We're approaching Samhain, which is the Celtic New Year and which also marks the beginning of Winter. The Equinox may be when, technically, the days start to grow shorter but the really dark time, the quiet time in nature, the hibernating time, begins now, when all of the harvest is in, and most of the early planting, hopefully, done. Now is when we can rest and recuperate.
Samhain, which has mutated into the mixture of Halloween and, in the UK, bonfire night / Guy Fawkes Night (depending on your religious / political views of history), is the threshold of the darkness. It is accentuated in the UK, because the last weekend in October is also when we end our daylight-saving time, we revert from British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time, which means the clocks are set back an hour. It gives us a few more lighter mornings, but the afternoons get dark really early.
Samhain is a thin time, a threshold time. Thresholds are places which are neither in nor out. Boundary places. Where what was can touch what is and what will be.
Kerri wrote her piece Things to carry into the darker part of the year for the Equinox, but I was invited to respond to it during the approach to Samhain and this is what my soul had to say....
Things to carry into the darker part of the year...
Hope, freedom, rest
Birdsong, music, trees
The moon on clear nights
Stars and passing clouds
Books and quietness
Home
Poetry and friends
Celebration
Reflection
The deeper joy of contentment
Acceptance
~
Being invited to write a list, it takes its own form and I found myself also thinking about the things I wish to leave behind:
Anger, pain, wishing
Hopelessness and fear
~
That’s it really. What I want to carry into the darker part of the year is myself, my life as it is, allowing the unfolding to happen.
We are approaching Samhain, the beginning of Winter, into the darkness and I am feeling called to hibernate. To overwinter in rest and recovery. I still feel the abundance of this place, home. Asked what lifts and feeds my spirit, I answer:
This.
Being here on the page,
being here at home.
Home. I repeat the word, because it means so much to me. I never dreamed in the beginning that this would one day be mine – and now it feels like it was always meant to be. If a building, or the space it encloses, can hold you, this one does. I remember promising these walls that I would make it a happy place again. I am keeping that promise and it is rewarding me. It holds me as securely as Clive did and gives me the freedom he gave me. And it still astonishes me . And I am
still grateful.
~
Other things to carry forward…
Waking up on quiet mornings
Crawling into bed whenever I feel tired.
Gratitude
Blessings – those counted and the ones unnoticed.
The people who love, like and respect me.
The ones who generously feed my spirit and share their joy,
and those who maybe need me to feed theirs.
Those who encourage and inspire.
Those who teach and guide.
I will carry forward…
Good food, and the ability to pay my bills
The spirit of adventure
Tuesday morning gatherings
Candlelight and quiet evenings
Peace
The spirit of renewal and regeneration
Curiosity.
~
Samhain is the beginning of Winter. The quiet time, the dark time, when everything important begins, in the darkness, in the depths of the earth. I was born into this time of year for a reason, born into Winter. This is the season for new beginnings, for the gathering of strength. It is the seeding time, the time for putting bulbs into the ground, squirrelling away our stores of hopes and dreams.
I will take my camera out into the world.
I will leave behind urgency and hurry and the purposelessness of keeping busy.
I will take forward calm industry – the work that takes its own time.
I will take forward pens and paper, beautiful journals and random scraps.
I will leave behind all the undone things and the things not done,
all the broken dreams and miscarried plans.
The mistakes I will leave, the lessons I will carry.
I step willingly and welcomely into the warmth of the darkness, which I know is merely the preparation for new light.
For Kerri ni Dochartaigh's list check out:
https://kerrindochartaigh.substack.com/p/things-to-carry-into-the-darker-part
