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November 07, 2009
Samhain (or Summers End)
Tonight like many places we have our big Bonfire and Firework display. It’s spectacular and I enjoy it but tonight my children are old enough to go with their friends and I am alone and know what I need this particular year. Well I say alone the dog on Firework night will not stay out of physical contact with me. Even going to the loo is not sacred. So I said to my daughter Im going to stay at home and look after the dog and watch Strictly. My daughter said I wish I was old like you Mum and I could do that. So heres to being old and enjoying the onset of winter in just the way I want.
This is the time of Samhain of Summers End.
Of Autumn and Fall.
The time of All Hallows and All Souls and remembrance
for mists and vapours and remembering
For cherishing and honouring.
But this is a thin time when memories haunt
And ghosts revisit and the past is alive to us.
It is a time for facing fears
for laying to rest and mourning.
For shedding and disentangling and pulling away the deadwood
For letting the old fall as the leaf falls to the earth
For dying and letting go.
It is a time for creeping darkness and allowing the mystery of unknowing
Of not seeing what lies ahead
but trusting Spirit to reveal the untrodden way step by step.
For the dying is beautiful
it blazes in scarlet and ochre and orange
And withers to unclothed branches against the skies
To bareness and empty spaces and distinct outlines
Where things can become clearer.
The dying must come so that new things can grow.
The land must go fallow and into darkness
the roots nourished by the falling.
Beneath the white moonlight and stars of the dark night
and before the fires I might make as winter draws in
may I clear a space and pay holy attention.
May I guard the work I have done in the last
season
and mark this stopping place
before I journey on into the next.
Before the Great Mystery
I cannot know what green will emerge and grow
but I honour all that must die in this time and this place.
Posted by Tess at November 7, 2009 04:59 PM