Preparing for Samhain/ Sow’ain

 

 

 

And so, we end off the month of harvesting and gratitude and move into the month of Samhain.  Samhain is an ancient Gaelic time of feasting and festivals.  For tonight and through until the 1 of November, there will be bonfires and mummeries and feasting.  We watch winter start to move in.

The Druids honor the thinning of the veil for All Saints Day on October 31.  During this month, preparations are made for the last day of this month.  They understood death to be part of our earthly journey and there was no morbidity or gruesomeness to their way of celebrating Samhain. 

While our environment withers and begins its dying off for the next few months, and the universe is darkening, leaves decaying, animals brought in from furthest fields, and the harvest gathered, we see the cycle of life in its natural form.  So are we learning, again, that death is as important as birth.  Our way of dealing with the Natural has changed.  We now whisper or do not talk about death easily.  We tuck our dying away from view.  We see death as such a tragedy when, if we followed our religious beliefs, we would see death as a birth elsewhere.  When we were born, it meant a death elsewhere. 

We till remember and honor the dead, but we have moved Samhain into All Hallows’ Eve. Then All Saints Day and now, Halloween, where death is memorialized as some kind of ghoulish celebration, forgetting the way it was celebrated in times past.  It used to be seen as a cycle; when one passed on, another came to replace that soul/spirit/energy.  alloween

Samhain used to be the New Year.  This time of year when light and dark switch places, was a time when they remembered the warm times and people of the past year, showing gratitude for the harvests, remembering things we have accepted and surrendered and hope for a new coming is in place.  It would be wonderful to bring back traditions such as All Hallows Eve. 

It is the time for feasting.  It is time to honor those who have moved on.  On Samhain, we should light a candle, or candles, representing the going of those who continued on into a new journey.  Now is the time to put our plants to rest and discard the leavings of our harvest.  Now is the time to connect to a new energy that comes.  Make a list of things you need, or should, let go of and make a new list of things you would like to do, have, and aspire to. 

We still see our school children dancing through the woods, gathering leaves.  How about you finding a forest to dance and prance and gather in?  Have a bonfire.  In our little sleepy town, on Halloween night, the older boys would start a bonfire on the intersection smack dab middle of town.  For those not wary of the older kids taking our treats, it was a quadrant point to warm up at in between taking our forays out into the dark to go to houses with lights on and treats ready. 

Take time to enjoy the magical change of our environment.  Prepare yourself well for the coming cold months as well.  Develop a new hobby.  Paint in a new way.  Start a new project.  Find ways to be quieter and rested and finding time to consider how your year has gone, and what this new year might bring.  Remember to plan ahead and to have lots of candles and fairy lights, or glowing things that remind us of the glowing of our soul amidst darkness’ impending depth. 

Set your day planer in front of you and write down as many activities as you can think of to plan for Samhain.  I am moving back into painting and art journaling for October.  We really had no summer with all the fires and smoke and evacuations and alerts.  I have been quietly making cards, have absconded our dining room table as a card-making area.  I will begin to paint at my office desk and I have longed to bring in my things from the art gazebo and set up for cold winter days. 

What do you have planned for Samhain, or for this new season, or this new year?

©Carol Desjarlais 9.30.21

 

What We Value Most

 

 “Even if you cannot change all the people around you, you can change the people you choose to be around. Life is too short to waste your time on people who don’t respect, appreciate, and value you. Spend your life with people who make you smile, laugh, and feel loved.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

 

Have we set good firm values for ourselves so we might be gifts to the world that has waited for us?  I have said before, we are the answer to some ancient mother’s prayers.  That is quite the responsibility.  What we believe, we show through actions, during fierce storms in life, and in the quite moments of grief. 

Who do I respect?  Why do I respect that person?  Respect has many connotations.  We can respect out of fear, out of shame, out of love, and out of honor.  That person you admire/respect shows you what you value.  Have we carried that respect/admiration on through into our own lives?  I respect those who have fought many battles and have come out the other side of such with grace and dignity and sharing their stories so I might have hope.  Yes, I respect and honor those women who have known the fire and how to rise to be a light.

