The Colour Red

October 8, 2011 at 1:22 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: , , ,

The autumn equinox brought that moment when the light and dark hours of the day, for just a brief moment, were perfectly equal. That moment is like the silent, still gap between breathing in and out; sometimes we catch ourselves noticing it, frozen in our observance of its stillness but knowing full well that we must release back into the relentless movement of the inhale and the exhale.

And now the dark seeps across the lines, spreading out and staking a claim to more of the day than I would currently like. Samhain will soon be here…

For modern Pagan’s the festival of Samhain celebrates the earth’s shedding, that part of its cycle that expresses the dying back and letting go. Amongst other things, it honours the rot and the shit, that through the miraculous transformation of death and decomposition, transmutes into the rich compost that feeds new life.

It is perhaps easier for us to accept this process in the natural world around us but painful to experience it in our own lives. This year, Samhain will hold a powerful resonance for me as I find myself walking away from a 27 year old marriage.

Endings can have their own unique tonalities; sometimes they are joyous things: the end of pain or a difficult time; sometimes they bring almost unhealable grief: the death of those we love and the things we cherish. When we are there in the midst of the chaos that endings can bring; we can only, as a friend of mine recently advised, ‘keep breathing’. Just like that momentary pause of equinox, there are still, clear moments but we quickly realise that none of us can stand truly motionless; life will not allow us the luxury of a long pause because our hearts continue to beat and betray the unstoppable nature of living.

I am walking away from a whole life-time of shared experience; someone (me, something deep inside pushing for it) set fire to the forest and now I stand at the centre of a strange kind of devastation, one that brings deep feelings of sadness and grief but also a sense of the necessity of that act.

In our northern hemisphere, at Samhain, we can walk in the forest and smell the rich, woody earthiness of the mulch beneath our feet; the wet, rotting mass breaking down gradually but relentlessly into the food that will sustain the forest’s life. In less temperate areas of the planet, where the change of seasons are fewer, this vital transformation crucial for the continuation of a forest’s life  must come from other means. Fire plays its part; stripping back whole areas to charred plains that on first observation are distressing and lifeless. However, the nutrients from the ash prepare the ground for new life just as effectively as the moist, rich compost of our own woodlands and are as necessary to the survival of those habitats.

This said, on a human level – although the inspiration of nature can help us deal with the changes that we encounter – the courage it takes to let go – the pain and uncertainty of it – are no easier to bear and we are called upon to trust in the process, to face the growing darkness without even knowing if the light will ever reappear.

For me, there are places of hope in my life that keep me going when I feel the exhaustion upend me or when the fear of the future paralyses me; even amongst the hurt, guilt and confusion can be found strength, love and joy (although it might take a greater effort to see it, or sense its presence, on those days when all that has happened weighs heavy).

Yesterday evening, the autumnal sky in the west shone with a golden light reminiscent of Turner’s paintings; in the east was a vast bank of the darkest cloud, a wash of murky browns and greys, thick with rain. The two skies began to merge, the cloud taking on the light as if the world below were on fire and it reflected its burning. And there, drawn across the darkening sky, a rainbow, it’s most dominant colour, a vivid red…the colour of love, of passion, of the blood that pumps through our hearts; the colour of the energy and will to keep living and breathing and being, whatever life brings; whatever losses we inflict or endure.

 

4 Comments

Singing over the Bones

October 29, 2010 at 4:48 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: ,

The year is releasing itself, letting go with the kind of intense beauty that never fails to inspire awe in me. There was a time I used to dread this season, sensing the darkness closing in; the claustrophobia of the encroaching winter. Now I see how beautiful this time of year is. The sun is low in the sky producing a golden light whose filter adds an even greater warmth to the colour of autumn trees; the sunsets are vivid and mists gather in the folds and recesses of the land, hovering over water meadows and sliding down cliffs, reaching out across the sea until the boundary between land and ocean is no more and we can no longer tell where one world ends and another begins.

This blurring of the boundaries between worlds is very much a theme of the Pagan festival of Samhain which now approaches. As the year releases its grip on life, the harvest gathered and stored, the nights lengthening, we turn away from the light and growth and move towards the darkness and repose. It can be a challenging time because the darkness is not only about stillness, rest and germination – it is also the place where our fears lurk; our eyes do not adjust easily to its shadows and our anxieties twist and distort their shapes.

There comes a point when the darkness and stillness of winter have a peace about them; we get a real sense of life waiting beneath the soil for re-emergence; there is a restfulness – a natural, easy pause after the out breath of the year – that centres and calms us. Samhain’s energy proceeds this time and is much more vivid and intense, much the way that spring’s energy is, only then, of course, the energy surges outward, carrying into the world an expanding tide of life. I find autumn as intense but the energy is one that has built throughout the summer months to this moment of powerful release.

Birth and death can be chaotic and dangerous transitions; they connect us to our most primal instincts and emotions, powering through us, gripping us. Despite our efforts to remain poised and in control, we can find ourselves broken apart by the experience. Samhain functions like the breaking of an emotional dam, it is the release of orgasm, it is the death rattle of our last breath and the shocking gasp of our first – and all of these moments teach us that losing control is a necessary function. We all have to make peace with the fact that ultimately we are not in control. Life moves through us, at times with an intensity that shakes us; losing control demands that we place our trust in that intensity, learning to accept that it has the power to change us; that its presence in our lives is sometimes necessary for life to move on. We understand this most clearly when we find ourselves in experiences that speak of those vivid energies of spring and autumn: when we fall in love; when we are forced to begin again; when we are ill; when we are dying to our old selves and venturing into new ways to be.

