Samhain - Listening at the Doorway of Winter

Samhain has its roots in an ancient Celtic fire festival. It falls at the boundary of October and November, marking the end of autumn and the beginning of winter.[1] Samhain is a time of transition, an in-between space. It is a liminal time (from limen, the Latin word for threshold) Samhain is a doorway, connecting golden harvest time and cool, still darkness. Across the threshold, the seasons meet and touch. They stand in relationship.

As I’ve said before, I believe that relationship is the essence of Wicca. In Samhain’s liminal beauty, I see a celebration of the challenges and ineffable fulfillment of living in relationship.

Folklore holds that liminal times and spaces (crossroads, thresholds, midnight, Samhain) bring us to a closer relationship with the Otherworlds, lands of enchantment and imagination. The Veil between our everyday world and the Otherworlds begins to thin. The inhabitants of the Otherworlds reach out to us and make themselves felt.. The nature of those inhabitants varies across stories and traditions – they may be the Good Folk, the puca and the bean-sidhe, the kelpie of the well and the hinkypunk of the marsh, and other kinds of creatures as well. Many of the secular traditions of Halloween are inspired by the tales of these creatures, playing on the possible relationships between humans and spirits.

More solemnly, the Otherworlds are home to the spirits of our beloved dead, and Samhain is their festival. At Samhain we acknowledge that we exist in the midst of cycles of death and life. The thinning of the Veil at Samhain enables us to affirm and celebrate our relationships with those who have passed over.

During a previous conversation here at The Slacktiverse, someone asked me how I could have a relationship with someone who isn't alive anymore. How would that work, without the other person communicating and responding to me?

I don’t find the lack of active communication to be an insuperable barrier to being in relationship with my beloved dead. After all, I have relationships with living people who don’t communicate with me (or at least not very often.) Just because I haven't spoken or written to someone in months doesn't necessarily mean I have stopped relating to her. If my partner and I were separated by circumstances, our communications might be infrequent, but the intensity of my relationship with him would not be dissolved simply by time and space.

When I open the door to greet someone I haven’t seen for a while, I am often struck by how their presence is more vivid than my memories or imagination of them. I remember the prejudices, the follies, the foibles, as well as the charm, the wit, and the mannerisms, but time and distance can dull those recollections, like a reproduction of a vibrant oil painting sketched in misty watercolors. When the real person crosses my threshold, I realize how much I’ve forgotten. The relative I haven’t seen for years turns out to be both more kind than I remember and more nauseatingly guilt-inducing than I would like to recall.

This, then, is the challenge of trying to be in relationship with someone without active input from the other side. This challenge is clearest in our relationships with the beloved dead, who lack the ability to refresh our memories of their impact and their essence. Renewing those relationships at Samhain teaches me more about what it means to live in relationship with others.

Across distance and silence, I can think about, remember, and hope and wish and pray for the people I love, living and dead. In doing so, I am relating to them. The challenge is to stay open to who those people actually are, not just who I might wish them to be. I must listen to them.

Without listening – without paying careful attention to the reality of those we love -- we run the risk of wearing down the memory to just the parts that are comfortable for us, evening out all the sharp edges and unexpected valleys of the other's personality into a featureless, indistinguishable lump. We can romanticize a lost lover; we can mythologize our beloved but questionable ancestors.

The same wearing-down process, unfortunately, can occur in relationships with people we see every day. Unless we listen, we fall out of relationship with the living person and into an easier but ultimately flawed relationship with a caricatured memory. Metaphorical silence and distance leads eventually to literal distance, when one person says "You're not who I thought you were.”

This is why learning to listen is at the heart of living in relationship. It's a challenge to seek out the unexpected, the uncomfortable, the unusual, the unknown. We have to make the effort to acknowledge that someone with whom we're in relationship is really an Other -- someone separate, distinct, different from ourselves and our ideas, images, and imaginings. This process of learning to listen, learning to be open and aware beyond ourselves, calls us to be more than just ourselves as isolated individuals.

At Samhain, we practice this in our relationships with the dead. Just because they’re silent doesn’t mean we can’t listen. One of the traditional ways to relate to the deceased at this time of year is the dumb feast, where places are set for those who have passed over and the meal is held in silence. It combines a fundamental human connection through shared food and drink with an explicit example of listening, of recognizing that for such a connection to be shared, we have to make space and time - and silence - for others. This form of contemplation is especially appropriate as we begin to move into winter, a time when the world as a whole becomes more quiet, more still. We trade speech for silence; that encourages us to engage in other forms of communication, forms which may be more amenable to other kinds of awareness and relationship.