What is something that has sentimental value to you, and why does it?  No matter how many times I moved from fly-in communities, to semi-isolated areas dragging along with me my sacred things.  I carry a cloth my mother got in Bolivia.  I carry my other blankets and throws that I received as gifts in give aways when I lived in the far North.  I carried with me, my sacred items, including rocks and artifacts.  I carry gifts my children have sent me from Japan, from Korea, and gifts that they knew spoke to me, and still do.  I have my birth mother’s ashes.  I have my sweetheart’s ashes.  I have tokens of love and feathers sent from beyond the veil.  I treasure my children and I have kept things from their childhood to pass along back to them oner day.  Before my maternal birth family, my children were my tribe.  They were the only bits of flesh and bone I knew.  I have gathered many things that I hold dear.  Have you?

What social or cultural issues are you passionate about?  Why are you passionate about such?  I am passionate about crating, about encouraging and sharing creating because I know, for me, in the midst of creating, I am closest to Creator.  Creating is my meditations, my prayers, my time of soul connection.  I wish others to have such feelings and peace that comes through those deep-thought times.  My heart has been lost for most things patriarchal (including politics, of course) and I have promised myself to stay passionate about First Nations’ teachings and ceremonies and culture.  When I find myself wondering about something that matters to me, I always turn to an elder, a medicine person, or do the research for First Nation thought about such because the way they think sits right with my soul.  Mainly, living a service-oriented life.

What time(s) in your life did you feel rewarded or fulfilled?  Once I thought Creator had given me a gift for my hard-service-oriented-heartfelt work I was doing.  After a couple of years, I lost that gift.  I was shattered.  I had to learn to be careful what honor I gave to Creator.  I have had many honors given to me.  Those are some of things I carry with me whenever I move and wherever I go.  I have been greatly loved and have loved greatly in return.  I have learned to keep the good stuff I have learned and cast away the not good things.  Those things remind me that |I have been and am capable of being loved and give great love.

Sometimes I really struggle with conflicts of any kind.  If I want to be known as Love, then I have to learn how to deal with conflict.  I have not mastered it yet, and may never, but I am trying.  How we deal with conflict is glaring truth of what kind of person we are.  I react emotionally rather than logically.  And, because sometimes my emotions are blurred one into another thing, I do not always react in a way to feel proud.  I can, most times, step back and step away and go off alone somewhere to (yes, I walk in circles talking to myself when I am trying to get past the emotion) calm myself down before I act.  How do you react to conflict?  Do you stop, think, calm down and then do something about conflict?  Do you run from it?  I am trying to pare down my life so I have as little conflict as possible.  I always worry that I might start some conflict.  I am not a contrary person, but I can stand for what I believe and for what I value and that can create conflict.  I have had to learn to pick my battles.  How about you?

I think we do not ever “grow up” and I wonder who gets to decide when we are?  I think that as long as we keep our eye on the gold (the truth of ourselves;  what we value, what we believe, how we act; and choose the most peaceful, ideal way we can; then, we are working towards being what we value, believe and will always be practicing in our way we act/react.  I honor all you in this group.  Each of you represent something good that I see and feel from your posts and replies, from your welcoming and considerate ways.  I value each and every one of you.

©Carol Desjarlais 9.29.21

 

 

Make Yourself A Promise

 

 

 

Promise

 

In this life, I have known pain.

In this life, I have known joy.

I have survived devastating heartbreak,

And I have been blessed with life saving love.

I have been bombarded with dishonesty,

But I have been faithful to the truth.

I have always been fallible and imperfect,

But I have always been worthy and enough.

And though I have traveled through darkness just as often as I have traveled in the light,

I have done my best to keep my true self in sight.

And if from my life’s journey I have gathered nothing more,

I am convinced of the importance of protecting one’s soul.

So I make this promise to myself...

I will never allow those that have caused me pain to poison my soul.

I will never allow another to make me abandon myself.

I will continue to believe in the goodness of people.

I will continue to walk in faith and to hold on strongly to hope.

Love will continue to reign inside of me.

Love will continue to be my breath.

And love is what I will continue to exhale into this world.

 

- Aura de Los Angeles @her.every.color.writingdiary