Samhain, honouring our ancestors and becoming elders
Following the Celtic Wheel, we now arrive at Samhain, which begins at sunset on the 31st October and runs into the 1st November. This is the Celtic new year where one growth cycle ends and a new one begins, the trees dropping their leaves and seeds onto the forest floor, the new life cycle growing out of the decay and death of another.
The roots of Halloween reach back into the traditions of Samhain and in the Christian calendar this time is marked by All Souls Day and All Saints Day. It is said that during this sacred time the veils between our world and the spirit world are thinnest and in all these traditions this is a time to honour our ancestors.
This could be a relative or someone that inspired us, that we remember but is no longer with us or it could be our ancient ancestors who walked the earth at a time when humans lived in balance and harmony with everything around us. It is also a time to remember that we too will be ancestors one day, and that how we live our lives now will impact on all beings in the future.
On a personal level, having lost my dad this year this time feels especially poignant. It’s a time for me to honour him as an ancestor who has recently passed over, acknowledging all the things that he was able to offer as well as all the things he couldn’t. The good and the bad, the light with the dark.
To live in balance, we need to reclaim the dark, from something to fear, reject or demonise to something that can be rich and nourishing, for the darkness of winter is an equal partner to the light of summer. As Carl Jung once said, “one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the dark conscious.”
If we choose to, we can lean into the energies of the darkness at this time of year. It is a time to slow down and explore our inner landscape, a time to replenish, a time to heal. If we don’t honour this time and its call to rest, then we risk our bodies forcing us to stop through illness, burnout or depression, as a difficult way to bring us back into balance.
As the tree shed their leaves and nuts, they show us that letting go of what we no longer need is part of the natural cycle, and that what we shed can provide sustenance for what is to come, life growing out of death. For us too, holding on to things that no longer serve us knocks us out of balance and that learning to let these things go, shedding their weight, whilst learning from their wisdom is a way we can grow into becoming elders to both ourselves and those that will come after us.
The ancient tree holds, at its very core, the sapling it once was. So too do we hold the vulnerable child we once were at our core. The more we grow from our experiences we can protect, cherish and nurture these vulnerable parts of ourselves, becoming a true elder. As we slow down to provide room for contemplation, we can begin to integrate the lessons from the year just gone. The more we integrate these lessons the more the elder within us has the capacity to help us face our vulnerabilities from a heartfelt place, opening the path to healing. We reach a time when we can let go, facing up to the death of parts of ourselves, the stories that no longer serve us, with compassion for they had they played their part in our lives, at some time along the way.
In our modern culture, our lives often run on false time, disconnected from natures rhythms so even spending 5 minutes in stillness during the Celtic Wheels transitional times is an acknowledgement and reconnection with something greater than us, reminding us that we are nature and that these cycles are going on both outside and inside of us. If you can find that time to reflect on what you want to let go of, to honour your ancestors both recent and ancient then we are all taking an important step towards reclaiming that which we have lost, to live in balance and harmony with all beings.
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A lot of inspiration for this blog and from my path connecting with the seasons has come from Ian Siddons Hegginworth’s Environmental Arts Therapy and the Tree of Life, which I read on repeat from year to year. If you would like to delve deeper into living in balance with the seasons, the practices, stories and folklore, then this book is a beautiful guide. Sadly, Ian passed away a few years ago and now sits with the ancestors, the legacy of his work lives on
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