Striving to be in relationship with people who are not immediately present is also a way to learn to be in relationship with others who are present but whose voices are hard to hear. In Wicca, I am in relationship with the land and water, with plants and animals, all of whom communicate with me in non-verbal ways. As with an absent person, it is easy for me to hear only what I want to, to disregard the reality of these parts of my world in favor of the more comfortable constructs inside my own mind. But if I take time to listen, they speak to me, confronting me with the reality of their situation, more vivid and amazing than any imagination of my own. Opening to this awareness also teaches me about how to be in relationship with those whose voices are too often silenced: people who are not like me, people who are underprivileged, people who are far away. When I challenge myself to remember the complexity of the people I love who have passed over, it makes me better prepared to acknowledge the complexities that someone else's life may hold. It teaches me to seek out their voices, hearing from them in ways I might not expect or easily understand; it prepares me to hear even things that make me uncomfortable -- an essential part of an ongoing relationship.

This kind of listening is not necessarily the absence of talking; after all, our lives are stories told in dialogue. But it is dialogue -- not monologue. When we learn to listen, we encounter the reality of relationships, the reality that our stories are all told together. When we listen, we cannot assert complete control over our own narrative by shouting to drown others out; we cannot plug our ears so that no one else's story can interfere with our own. When we listen, we participate in stories of relationship. Listening is an act of awareness, of being present with and in the dialogue that surrounds us.

When we listen not only to the words but to the silence, we discover that the meaning of the story is formed by the silent pauses between words. Without them, all our speech would be incomprehensible noise. The silence is the heart of the story.

The liminal spaces that seemed empty are full of potential and interaction. The fullness of those spaces brings us to fullness, into full participation in the relationships that are the essence of life together.

The stories of Samhain are stories of relationships that cross all boundaries – between autumn and winter, between this world and the Otherworlds, between life and death. The rites of Samhain bring us to the threshold, the doorway, the liminal space where we connect across the boundary between self and other. And so at the threshold of November, I stand in the great silent pause between my story and that of my beloved dead – and I listen.

--Literata and Morwen

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[1] Of course in the southern hemisphere summer is just beginning and the upcoming feast is Beltane.↩

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Comments

[Neohippie]

First?

I love Samhain (or Halloween, or the Day of the Dead, or whatever iteration thereof). I think it's healthy to have a hoilday where you confront death and other scary things. It's not easy, but I think modern society covers these things up a little too much.

[Brin]

Thank you. I always look forward to the Wheel of the Year posts.

(The URL has all but the first letter of the post's name cut off.)

[The Board Administration Team]

@Brin: Thanks for catching that -- TypePad sometimes does that. I have reset it.

[Literata]

Thanks, all! My friend and excellent editor Morwen helped me turn my initial draft of this into something coherent - I could not for the life of me get my mystical ideas to stand still long enough to be captured in text, so I'm tremendously grateful to her for coauthoring.

I won't be around much right now since I have multiple events this weekend, but I'd like to wish everyone a happy Halloween, blessed Samhain if you observe it, and blessed Beltane for those in the Southern Hemisphere! And a belated happy Diwali to any who observe that!

[Amaryllis]

This is beautiful, Literata. Wishing you and all who celebrate it a blessed Samhain.

This form of contemplation is especially appropriate as we begin to move into winter, a time when the world as a whole becomes more quiet, more still. We trade speech for silence; that encourages us to engage in other forms of communication, forms which may be more amenable to other kinds of awareness and relationship.

In the season leaves should love,
since it gives them leave to move
through the wind, towards the ground
they were watching while they hung,
legend says there is a seam
stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil
earth from the sky in one last pale
wave, as autumn dies to bring
winter back, and then the spring,
we who die ourselves can peel
back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.
Tonight at last I feel it shake.
I feel the nights stretching away
thousands long behind the days
till they reach the darkness where
all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch
move with me, and when I brush
my own mind across another,
I am with my mother's mother.
Sure as footsteps in my waiting
self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,
intimate, a waiting bounty.
"Carry me." She leaves this trail
through a shudder of the veil,
and leaves, like amber where she stays,
a gift for her perpetual gaze.
- Annie Finch, "Samhain"

[Laiima]

This was marvelous, Literata, and exactly what I needed to hear right now. Thanks to you and Morwen!

[Coleslaw]

I loved this, Literata. Very informative and a lot to think about.

[Mmy]

I think that this post talks to one of the central problems of our society. We do not listen. That is one of the things we mean when we speak of "appropriation of voice." Instead of letting other speak to us we speak "for" them.