Samhain may well stir our deepest fears of death but its lessons are invaluable and its powerful energy cathartic and potentially creative. As Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes in her wonderful ‘Women who run with the Wolves’, the Cailleach, or Death Mother -whom we meet when we explore this festival’s Mysteries – teaches us the wisdom of the bones. Estes writes that ‘in archetypal symbology, bones represent the indestructible force…the indestructible soul-spirit.’

And so,

You can dent the soul and bend it. You can hurt it and scar it. You can leave the marks of illness upon it, and the scotch marks of fear. But it does not die, for it is protected by ‘La Loba’ in the underworld. She is both the finder and incubator of bones…

…within us is the old one who collects bones. Within us there are the soul-bones of this wild self. Within us is the potential to be fleshed out again as the creature we once were. Within us are the bones to change ourselves and our world. Within us is the breath and our truths and longings – together they are the song, the creation hymn we have been yearning to sing…

Samhain teaches us how to recognise what must die and what must live in our lives. It can bring some tough realisations but its transformative energy gives us the opportunity to live a more authentic life.

Estes writes that ‘La Loba’ sings over the bones; her singing fleshes out those bones and, in time, reanimates them. So, what song will you sing this Samhain?

 

 

4 Comments

The Ancient Bone Mother and the Hunter of Souls

October 31, 2009 at 1:47 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: , , , , , ,

raven_smaller

It is the time of Samhain: summer’s end. Here in the Northern hemisphere the mellow light of late autumn is sharpened by a growing chill. As the darkness grows, through the increasingly bare branches we catch glimpses of breath-taking stars; Orion the Hunter heralds the changing season. We let go of warmth like trees shedding leaves. We watch the radiant reds and oranges turn brown. Drying leaves are nature’s parchment; the year has written its story upon them and now it lets them fall; their wisdom is layered into the mulch that will fuel countless cycles of life, death and rebirth. Toadstools feed on the damp forest floors; life grown out of decay. The frosts wither and Grandmother Winter breathes upon us her mist and fog. Her wildness lashes us in strong winds and stinging rain, and in floods her cold fingers find their way into our lives to remind us of her power to shake us down to our core. And yet her light is the gold of the low set sun and her clarity as vast as the blue skies of autumn. As life withdraws, we too draw inward to sit at winter’s hearth and watch the future played out in flame and silent thought.

As Pagans, this festival sees many of us honouring the Goddess as Ancient Crone of the Earth’s Release. As Mother of Shadows, her wisdom is deep as the black of a raven’s wing; as sharp as the crow’s call; as mysterious as the veil of mist that shimmers between this and the otherworld. She is the timeless serpent who sloughs to bring healing. We call to her as infinitely wise Grandmother, she who knows us better than we know ourselves. By her we are swallowed, down into the still darkness of winter, down into her Sacred Cauldron of Rebirth, where peaceful release, transformation and renewal await us. She is the Ancient Bone Mother. When life’s harsh lessons weather our spirits, her strength and endurance fill us. Rugged and timeless, her wildness inspire journeys into the remote and lonely places of our souls, for it is here that we find her, her face bright in the darkness –  a torch through the moonless night; her knowing humour our sacred song of dark wisdom and mother wit.

Many also honour the God as Shadowed Lord of the Dead and Hunter of Souls. As all nature surrenders to the tides of release and the dying light, we recognise that he guides us to that dark place in the forest, that place where we let go of all we are; where the Earth Mother’s body opens to enfold us. We become yet another layer beneath the many layers, feeding the saplings that will grow upon the graves of leaf-fallen lives. Those who do not know him well can fear his shadowed face but there is deep compassion and tenderness beneath the seeming harshness. With him and through him we journey the cycle of the seasons – at Samhain he teaches us to trust in his season of release. As Lord of Death he serves the Goddess and all life in bringing us the perfect peace of surrender that leads to the ultimate renewal of life.

Samhain is the festival when we honour the Crone’s dark cloak of death. It is the time when its impenetrable blackness seems only a translucent veil; when the boundary between this world and the next is slight. We honour those who have passed over: those whom we have known and loved in this life but also those spirits, guides and ancestors who watch over us and bless our lives. We offer our hand to these loving ones that they might join us in our celebrations if they so wish. We feel ourselves most strongly a part of the greater mystery of life at this time.

There is a lovely prayer – written by Judith Anderson- that we use during our own Samhain ritual. We light an ancestor candle whilst someone speaks it. I really love it because it is written in the voice of the ancestors:

Re-member us, you who are living

Restore us, renew us

Speak for our silence

Continue our work

Bless the breath of life

Sing of the hidden patterns

Weave the web of peace.

Another image of the Goddess as Crone that, for me, strongly resonates with this time of year is the Sheela na Gig. Whatever her original meaning, for me she has become the Lady of the Sacred Gateway: Holy Womb and Tomb. She is the Ancient Ancestress who tirelessly births us all and takes us back into her Cauldron Belly. She dwells in all the liminal places and times: dawn and dusk; the edge of ocean and shore; the point between wakefulness and sleep; conscious and subconscious; between life and death; between this and the otherworld. At this time when the veil between the living and dead is so thin, she help us to stand in this in-between place; to learn something of her awesome mysteries; to feel the presence of those we love and know that they still dwell just beyond our senses. With her legs spread in humour and defiance, with her mischievous grin, she shows us the joy of paradox. She has one foot in this world and one foot in the mysterious other, teaching us that when we hold death and life within us, no longer seeing them as opposites, something in us cracks open, the waters break and flow and a new way of being and seeing can be born. She reminds me most powerfully that the Crone is the midwife of souls.

Samhain is a truly magical time. May this season of release tenderly transform each of us, preparing us for our coming renewal; tending us in our grieving and healing. May its lessons of surrender bring rest, peace and wisdom, a renewed strength and joy.

4 Comments