White Goddess: Remember Those Who Passed

 

 

Samhain; the Final Harvest, the Day of the Dead, Spirit Night, November Eve, Ancestor Night, Apple Fest, All Hallow’s Eve, Pagan New Year’s Eve, Halloween.  We honor our ancestors this night. 

For Celts, it was a time of slating the meat.  It is the day of the snow goddess, and I do not remember a Halloween night when it did not snow in areas where it snows.  It is a time when it is believed that the veil is thin and spirits mingle with the living.  Loved ones come close and draw near to our fires.  In many cultures, food is left out for them, and gifts of things they loved during their lifetime.  It is a time for personal reflection on lost ones.  It is a time for us to recognize our faults and to fix them.  Tonight is a time to light your biggest bonfire and settle in for some deep thought.  Pumpkins, lanterns, apples, nuts, and your sage should be lit.  Black cats, bats, ghost, scarecrows are strung up. 

This is the time of the Crone, the White Goddess, a night of sandalwood, sweetgrass, new black and white candles to be lit.  Black is for the nights’ past and white symbolizing the White Goddess of a new year. Autumn leaves scatter to keep out of the fray.  Gingerbreads, nut breads, apple everything and pumpkin everything is baked.  

Take this night for yourself.  Think of family and friends who have passed.  Grieve if you must, but know that grieving cause them to stop what they are doing elsewhere and come to try to find out why you grieve.  They are at a better place and do not really wish to be drawn to your tears.  Make sure you remember that this physical reality is not all there is to all.  The soul never dies.  Energy is exchanged.  I witnessed this for myself when my father passed in 1979.  I felt his energy pass from his hand to and through mine.  I have no other explanation but that there is energy that leaves the body when the body dies.  We are left by our loved ones to finish off some of what they left for us to do.  I am very conscious of this.  I will be focusing on my paternal father who I never met.  There are only my brother and I of his blood left.  We have been talking about that, lately.  It is amazing and we are grateful to have each other. 

This movie touched me deeply when I saw it when it first came out.  We were in Yuma and we went together to see it.  Talk about weep.  It is touching.