Samhain: Lift The Veil

(I wrote the bulk of this many years ago for a Samhain ritual, my first public one in fact. Since Samhain is about honoring the past, I am reprising it here)

Samhain is the third and final harvest celebration within the traditional calendar year. Now is the time for reaping the last of what was sown in the fields before winter frosts set in. In days of old this was a crucial time to make the last preparations before the long dark winter ahead. A time for taking stock of what was harvested to see if there would be enough food to carry through the whole winter. Life or death hung in the balance and it was critical to be prepared. Today we can let this stand as a reminder to us to remember all the blessings we have harvested during the course of this last year…to take stock of the abundance we have gathered and be grateful, be filled to overflowing with appreciation for the bounty of our lives.

As a holiday acknowledging winter’s impending darkness, Samhain is traditionally a time for endings…but as such it is also a time for new beginnings. For without one you cannot have the other. Tonight let us ask ourselves: What proverbial seeds do we wish to sow for next years harvest? What will we cultivate and tend in the gardens of our hearts, what will we weed and discard? What will we find ourselves being grateful for as the wheel of the year turns again next time around? May the answers guide us throughout the year to come.

With the plethora of symbols related to Samhain, none speaks to me more than the witch’s cauldron. It brings to my mind the magickal kettle of the Celtic goddess Cerridwen, dark mother-crone of prophesy and creativity. Her cauldron was a mythical font of poetic inspiration and a holy vessel of regeneration thru the cycles of life. Throughout the world the cauldron has been seen as emblematic of the cosmic womb from where we all began, and to which we all return, eventually, again.

Fire is the force that simmers that enchanted kettle…all manner of things bubble and brew in the depths of that black pot that is the universe…that is our collective “soul-soup”. Like any good stew the original ingredients are combined and therefore changed by the cooking process, transformed into a delicious blend of flavors and textures. When we truly open our lives to the spirit of wonder & gratitude, when we walk our individual authentic paths sincerely, we are changed, transformed – more than just the sum of our original parts…and we become whole.

Fundamentally I believe that all deities are iconic representations for that universal unknown, they are symbols of the inexplicable creative force that emanates from the center of All That Is. I happen to employ the metaphor of goddess, of the sacred feminine, to speak to my spiritual truths. But there are those that honor divinity tonight also as the symbolic dying god, he who will be reborn of the goddess at Yule. Perhaps some image him as the horned one of the wild woods, or the Green Man of the grain & vine. Maybe to you he is purely the archetype of elder sage, benevolent father, and divine sun-child to come. And what of the goddess archetypes for this season, what sacred feminine motifs encapsulate Samhain’s traditional symbolism? She can be seen as quintessential wise crone, dark mother of the gleaned harvest and veiled maiden of mystery.

By what name do you call upon the energy of Samhain? Sing out and call for it in your soul. Embrace that power and take it deep within, melding it with the core of your being.

At Samhain we have nearly completed the slow spiral inward begun at Litha, the Summer Solstice. The days have gotten shorter and the dark nights longer. The time between now and the Winter Solstice brings the Yuletide….that precious gestational moment that hangs in the air right before the explosion of birth when the shortening days finally turn around again and begin to lengthen once more. A time between times…as the saying goes: “This is a time that is not a time, in a place that is not a place, on a day that is not a day…between the worlds and beyond.” It was believed once that tonight the veil between the worlds is thin…that perhaps one could reach out in some way to those that have passed into the otherworld before us or maybe they to us. And in a very real sense we can, thru our memory and thru honoring our human history. Think of what blood runs thru your veins, or who showed you a significant life-path…who came before you to lead the way. We owe our ancestors, both those of blood and those of spirit, a debt of enormous gratitude. In these modern times let tonight be about that, too, about honoring what has come before.

As the light is dims the warmth still lingers…a last hurrah before the quiet sleep of winter sets in. To those that once perceived nature as entities such as spirits or fae, this seasonal pause before the coming of winter seemed to open the realm of Faery, making it more accessible at Samhain. Our imaginations cavort with glee, as if any gate or door left carelessly ajar could perhaps offer a glimpse into an otherworld in the blink of an eye…if one but chose to look. Otherworlds and their mystical inhabitants speak to us of deeper awareness, of connection to the greater forces of existence. We mostly like to think we are in control but we are not, essentially, and on a fundamental level this realization opens the proverbial door to levels of understanding we find otherworldly in our acute experience of it. In exploring these realms we sense magic & mystery, it seems to permeate the very air we breathe on a night such as this. You can practically touch the enchantment, feel the subtle energy, like some elemental vibration of this, the fading time of year.

I cannot help but think that maybe tonight belongs most of all to the epitome of a witch-goddess, the Greek Hecate, veiled queen of magic and mystery. By the dark moon that archetypal energy whispers secrets and unfolds earthly mysteries to those that dare to listen to a wild voice glide upon the wind. Her image is carved upon our collective unconscious thru the ages immemorial…holding out that gnarled, wizened hand beckoning us, reminding us that there is rest at the end of this human journey. By the pin-point glare of Hecate’s guiding lantern light we seek our way along the path of life and choose directions at the many, misty crossroads. She was thought to be the keeper of fortune & weaver of fates….but if we lift her veil whose face do we see but our own, for we control the destiny she presents us with.

So lift the shroud, part the mists, open the door, go thru the gate tonight. Call to what you hold sacred by whatever names you may. But as it has been said many times over let us remember the true mystery: what we search for in otherworlds or in the external realms, what we sometimes perceive as being divided from us is NOT and always will be truly a part of us, already right there within us. The veil that is thin tonight is the tattered shroud that often cloaks our level of awareness. At the very core of our being imprinted like a sacred DNA code lay the wisdom of all the gods of all time. We need to deeply listen to our own inner voice, that is the true voice of divinity, and in the answering the possibilities are infinite and wondrous.