I learned from them, sometimes good things, sometimes hard lessons, and yet all to be honoured.
I feel as if I am moved into an inner place of softness, stillness, maybe even darkness as if I too am in my grave, or in between lives. I feel disconnected from reality just a tiny shift, not enough to stop me from functioning, but it makes me feel as if I’m not all here. It’s a time to sit and ring bells.
Is this the thinning of the veil?
From the October full moon, to about November 6th, I’m in this place where I feel I am fiercely connected to the ancestors. Firstly, the ancestors of my bones, my DNA, who gave me my shape and my face. I put my grandmother’s spindle on the table to represent the women who spun wool and knitted socks. My father’s penny whistle sits on the left side of my altar, and I am grateful to them all for life. I remember my family members that died in war or were veterans. It’s emotional! If you play bagpipes I will weep.
Next, I honour and remember my ancestors of spirit, the spirit of nursing, Florence Nightingale, and my great-great-great Aunt Dorothy who trained in her school in London in 1918. I remember and honor the council of witches in spirit, the great ones who inspire my magick, my spiritual connection with nature and my inner magickal self. I recognize that I was ‘taken in’ by initiation and touched on the brow with a long bony finger, leaving an invisible mark.
I think of the woman Sensei, a spiritual teacher that taught me grace while I was sleeping and encouraged my spirit to keep training in the dojo, to move, to feel safe in my own body. Although I don’t know who she is or where she came from, I felt her with me as a guide when I first put on my black belt. I feel her still teaching me how to be strong in old age and to be determined through each day, not to give up.
There is a mystical sense of expectation, that something is going to happen! Something is hidden just beyond our reach or in the corner of our eye. I have come to realize that the thing hiding out of sight and yet so close is our death. Someday we will step across that threshold and become part of legacy. It is not a sadness or bitterness at leaving behind our bones, but a thrill that we are at last going on the great adventure, and that we will finally understand the meaning of spirit. Who will me meet? Who will we become? What next ecstatic learning will we immerse ourselves into? Life is a river, and Samhain feels like the edge of the shore, rocky and quiet except for the sound of water running over stones.
I am not afraid of this darkness because I know that I wont’ travel alone. I will be absorbed into mystery and I will feel the sacredness of the Goddess.
Palliative Care
Before I retired from nursing I worked as a palliative care nurse for 11 years. I felt as if I was a midwife assisting people to be reborn into a new reality. The sadness of letting go was finally accepted. The understanding that love really is the strongest force in the universe was revealed with a knowing that love can bring you together again with those you love, over and over again. This is the mystery of Samhain, I think, that love and death are inseparable.
Ivan
I want to talk about the passing of my friend Ivan MacBeth, founder of the Green Mountain Druids with his wife Fearn Lickfield. It’s hard to explain how we felt his expansion into the trees, the mountain, the star-filled sky and the wide consciousness of all. We felt it as we were sitting with his body in the standing stones during the night, a vigil that showed us the truth of a pure spirit moving into a new reality.
What we remember never dies!
Samhain is a festival of moving into darkness, remembering, honouring and sending love to all the spirits that have given us life. It is gratitude for all in spirit who support us in living. Samhain brings us closer to the mysteries of life and love and death. The veil is thin; what do you see?
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