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#samhain

ramnath@nerdpol.ch
ramnath

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#Bonfires are a Samhain tradition that are still part of celebrations on Halloween here in #Ireland to this day.
These bonfires and new #fires were lit for #protection - scaring off the spirits that resided in darkness. They also might have provided some reassurance in a time before electricity, symbolising the light and warmth of the sun that would return after winter.

Feasting
The fruits of the harvest were enjoyed at feasts around these fires, too. Livestock specially selected for the event were roasted, with some burnt on the #fire as offerings to the spirits. And unlike the one-night-only event of Halloween today, Samhain of long ago would have gone on for days and, according to some sources, up to a week! Quite the party!
#Samhain and the start of the #Celtic #New #Year

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Samhain - The turning of the year
For our #ancestors, the new day began at #sundown. So Samhain began at twilight, Oíche Shamhna, on October 31st. With the sun's setting, the old year was seen to die, and the long dark of winter that started the new year was heralded in.

Livestock were brought down to winter grazing to keep them safe in the cold months. People retreated indoors, too, believing that the boundary between our world and the Otherworld, the world of the spirits, was at its thinnest point of the year. The dead were believed to cross into the world of the living, and spirits like the #banshee, #púca, and the Aes #Sídh roamed the land at this liminal time.

https://www.myirishjeweler.com/eu/blog/samhain-and-celtic-new-year/

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libramoon@diaspora.glasswings.com
libramoon

Samhainic Verse

Caught up in my Demeter role
I brought winter to my grieving soul.
Numbing ice, concealing snow,
No nurturing soil for seed to sow.
Longing to sleep in dreamless haze,
Aching for peace from ravaging rage,
I ask to serve, to give to others' lives
what I am bereft of.
But the gods in their wisdom,
send me to fools,
wicked, nasty fools who mock me
knowing not my sorrow, knowing not what I disguise.
Hiding behind hysterically blinded eyes,
I prepare for my journey deep below.

Others have travelled this path before me
and lived to tell the tale,
strengthened by their devotion
to their stolen loves.
In a bubble of my own clouded atmosphere,
I shall fear no evil.
Blood coagulates around my heart
allowing no feeling
but deadening pain.
My lips are bound.
My tearducts desiccated by vacuum.
Thus am I prepared.
I am not prepared at all
for what I may find.
But neither do I care.
This is all about desperation.
This is all about emotion so intense
that I am beyond response;
there is nothing left to feel.
Step by step
I descend.

Something about a veil.
But more like
a brick wall --
there may be explosives
hidden behind that solid image.
It seems unyielding.
There are glimmers,
minor crumblings.
At times the bricks seem to shift.
Unexplained.
If I let myself,
if I am very quiet,
molecules move silently,
disarming resistance,
there will appear a stair
to my senses of solid granite,
wet with the drip of
melting ice.

Treacherous.
A misstep could kill me,
falling all the way,
breaking stair by stair.
I must take care.
Make careful measure:
What is the true worth
of what I might find?

My weight is unsteady.
Gaping below --
a colorless vortex,
a lake of emptiness
sucking in all sensation.
It is enormous, all-consuming.
My salvation.
I leap.
Overwhelmed,
I am sucked in and through,
breathlessly,
silently,
alone in the Universe
of silent, inexorable,
intensity.
Pulled into an event horizon
a singularity
another, nether realm.

Every act
Every thought
Every dream
Every wish
Everyone I'd lost
at every stage of
our shared experience.
Every sin.
Here they live,
each acting out it's own story
in a cavernous space,
of encapsulated dioramas.
I don't sense my body
-- only a vague weight
of uncertain dimensions.
It is time released --
all happening at once eternally.
No choice but to let it wash over me,
wave after chaotic, metaphoric wave.
Sound/light/fragrance/taste/touch/emotion
craftily embodied in exquisite, endless pain.

Is there a voice here?
Is there a way to make it talk
in reasonable tones?
Is there a way to unravel the senses,
to frame neat packets of sense
and talk with them reasonably?
Is there a rationale within which
to deal with the feelings,
to put them in place,
rational and calm and dignified?
Is it too much to ask?
And of whom?
There is no guide, no authority,
none but me, infinitely mirrored.
What will become of all these "I"s
staring at me, demanding
retribution, stark, cold justice
Just Ice and Cold and bitter, stinging snow
to wrap my frozen soul in hope of sleep
while Nazgul track my dreams.

The innocent must bear the sacrifice.
Power too dangerous to the wise
and power-enabled,
that would overtake their skills,
turn them to evil purpose,
may be safely given to innocent hands, destroying
only the sacrificial lamb.
The wise, in their compassion,
may suffer unhealing wounds
of painful knowledge;
but the innocent are destroyed,
pitted inside out by corrosion,
unable to fight,
unable to understand.
I am not wise, nor innocent.
I look into the battalion of
mirrored images
and am left just short of
destruction,
picking at scabs,
unwilling to heal
my agony of remorse
and betrayal.
I didn't know,
couldn't know,
no one told me.
They said:
"Do what you are told.
It will all be alright in the end."
But whose end, right for whom?

