An Earlier Samhain
This year I'm thinking of the times past when I would go to see my good friend and colleague Nova in Chapel Hill, NC for Samhain, which for us was a three day reflective period embedded in ritual. I've gone nowhere this year as I’m dealing with certain health issues that keep me close to home and restful. A little conversation with ancestors, a little singing and feeding, a little reflecting on how much my relationships with my closest dead family members have changed over the years of meeting them across the borders and what a blessing it is as I get closer to my own transition time to no longer carry those stories of harm so tightly wrapped around my heart.
But this is the Samhain I'm most reflecting on right now. Nova and I would spend a day telling family stories, either tight with anger, desolate in grief or barking with laughter, while slowly building our altar filled with mementos to the dead, with items of power, and covered in the finest chocolates and pomegranates. Come dusk on the first day we would venture out to wander the Greenway close to her home to see if there were any wandering spirits who might wish for passage.
Nova and I would go off in different directions and this particular Samhain very early in my walk I crossed a bridge over a small creek in the darkening light and to my left was a very full shrub taller than I am and I was stunned to notice that it was absolutely covered in a chaotic flurry of many different kinds of songbirds flying all around it and making a cacophony with all their different calls. I was puzzled as it was a very odd time for any songbirds to be out as it was almost totally dark and to have so many different species all together like that was also odd. Then next to the shrub I saw a mother deer and a very very young fawn which was also out of place considering it was the beginning of November and not birthing time, and these two were so close I could almost lean out and touch their faces and they were not afraid of me. As I was staring at this enormous unusual activity while getting my bearings, a mother pushing her child in a stroller came toward me and hurriedly crossed the bridge. She didn't act like she saw or heard any of the birds or the deer within just feet of her but the child looked in that direction and raised his little finger to point “look” and then they crossed the bridge and were gone. It had already dawned on me that these were not living animals even though they were the most alive presenting spirits I had about ever seen. I wasn't really thinking about what to do, I just found myself speaking in a commanding voice that didn't sound quite like my own and told them to all come with me as I headed back to Nova's home.
As soon as I got to her home I walked over to our altar and before I could even think to do anything a vast presence landed in the living room with a wuffled boom, shaking the floor and windows and everything else inside and I saw the lower half of an enormous eagle who wasn't really actually fitting in the living room for it had a presence too vast for any kind of containment. Time seemed to move fast while also standing still as I heard the eagle abruptly say “I'm taking all of them” and then there was a loud circular frisson of wind around me just for a moment and then everything was quiet and everyone was gone.
What do we do with moments like these? What I carry away with me whenever these bright forces break through the ordinary is awe, gratitude and wonder at the infinite wealth of creativity that is the underpinning and wellspring of life, whether it's something happening in what we call the material world or something happening that is more of an anomalous experience. Soul is an Artist and this is the root of all of our natures and there is great power here to create beauty and balance for all beings if we will allow ourselves to partner with what seems impossible and unrealistic.
We say the veils at Samhain are thin but they are actually always permeable if we allow ourselves a slight shift in perception. The dead are always right there, available for relationship. People, trees, animals.. all just around an angle of perception. It's all ongoing relationship. How beautiful is that?!