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Posts Tagged ‘Samhain’

Of Samhain

Posted in Celtic, Celtic festivals, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 31, 2024| Leave a Comment »

It is windy tonight, trick-or-treaters come and go.

The sun has just set and the wind is high – sending flocks of leaves flying like birds from fiery colored trees.  

Gradually the form, the bones, of the trees become visible, no longer lost in summer finery.  Trunks and branches more flexible against the wind than one might think.

Samhain is gate and a gateway to the Celtic New Year.  Tonight, the magnificence of the collaboration between wind and tree is sweeping, and the years run together in the faces of the children who crowd the porch for treats—so like my own children years ago.

And the years, like the leaves, fall and blow away, gone for another season, a lifetime.

Darkness now, the streets are quiet.  Trees swaying, dark silhouettes turning against a fully night sky. The ambiguity of eternity. Things we have known, things we forget, and things we hope to forget.  Happy New Year.

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Happy Halloween

Posted in Celtic festivals, tagged , on October 31, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Samhain Greetings – May the coming season have mercy on our planet.

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Soul and Shadow

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged , , on October 31, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Do you see it?  The trees are stirring, shrugging in strong breeze, coloured leaves drift down, only to whip upwards, their journey uncharted.  This realm is browning, rich russets, gold and purple hues spread thickly where the greenwood grows.

 Do you hear it?  The wind has gathered confidence, pulling at homes, across waves, pushing on those who resist.  The gaps in windows and doors give wind voice, easy to believe it is speaking to you.

 Darkness and decay, wind that tears, these things frighten humans, with good reason.  They speak of impermanence, of what seems solid but is not.  Restless landscape, few times speak to the transitory nature of life better than emergence in spring and descent in autumn.

 The Celtic autumn is at an end.  Come October 31, the festival of Samhain (“Sow-in”) celebrates the beginning of the Celtic winter.  With November 1 comes the new Celtic year.  Apropos that winter births the New Year, as all things Celtic begin in the dark.

 There is code in the wind, uniquely translated by each soul, shaped by age, experience, wisdom. Howsoever you cast your eye on that which cannot be articulated creates the image that draws toward you.  You are the world you see—a promise, a gift and a curse—or more simply, what you see is what you get.

 There is no hell as great as that which humans create for themselves right here on earth.  Hell was never the ground of Samhain.

 Do you understand it?  Warmth in the darkness, wildness on the wind, things are as they should be.  What is chaos but creation?  As things end, others begin, impermanence a force to be counted upon, not feared.  Samhain greetings to you and yours.

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