What is the treasure I have come here seeking?
That sweet, sparkling child,
who played upon the hillside,
picking flowers
to weave into our hair --
I didn't mean to leave her unprotected.
I left her in the care of trusted friends
while I went off to earn our daily bread.
The screaming
in my heart
as she was taken,
the shattering reverberations,
I'd never known such pain.
It stopped me in my tracks,
overcame my senses,
never leaves me, never lessens,
though in time, like anything, I guess
recedes into background noise
that I may hear my orders,
do as duty demands.

But, duty to what demands?
The gods,
my very brethren,
I realize, have betrayed me.
Cut to my womanly core
to drink my blood in bacchanalia.
The mirror images smile grotesquely.
I am sickened,
brought to my humbled knees,
not in obeisance.
I have not the strength nor will
to stand.
Perhaps I shall dwell here in hell,
unmoving,
unresponsive,
bleeding out,
pale and ashen.
Serving them no more.
No bread upon the table.
Just Ice and snow.

II.

"Mommy," she cried, dead eyes open,
awash in tears,
"I didn't mean to leave you.
I didn't know I would be gone so long."

My desiccated heart bathes gladly
in those soothing tears.
I am brought back to my journey.
The mirror images have softened.
Every face, every form, every failure,
every sin
I can't quite grasp why it would matter,
how these essences
combine with mine.
Perhaps I am hallucinating.
Perhaps none of us
exist at all.

Baby girl, I have always loved you.
Hated you for dying.
Hated life and death for dividing us.
Hated, blamed,
damned to hell,
all those mirror images,
all those wraiths and wretched
wayward souls who pass me by.
I have loved and lost and
lonely wandered.
And wondered why.
I hold you close as
I look into the mirror, deeply,
drink of the magick of lethe.
Falling, gently, easily, even leisurely,
letting go and drinking in,
all that Hell allows
now that we create the rules.

Caught up in my Hecate role,
I feel the power of my soul.
Rain and wind and ice and snow
I feel you all from here below,
and revel in elemental energy.
I am the wind, the seas, the fire
I am all will and all desire.
It is me you love, and me you hate --
I am the master of your fate.
Yet I am hidden from all sight,
beyond the reach or need of light.
I have found my peace,
my place, my voice.
Take heed, O' mortal,
create your choice.
Create it every day.

#poetry #samhain #mythology #persephone #demeter #hecate

https://web.archive.org/web/20091027151908/http://geocities.com/libramoon.geo/cosmicpoetry.html

noam@libranet.de
Noam writes

It wasn't my plan that a central part of my #Samhain observance would be scrolling through 1,000+ names and faces of massacre victims, looking for people I knew. But this was the work that had to be done. Blessed be.

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libramoon@diaspora.glasswings.com
libramoon

https://wisdom-of-astrology.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-cosmic-story-wheel-of-year-samhain.html

The #Cosmic Story: The Wheel of the Year: #Samhain -- Time to Let Go!
Cathy Pagano

..."what we’re experiencing now – the refusal on the part of the powers that run the world to let the old rules die so we can create new ones. We just have to look back at the Greek #myths, which form the basis of western society, to see how the father #gods – Saturn and Jupiter – refused to allow the next generation to take over. They didn’t want to relinquish their power. They didn’t want to die!

Until we each contemplate death, we will continue to allow our society to create it.

Our society is not rooted in a spirituality that supports life and recognizes death as part of that life. This has given rise to a toxic view of life. And unfortunately, there is a toxic masculinity that has shaped both men and women, and we don’t even realize we’re shaped by. Life is supposed to be a mixture of masculine and feminine energies – the feminine is the baseline, while the masculine creates individual energies. Modern society is based on masculine principles and uses its feminine energy to support things like consumerism and division, rather than inclusiveness.
...
When the Wheel of the Year turns to Samhain, we stand before the veils that separate different realities. The veils thin and the souls of the dead can move on to the next plane of existence. Or come back for a visit to us.

The Celts called this otherworld Annwn or Avalon. It was a blessed place of peace and happiness. Perhaps that’s why they weren’t afraid of death as we are. Our religions have made death a scary, painful place, full of fire and punishment. That’s probably why people today are afraid of death, even if they don’t consciously think of a fiery afterlife. It’s in our collective unconscious. Shame on the Christian church for that! Instead of picking the real miracle that Jesus’ life contained – the Resurrection – they chose to pick a symbol of suffering and death for themselves and for us.

It’s time for us to get over that delusional belief and understand that the Universe and Mother Nature re-cycle souls. They don’t punish us for living our lives. Jesus’ death was supposed to redeem us from our fear of death because he showed us that we will Rise again.

So it’s important for us to learn to let go, release what’s no longer of service to us, and LET IT DIE! It will create so much more room in our psyches to create something new in the coming year. And these little ‘deaths’ will get us used to the grand finale of our lives. Our death into new life."...

The Cosmic Story: The Wheel of the Year: Samhain -- Time to Let Go!

psych@diasp.org
Michael

Tis the season. Culture/history fans (especially devotees of the Northern lands) may enjoy this. Food fans too

When People Carved Turnips Instead of Pumpkins for Halloween

The first Jack O'Lanterns were not pumpkins but carved "ghost turnips" and other root vegetables, made to celebrate the ancient pagan festival of Samhain.

#Jackolantern #pumpkin #turnip #Halloween #pagan #rituals #holidays #Samhain #tradition #autumn

When People Carved Turnips Instead of Pumpkins for Halloween

Revelers in Ireland transformed the root vegetables into lanterns designed to ward off dark spirits

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