Silence is a way of honouring/accepting/acknowledging the fact that we cannot speak for others.

[MercuryBlue]

Well said, Literata. You too, mmy.

[Kit Whitfield]

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[MercuryBlue]

those whose voices are too often silenced: [...] people who are underprivileged

Lyrics from "Stand and Deliver" from Celtic Thunder's Storm (which I wish I could recommend wholeheartedly, because it's a lot of fun):

Look out! A coach has been surprised
Crossing Branagan’s Moor.
No doubt, the gold that’s been excised
Will be given to the poor!
Ooh, ooh. For the poor are being squeezed everyday,
My fine friend’s, give it up, now it’s your turn to pay.
Look out! The gentry and the rich,
For I have taken an oath.
Look out! No matter which is which,
I will steal from you both!
Ooh, ooh. Who will stand up for the weak.
Ooh, ooh. Yes, mine is the voice that will speak.

Lyrics from the song immediately following, "The Highwayman":

They say he’s a nobleman
Who has gone wrong,
The Highwayman.

Illustrates the problems nicely, doesn't it?

[hapax]

I never know what to say in response to these "Wheel of the Year" posts, because I'm always too drop-jawed to say anything but "Yes, yes, yes."

So, Literata, I hope you can hear what I'm saying in the spaces between the words...

[Literata]

Thanks, hapax. That means more than I can say, too.

A couple of quick FYIs: On Sunday, the Wild Hunt ran a guest post that I wrote about the Hail Columbia movement. It also linked back to the Spiriting Away Democracy piece here - thank you, TBAT, for the opportunity to write about that, and to the community for feedback. I am delighted to report that all of the Samhain activities in the DC area that I attended were blessedly free of conservative Christian protesters or disruption.

Today, I will be celebrating LitSpouse's promotion. Everyone is welcome to join us in spirit with hopes that these liminal times will open the way to wonderful futures, and that is my wish for all of you as well. Cheers!

[cjmr]

So we had a little early winter here to celebrate Samhain--the cjmr household had no power for about 64 hours (Saturday evening to this morning).

How did everyone else fare?

[Mmy]

@cjmr: I was wondering how you people were doing. There is a reason that Spouse and I have a generator tied into our electrical system. Both of us went through weeks without power when we were teenagers.

Halloween was gorgeous here. The type that kids look back on fondly when they grow up. It was nippy enough to be October but clear without a hint of moisture in the air. As soon as dusk arrived the little ones came out and then with each half hour slightly older children.

Over the years the rituals have changed. Now parents stand out in the street and let the children come to the door on their own. Each group lets the group before have a full round of saying "trick or treat" and getting treats before coming to the door so little ones don't get swamped by older children. Not a car on the road for about a hour and a half. Most people don't drive on Halloween and leave the streets free and safe for the children.

Teenagers mostly have parties on in the town arena so the streets are for preteens.

Halloween always makes me think of my dad and his brothers (bear in mind that Dad is in his mid 90s) who lived in a small town and really did hide in back yards on Halloween and overturn the outhouses of anyone who made the mistake of using one on Halloween night. However, whenever they pulled a stunt like that their father (my grand dad) would take them round to the neighbours later and "volunteer them" to do work around the yard till they were exhausted.

[cjmr]

We have a generator. (We got it a week before Irene hit.) We fully intended to have an electrician come and wire in a transfer switch so that we could run the furnace, well pump, and refrigerator BEFORE the first snow storm. But we thought we had a few more weeks to get that set up...

At any rate, we ran extension cords out to it and managed to keep the food in the fridge from spoiling, to keep the pipes from freezing, and to microwave three hot meals a day.

[Mmy]

@cjmr: We went for a generator that is wired in and comes on automatically if the power is out for more than 30 seconds. It runs off the gas line and we do NOTHING. The great thing is that it protects your place if the power goes off and you aren't there.

Glad your family got through the storm well. I think as the weather becomes more inconsistent/unpredictable and the electrical infrastructure more fragile people will have to deal with these energy emergencies more and more.

[Ross]

@mmy: I have never heard of a generator that runs off of the gas line before, but now that I have, WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE HAVE ONE OF THESE?

(Except for me, because the house we moved to last december is all-electric. But we live in an area where all the power lines are buried, so environmentally-induced power outages are exceedingly rare. Still, WANT.)

[Mmy]

@Ross: I have never heard of a generator that runs off of the gas line before,

Spouse did lots of research after a) noticing that I usually lose the battle of starting a gasoline fired generator and b) deciding that storing gasoline for power outages was dangerous [plus c) being aware of the fact that many gasoline stations need electricity to pump gas.]

