CONNECTING WITH LATE FALL
& CELEBRATING SAMHAIN (HALLOWEEN, Oct. 31st)

The sunrise begins its journey south as the days shorten.

In old agrarian calendars the first of November, All Saint's Day, was the beginning of the new year. Today [Nov. 1st] is gray and cold. The air is charged with the coming frost.

Could we take that leap of faith that now is when gardening begins, with an approaching end? Soon the ground will be frozen solid, the grass covered with early snow. Everything will grow quiet in the cold's embrace.

What is wrong with feeling joy in this clout of cold? When something is over, it's over- no doubt, no turning back, no illusion. Winter's big hit is a kind of liberation.
It's a chance to stop, to turn our backs on effort.
We can let ourselves rest.
We can turn within.

- Gunilla Norris
A Mystic Garden:  Working with Soil, Attending to Soul

Thoughts from Theresa:

I awaken just as light is touching the sky, and begin my Winter habit of watching where on the horizon the Sun rises. As the days get shorter and colder, I watch the Sun rise further South, until It starts to slowly move back East after the Winter Solstice, promising a return to warmth. For now, though, we must adjust to the cold.

At the end of October, some trees are still clothed in fiery colors, but many are bare. Some flowers are still blooming, but most have succumbed to repeated frosts. Color is leaching from the natural world, settling down into browns, grays, and blacks, especially on cold, overcast days. Everything in Nature is dying or going dormant for the Winter.

We start to see the Winter birds at the feeders. The juncos have migrated south from Canada, thinking this is a warm location to over-Winter, while many of our Summer birds head much further south for what they consider to be warmth. Us humans find warmth by pulling out the Winter clothes. In the back of the closet, I unearth the long underwear and the long sleeve shirts and prepare to dress in heavy layers.

We've bought a lot of root vegetables (carrots, beets) from the farmer's market and I look forward to finishing the harvest of the root vegetables in our yard (sunchokes, skirret, groundnuts) and getting them all stored safely for Winter eating. Then it will finally be time to rest, and hopefully there will soon be a snow storm that will let me take an unexpected day off from work and spend the free time dreaming in front of our warm wood stove fire.

Crimson leaves spilling
on faded perennials
crickets sing farewell.

- Mary Ann Rasmussen

Gently falling snow
rests on squirrel's bushy tail
hickory nuts stored.

- Mary Ann Rasmussen

This is my image of the Bansidhe, a female Irish spirit that can be heard wailing in sadness when someone is about to die.

Celebrating Samhain (October 31st)
From Theresa

Samhain is an ancient Celtic holiday celebrated on October 31st. 
(Samhain is pronounced "Saw-when," as in "I saw the kids in their Halloween costumes when I opened the door," with the emphasis on the first syllable, Saw.) 

Samhain is the time of the final harvest. In addition to the plants dying back, this is the time of the year when the livestock that won't or can't be fed over the Winter are killed in order to feed us. This is when our friend Holly, who raises heritage sheep and Highland cattle and from whom we buy our meat, blesses her animals and sends them to the butcher. As she says, this can be hard and sad. I too am saddened by the fact that other creatures, be they plant or animal, need to die in order for me to live.

At Samhain time, we are surrounded by the great mystery that is death. We can choose to ignore it, as many Americans are taught to do, or we can face it, and learn from it, and maybe ease our fears. Now is the time to gently contemplate death, and perhaps if we become a little more accustomed to it year after year, it will not be so scary when our own time comes.

Endings are as much a part of natural cycles as beginnings- we cannot, of course, have one without the other. Although nobody knows for sure what happens when we die, I have found that after celebrating the cycle of the seasons for over two decades, I know viscerally that after every ending, there is a new beginning. After every Winter, Spring always comes. It's impossible for me to believe that a new life does not await us after death. I don't know what it will be like, but I am sure that it will happen, as much as I am sure that the flowers will bloom again come Spring.

Lady,
When my eyes are closed at last,
in mimicry of sleep
will You be there to light my way
and teach my soul
to flee the darkened flesh?

When I am laid to earth will You be there?
Will You take me deep within Your womb
and fashion for me other flesh
with eyes to see 
and hands to touch?

