Dia daoibh a chairde,
God be with you friends
As the Irish name Deireadh Fómhair (end of the harvest) suggests, the rich harvest is being collected, stored and eaten as October comes to a close. There is a distinctive chill in the air as the trees loose the last of their leaves. The darkness is enveloping our mornings and evenings, even with that odd clock change!
We stand at the threshold of a new Celtic year. As the season shifts it’s an invitation for us to contemplate the wisdom of the season. Samhain is a liminal space – a threshold; An Tairseach. This is a time of endings and beginnings. One year is dying and another is being conceived.
On All Saints Day, 1st November, we are called upon to pray for our loved ones who have crossed over. Our luminous ancestors, like the saints, remembered the medicine of the darkness, in a way that we, now in our modern age, tend to forget.
Rather than chasing bright lights and staying busy – our ancestors knew the hardship of the darkness and prepared well for it. Yet, they also acknowledged the mystery, the power and the potential that this time holds. They took their cue from the season – listening and responding to what actually is.
Naturally at this time of year acorns, nuts, and seeds are planted as they fall from parent trees, and with the help of animals – like birds, squirrels, and humans too. Many animals are preparing for hibernation – gorging on the fruits of Autumn to make fat reserves and good stores that can sustain then to through the winter months.
If you have a grá (love) for our natural Irish heritage and landscape you might be collecting seeds right now – saving them to be sown next year or now, planting them in plant pots, tin cans and yoghurt pots to lay low through the winter months in the rich darkness of the soil.Together with the more-than-human world at this time;
We collect, forage, store, and sow.
Seeds are our ecological hope stores.
With all of its hustle and bustle, this is a time of preparation, reflection, recollection and a time to let the mystery of what’s ahead unfurl in the secret of the darkness.
We have a few contemplative questions for you to consider…
What endings in your life need to be honoured?
What gifts from this year are you bringing into the winter?
What seeds are you planting for the year ahead?
We hope these questions help you begin to wind down and settle into the pace of this Samhain season (which also means November as Gaeilge).