The gas it runs off is natural gas -- most areas have a line and they install a meter. It has an internal computer and battery-ignition (much like a car.) It can be programmed to start and run for X number of minutes if you are only interested in keeping your place warm enough not to rupture the waterpipes or you can program it to power the entire house. Then you are a small island of light and heat in a vast sea of darkness.

People come out to install it. It is tied into the electrical system so you need do nothing if there is a power outage. Once a year someone comes by and checks it out.

The generator runs once a week for 15 minutes to recharge the battery etc. It is about as loud as one of the quieter lawn mowers. Everyone within hearing distance has an open invitation to camp out at our place is there is a long power outage.

Spouse knows how to give really cool gifts.

[Ross]

Hm. Anyone know how to find out if natural gas service is available in your area? We're pretty sure it wasn't when the house was built, but for all we know, they brought it into the neighborhood twenty years ago. My wife's been annoyed at the cost of the heat pump and having to cook on an electric stove (Though we do have one of those nifty ceramic cooktops that never look hot even though they are, and it's pretty nice to work with. I grew up in an all-electric house, so it bothers me less, though I'd gotten accustomed to the convenience of fire-based cooking over the past ten years.)

[cjmr]

We don't have natural gas lines here. Everyone on our (rural) road heats with oil, electricity, wood/pellet stove, or has a propane 'pig'. This house had a less-than-five-years-old oil burner, so there's no point in going to the expense of switching at this point.

Ross, the city/town offices/website where you are should be able to tell you which neighborhoods in the area have gas service or at least be able to refer you to the local gas company which certainly can.

[MaryKaye]

Public service announcement: if you have natural gas, be sure that you know where to turn it off, have the tool that will allow you to do so, and can find that tool readily. It is also very good to know where to turn your water off, and if a tool is needed, to have that tool available. (Hanging it next to the turn-off valve works well if that area is dry, but don't hang anything with moving parts in a damp place or it won't work when you need it.)

I talked with a Disaster Response Coordinator about this. She was involved in recovery after the 7.1 quake in San Francisco, and treated not one but two people who knew they needed to turn off their gas, were terrified, made a mighty effort to do so, and broke their arms in the process.

[kisekileia]

Ross, it always surprises me a bit when people talk about gas stoves being better than electric. I have always had electric stoves, even though my parents and many other people in my area heat their homes with gas. In spring 2010, I spent a week staying with a friend in New York City who had a gas stove. She was working during the day, and I was getting up later than her, leaving the apartment partway through the day to see the sights and locking it behind me, and coming back with her in the evening. I noticed a smell of gas when I left the apartment one day and assumed it was normal for a gas stove. The smell was much stronger when we got back that evening, and my friend, knowing that a gas leak is actually extremely hazardous, was NOT happy with me for not doing anything about it initially. She threw the windows open and re-lit the pilot light; I learned later that we probably should have called 911. After that, I would be very hesitant to live in a home with a stove that could that easily become extremely dangerous, especially since gas stoves also have basically an open flame under each burner. I'm MUCH more comfortable with electric.

[cjmr]

That was an older gas stove if it had a pilot light. Newer ones have electric ignition and don't need a pilot. But yes, if you ever actually smell gas, that definitely means something is wrong.

I learned to cook on a gas stove, but most of the places we've lived since we got married have had electric ranges or cook-tops, so now I've almost forgotten how to cook properly on gas.

"Serious cooks" like gas because you get instant response in heat when you turn the gas up or down. That makes it easier to do things like bechamel.

[Ross]

@kisekileia: My experience with gas and electric is that gas heats up faster, and you have more direct control when using the range (On an electric range, you have to physically remove the pot from the burner, which requires that you have somewhere to move it *to*. Otoh, I always had trouble at the extreme low end of the range, finding it tricky to keep the burner lit at a low simmer). Electric Ovens, otoh, seem to heat more evenly, though I've had a lot of people insist at me that they dry food out more because "electicity is a dry heat" I've only ever lived in one place where the gas stove had a pilot light and found the whole afffair unpleasant. I'm amazed they didn't put a thermocouple in it to shut off the gas if the pilot went out.

@cmjr: I've heard some reports that, given free range, professional chefs tend to like induction cooktops even more than gas.

[kisekileia]

The pilot light and lack of thermocouple on my friend's gas stove were probably because she lived in a pretty sketchy neighbourhood. I'm glad to know that newer gas stoves aren't like that.

[cjmr]

Ross, if I could afford it, I'd go for induction in a heartbeat. Very pricey option, though.