And when the time is right,
will You be there to guide my path
to other possibilities of life to live?

And when I choose, will You be there
to once again breathe life into my soul?

Yes, you'll be there.

- Galen Gillotte
Book of Hours: Prayers to the Goddess

The Samhain Ancestors' Altar:

My mom's side of the family.

My dad's side of the family.

Honoring Ancestors and Loved Ones Who Have Passed On Before Us

Because Samhain is about the mysteries of death, it follows that this is the time of year when we remember loved ones who have passed on, and honor the ancestors who came before us. It is believed that the veil between this world and the next is thin on the night of Samhain, allowing the spirits to walk among us. We might receive their messages, if we are listening.

During Samhain time, we build an ancestors' altar (left). We remember loved ones whom we've lost by placing their photos or beloved objects on the altar. We also place photos of those ancestors we never knew, but whom we honor as the forebears who gave our family life.

I include a small urn with some of my mother's ashes, and some small things (a leather coin purse, a pocketknife), that I inherited when my dad died. I don't know who they belonged to, but they are really all I have of that side of my family. There are photos of my grandparents, whom I barely remember, because my parents were the youngest in large families and their parents died when I was very young. I seem to have inherited a lot of their rings, including the ones that both of my grandmothers wore daily, and my father's wedding band and my mother's high school ring, and I place them all on the altar, because they still feel infused with their wearer's energy and I am proud to be their caretaker.  We also include beloved animal companions on the altar, putting photos, whiskers, and old toys in their memory.

I find that building the altar is a very powerful experience. Life continues, but none of us want to forget those we've lost. It's good to have one time of the year to remember all our loved ones, and to light candles and incense in their honor. It's good to know that someone might do the same for me some day.

Beloved cats whom we miss.

Departures

They seemed to all take off
at once: Aunt Grace
whose kidneys closed shop;
Cousin Rose who fed sugar
to diabetes;
my grandmother's friend
who postponed going so long
we thought she'd stay.

It was like the summer years ago
when they all set out on trains
and ships, wearing hats with veils
and the proper gloves,
because everybody was going
someplace that year,
and they didn't want
to be left behind.

- Linda Pastens
In Good Poems, selected by Garrison Keillor

Theresa loves carving pumpkins.

Jeremy is shy.

Jeremy and Theresa's attempt at making Pan de Muertos (right) like the photo in the book (left).

Halloween Fun

I think holidays should always have their fun side, so we might also spend time carving pumpkins on Samhain, or starting a new tradition, like making Pan de Meurtos  (Bread of the Dead, which we quickly shortened to Dead Bread, no insult intended). Dead Bread is shaped like a skull and cross bones and is a traditional part of the Days of the Dead, a Mexican holiday celebrated at the end of October. It reminds me of Samhain- Mexican families create elaborate and beautiful altars for the dead and engage in other activities that honor departed loved ones, including parades of skeletons and coffins. Pan de Meurtos is eaten as part of the celebration, including during visits to the graves of loved ones.

I saw a picture of Pan de Meurtos in a book I have on the "Real Halloween" (see below), and talked Bear and my nephew Jeremy into making some. Traditionally they are a sweet bread, but since this was a spur of the moment addition to our celebrations, we just used the bread dough I had on hand in the refrigerator. Each of us shaped the dough into our own skull and cross bones.

Bear's Shelf Chef side came out and he really got into making the bread, far surpassing Jeremy and I in making an elaborate skull. Then he took it even further and decided to make an entire skeleton out of bread while he sat in our front room watching for Trick-or-Treaters to scare. In the future he is thinking of making a whole skeleton family....

Bear's much more impressive Dead Bread, outlined with brown sugar and cinnamon.

Bear's even more impressive skeleton, inspired by watching too many episodes of the TV show, "Bones."

The ancestors' plate & chalice.

Bear's pit beef (left) and Theresa's colcannon (right).

The Dumb Supper

After the Trick-or-Treaters have gone, we have our Samhain feast. This includes leaving an empty chair at the table for the ancestors, at which we set a plate and chalice filled with the best of our foods and drinks. Before we eat, we say a feast blessing, and invite friendly spirits to take the empty place and join our meal.

