Samhain - Summer's End & The Sacredness of Place

The Samhain ritual is a celebration of circles - the circle of sacred space which is created for the ritual; the circle of life which is recalled as we honour the departed; the seeds of hope which are planted for the next cycle of the year.

It is also a time of letting go, of casting into the Samhain fire all that has nourished us in the past but now no longer brings growth or that which shackles us to the old year or binds and limits us.

Also, as I celebrated Samhain, I was keenly aware of the way in which the ritual forged a connection to the earth. As the sacred space was woven we honoured the energy of the Life around us, in the place where we all stood:

Here in this place we honour muntjac deer, robin and squirrel;
Magpie and owl, fox and badger, blue tit and chaffinch
...the mighty cedar in whose shade we meet...

Throughout the ritual I felt that what we were celebrating was rooted in that very place, in that garden, amongst those trees, with that group of people. As I reflect on the celebration I am aware of the intimacy of the ritual and of the way in which it drew on the experiences of those who were partipating in it.

And although I had met the majority of the group only half an hour earlier, I felt a belonging and that what we were doing together mattered. This resulted in a connection and a rootedness which I find so often sadly absent from our weekly celebrations and services in church. Is this because our Anglican rites fail to take account of who is present, of the holy place in which we are meeting, of the connections we have to one another?

After the celebration was complete, we took refuge from the cold and gathered indoors for the gorsedd. Again, the power of this came in the meeting and sharing of those who were present. Poems were shared in celebration of the Earth, sacred songs were sung and drums were played. As the first fire of the season leapt in the hearth, a sacred rhythm drew us together and, again, a connection was made - the sacredness of the place.

Before departing, we shared thoughts about the next step for this gathering: should it be made public, an open invitation? Or is the gap between this group and traditional Church too wide for many to easily move from one to the other? I am still pondering this and I have no answers. However, I feel clearly drawn to this path of celebration and wonder if, for some at least, it may be a new route (?root) on the journey of life and faith.

October - Summer's end & the gateway to winter

The world changes as October unfolds its mysteries. Seven o' clock in the morning and seven o'clock in the evening are both equally dark. We rise from sleep and wonder if it is still the night before. And under the shelter of woodland trees it seems never to grow light at any point in the day. We take a step back in time at the end of the month as we put back the clocks by one hour - lighter in the mornings for a while, but darker in the afternoons.

But at the same time the trees are bursting into flames of copper-red and apple-yellow, showing us a miracle which, even though we have seen it before, still turns our head as we wonder where these hues have come from. There is a sense in October of a world which we don't quite recognise.

Before the coming of electricity, this was a time to close down for the winter. For the ancient Celtic peoples, the end of October was the end of the old year, the new year beginning with the festival of Samhain on the 1st of November. As the new year dawned there was a sense of two worlds drawing together: that which had been and that which was yet to come meeting for a short time in the present. It was this time of year that the Christian Church made 1st November All Saints' Day and the following day All Souls' Day, when it was believed that our world and the next were brought together.

But we are always leaving behind the old and entering the new. The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a right time for each event in life - the season for one thing passes and a new moment comes along. The change of the seasons beckons us to a new stage of life.

The deepening of autumn into winter is an invitation to contemplation and silence. In this season, there is the opportunity for God, the Other, to call to us and to break into our awareness. It may be the a spider's web syrupy with dew that does this, or the russet blaze of the beech tree, or the chill blanket of the fog muffling all sound into silence.

October's autumn offers a doorway into a world which is far greater than the one which is visible, and the chance to hear a voice saying to us: All is sacred.