HAPPY NEW YEAR!
That’s really what Halloween is ya know—a new year for the
pagan persuasion. I have loved Halloween
over the years not just for the candy, the costumes or the decorations…ok maybe
it is about the candy sometimes.
Anyway:
Samhain brings the end of the cycle and the beginning of the
new. According to the lore, the God goes
to the underworld. Hence the dark
right? Samhain reminds us that life is
life and with life, we also have death. Honestly,
Samhain easily became my sabbat of choice because of the comfort I found through
grief as well as the releasing of the muck that so often gums up my engines.
Unlike some of my close friends, I admit that I have
relatively low grief experience. Three of
my four grandparents have died. That’s
the closest on the family score that grief came. All of them were elderly and sick and
declining in the health well before they succumbed. I know that each of them released from this
mortal coil for the better. That didn’t
stop me from bawling my eyes out at Samhain those years mind you, but it
brought me greater peace and acceptance of the end of their cycles.
Grief is not always so peaceful, however. I recently volunteered to help with a drum
circle at a teen grief retreat. My
husband and I drum and a friend of ours asked if we could help with their drum
circle. I must admit, I was apprehensive
just because I know that my grief experience is not what others sometimes go
though. I went anyway. I’m glad I did. You see, during the drum circle on the first
night of retreat, the naming happens. As
we drummed, we’d pause periodically and name those who we wanted to remember
that night. I recall being absolutely
petrified that I’d have to name someone knowing full well that my grief was
nothing compared to that of the young faces I saw in that circle. I couldn’t believe the number of names some
of these young people rattled off. “So
much death for one so young,” I remember thinking over and over again.
I did eventually share a name of a young lady I barely knew
because a car accident took her life. I
attended her memorial and I cried then; I said goodbye. I offered a memorial in a circle for her and
the young man who also died that night following the service. I thought that I had made peace with it. Then I said her name in that drum circle a
few weeks ago. I was overwhelmed by the
feeling of loss and the realization that her family and friends and the world
at large lost something precious that night.
Maybe it was the rhythm. Maybe it
was the gathering of people who all had grief in common. I don’t know.
I do know that the tears that sprang to my eyes surprised me. It’s been four years this winter. Yet that circle and that gathering, gave me
more closure and acceptance than I thought I needed.
That’s what ritual does for us. It conjures up those emotions that make us
human and gives us a forum where we can acknowledge them. It might be in the group. It might be in solitary. It might be now; it might be years from now. Who knows?
The ritual though can be the catalyst for some—even those who thought
they didn’t need it. That’s the beauty
of Samhain. You commune and remember
those who’ve left this earthly realm.
You celebrate them and what they brought to your life. Then you look at what muck is gumming up your
engine and you light that crap on fire.
Let. It. Go.
Lord,
we say farewell to you this night.
Rest within the Goddess’s
cauldron until we reunite.
For my loved ones: bless them and
keep them,
May their memories be my life’s
light.
Blessed Samhain, everyone.