It is traditional for this "Dumb Supper" (dumb as in mute, excuse the political incorrectness) to be eaten in silence, and for some people, a silent meal can be a powerful experience. But I like to spend the meal asking everyone to share happy memories of the loved ones whom we miss. Laughter often ensues.

Note from Bear: Remembering ones we lost is respecting them...
Hi mom. 

Making Colcannon

Bear usually grills a large bit of meat for our feast, and I make colcannon, an Irish potato dish traditionally eaten at Samhain. Colcannon is basically buttery mashed potatoes with cooked kale and onions added. (If you don't know how to cook kale, see instructions on the Side Salads page.)

Although it's not traditional, it can also be tasty to make a base of garlic mashed potatoes before stirring in the kale and onions. Crush some garlic and add it to a small pot of milk (maybe a 1/4- 1/2 cup). Slowly heat the milk on a low setting (you don't want it to boil). Sample the milk periodically, and when you can taste the garlic in the liquid, use the garlic infused milk to mash your potatoes. Butter is optional, so this can be a tasty low fat way to eat your potatoes.

An Offering
to the Ancestors 

After the meal, we take the ancestors' plate and cup and leave it outside overnight in front of our standing stone as an offering to wandering spirits. 

We also light a candle at our cat's grave site, in memory of how much love they brought into our lives, and leave them an offering of milk.

Saying Goodnight to the Sun

Samhain is the symbolic time for the death of the Sun, because the days are getting shorter and colder. The Sun rests during the Winter, just like everything else in Nature. We have a solar image hanging above our altar, which we ceremoniously cover with black cloth every Samhain. We tell the Sun good night and wish Him sweet dreams. He will sleep under the warmth of His velvety blanket in the womb of the Goddess until He is reborn at the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21st), when we remove the covering and welcome Him back.

The statue above is the Weeper, common in French grave yards.

It is Raining on the House of Anne Frank

It is raining on the house
of Anne Frank
and on the tourists
herded together under the shadow
of their umbrellas,
on the perfectly silent
tourists who would rather be
somewhere else
but who wait here on stairs
so steep they must rise
to some occasion
high in the empty loft,
in the quaint toilet,
in the skeleton
of a kitchen
or on the map-
each of its arrows
a barb of wire-
with all the dates, the expulsions,
the forbidding shapes
of continents.
And across Amsterdam it is raining
on the Van Gogh Museum
where we will hurry next
to see how someone else
could find the pure
center of light
within the dark circle
of his demons.

- Linda Pastan
In Good Poems for Hard Times, selected by Garrison Keillor

Meditating on Sadness

Next, we spend time in individual meditations. If I've lost someone close to me in the past year, my meditation will usually focus on connecting with them. In my mind, I tell them I miss them and say anything left unsaid. I open myself to receiving any messages they want to send to me and I often feel a very healing sense of love.

I miss my mother particularly, and have a memory box of letters that she wrote to me and old photos that I often go through at the beginning of my meditation. This gets a little less sad every year, and focuses more on the pleasure of remembering her. Later that night, she often visits my dreams.

This is also the time I give myself over to sadness. Although I am generally optimistic and hopeful, I also have a strong side that is naturally inclined to depression, that thinks that life can be really hard sometimes. This is when I purposely connect with that part of myself, on the theory that feeling your emotions is always better than trying to suppress them. I play a soundtrack of sad music (see below) and let myself cry as much as I need to.

When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone

When one has lived a long time alone,
and the hermit thrush calls and there is an answer,
and the bullfrog head half out of waters utters
the cantillations he sang in his first spring,
and the snake lowers himself over the threshold
and creeps away among the stones, one sees
they all live to mate with their kind, and one knows,
after a long time of solitude, after the many steps taken
away from one's kin, toward other kingdoms,
the hard prayer inside one's own singing
is to come back, if one can, to one's own,
a world almost lost, in the exile that deepens,
when one has lived a long time alone.

- Galway Kinnell
In Good Poems, selected by Garrison Keillor

From left to right: Bear's rune set, Theresa's Amulets of the Goddess and Daughters of the Moon tarot deck.

A New Year's Divination

Endings and beginnings go hand in hand. Samhain is the final harvest, the end of the productive agricultural year, and as such, it is also the beginning of a New Year. After connecting with the sadness of endings, we look toward the happiness of beginnings. After Samhain, we get to rest from our labors in the garden, and hopefully catch up on our sleep during the long Winter nights, so that we can be ready to start again come Spring. 

As we look forward to the New Year, this can be a good time to ask for guidance, for divine messages that might be helpful to prepare for the coming seasons, or to see what might be happening in the coming year. There are many tools of divination (tarot, runes, I-Ching) that help connect you to your subconscious and to the Divine. Use the tools that are meaningful to you. I have a couple tarot decks, and I usually choose a deck from which to pull one card, looking into the picture to see what meaning it holds for the coming year.

And when we sleep on the nights surrounding Samhain, we pay attention to our dreams. This may be the easiest way for messages to reach us from the other side.

Bear's New Year:

Note from Theresa: Bear's Samhain celebrations focus more on the fact that Samhain is the New Year, rather than a time of sadness. He sees Samhain as a time of new beginnings, and focuses on what he would like to change in his life, writing about it in his journal, and doing his Samhain divination for guidance. To facilitate the changes he wants, he may fast on the days leading up to Samhain, and he often cuts his hair.

From Bear:  

Yep... The seasons do change, and cycle back.  Around here the trees lose their leaves and the ground freezes hard. Those are changes that are easy to see. For me, this is the time for an external change in how I look. Over the years my hair has gotten shorter and/or the beard gets a new style. As you can see below, the hair can't get any shorter than this year and I am not going to lose the beard, so maybe next year I can try a mohawk or color my hair for the first time ever... (Theresa just saw this and said oh... hell no... Actually I'm paraphrasing, she said something like "No way should you put nasty chemicals that close to your brain.") Stay tuned for results next year... 

External is easy, internal change takes desire and the will to do the work to facilitate real change. I have apple fasted before for three days (eating nothing but apples or apple juice) and it sucked. Usually on day two I say "forget about that" and binge. This year my fast was so easy that I went for five days and it wasn't until the last day that I didn't want to eat apples anymore. Theresa was getting nervous about me by then, so we broke the fast when I got home from work. What have I learned?  I control my habits. I can change the bad habits if I really want to. Change is a journey, figure out where you want to go then set things up so you can get there. Enough said... er typed...

Ready for change.

Ready for Winter? Yeah, right.

Cat as a hat? Ivy, not into that.

(Yes, Bear knows it's a cold time of the year to shave his head.)

Amaranth- and edible grain ready to harvest in the Fall.

St. John's Wort, a powerful medicinal herb.

Seasonal Music:

• Celtic Lamentations, by Aine Minogue, 2005, Sounds True. This is the main music I listen to this time of the year. The album is mostly sadder songs in Gaelic.
  
  
• Clohinne Winds, by Niam Parsons. I love this song, about a woman who connects with the sadness of the Bansidhe. 
  
  
• Into the West, by Annie Lennox. This is the song that plays when the credits role at the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. If you haven't paid attention to the song's lyrics, you should. It's about Frodo and Bilbo and Gandalf departing with the Fey on their last boat into the West (symbolic of death).  It makes me cry every time. The lyrics begin:

Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You have come to Journey's end

Sleep now
Dream- of the ones who came before
They are calling 
From across a distant shore...

• Releasing the Demons, on Faceless by Godsmack.  This is Bear's recommendation. He says it's about facing what's messed you up and coming out better on the other side.
  

Seasonal Reading:

• The Real Halloween: Ritual and Magic for Kids and Adults,
  by Sheena Morgan, 2002, Barron's. ISBN: 0-7641-2222-3. This book describes lots of different Halloween traditions that may help you create your own celebrations.
• The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg, 2005, Random House. A novel about a woman who loses her husband, and how she moves through it. If you need to get in touch with grief, read this book.
  

See Also:

• Bear's Seasonal Eatin' page on Samhain.
  

Samhain Blessings to You All.