“All you dreamers howling at the Moon – are you very certain that the Fae are not listening?” Gaia Consort, Vitus Dance
The last-minute preparations for Samhain were about finished – sachet for my pre ritual bath picked and mixed, tied up in a blue cloth; offerings for the Deities and the Ancestors arranged on a silver plate and stored in the fridge: feathers and silver coins, nuts and apples and flesh of pigs together; outside altar washed , stones gathered up from the circle ground – now I was chilling, listening to S J Tucker’s luminous Blessings on the CD player, trying to beat myself at FreeCell in a semi-hypnotic state, waiting only for sunset to start walking between the worlds again.
Since last night, when I performed an opening ceremony, I’ve been in such a liminal state that I’m not sure anymore which of the worlds I’m actually in at any given time.
Quite suddenly, I start to weep. I can feel my Beloved Dead all around me, and the sense of Love is strongly entwined with a yearning feeling of Loss.
I put my head down on the keyboard and the grief overtakes me. A storm of tears, now, great gulps of sorrow, regret, and tenderness sweeping me further down the great vortex I seem to have opened the way into.
And even as I’m crying so much that my lungs, my heart, ache – some part of me is standing apart, astonished, wondering how I ever learnt to let go like that, and realizing that this is definitely something that following a Pagan path has taught me – even though the learning has, like all my lessons, been slow in the absorption.
How to grieve.
How to give Holiness to the most painful of emotions.
How to make a Sacred Offering of my sorrow, and how valuable that offering is, both to all Other Worlds, and to myself.
“..may you raise your eyes and know with every step – we are not alone.” S J Tucker , Come To The Labyrinth
The last-minute preparations for Samhain were about finished – sachet for my pre ritual bath picked and mixed, tied up in a blue cloth; offerings for the Deities and the Ancestors arranged on a silver plate and stored in the fridge: feathers and silver coins, nuts and apples and flesh of pigs together; outside altar washed , stones gathered up from the circle ground – now I was chilling, listening to S J Tucker’s luminous Blessings on the CD player, trying to beat myself at FreeCell in a semi-hypnotic state, waiting only for sunset to start walking between the worlds again.
Since last night, when I performed an opening ceremony, I’ve been in such a liminal state that I’m not sure anymore which of the worlds I’m actually in at any given time.
Quite suddenly, I start to weep. I can feel my Beloved Dead all around me, and the sense of Love is strongly entwined with a yearning feeling of Loss.
I put my head down on the keyboard and the grief overtakes me. A storm of tears, now, great gulps of sorrow, regret, and tenderness sweeping me further down the great vortex I seem to have opened the way into.
And even as I’m crying so much that my lungs, my heart, ache – some part of me is standing apart, astonished, wondering how I ever learnt to let go like that, and realizing that this is definitely something that following a Pagan path has taught me – even though the learning has, like all my lessons, been slow in the absorption.
How to grieve.
How to give Holiness to the most painful of emotions.
How to make a Sacred Offering of my sorrow, and how valuable that offering is, both to all Other Worlds, and to myself.
“..may you raise your eyes and know with every step – we are not alone.” S J Tucker , Come To The Labyrinth
Pic: Pre-ritual Opening Altar, indoors.
Aaaahhhhhhhhh.
ReplyDelete"How to give Holiness to the most painful of emotions."
Yes.
“All you dreamers howling at the Moon – are you very certain that the Fae are not listening?” Indeed, I am pretty certain that they are. Lately, my circle has taken to going out and howling at the moon at the end of rituals. Someone always answers back
ReplyDeleteBlessed Samhein to you and your kin, going back to the dawn of time, to quote Thorn
I had a rather gentle reminder yesterday that the Fae are listening.
ReplyDeleteYesterday morning, i was lamenting that the universe had forgotten about me. Silly perhaps, but we humans do think silly things.
The rains yesterday brought a smile to my face. Completely unexpected, it could only have been a faery consolling me in the gentlest of ways. and reminding me that, somehow, despite EVERYTHING, we still matter. More than we know.
peace and love
Oh the longed-for rains!
ReplyDeleteHearing you my friend.
Mary
Happy Samhain.
ReplyDeleteshevek_mooer@hotmail.co.uk
Aquila, I loved this post. I've taken the liberty of re-posting it on my blog, with allowance for my personal interpretation. Please let me know what you think.
ReplyDeleteHappy Samhain.
That's great, Coyote Prime - I love Dante's Parayer, and yes it's very apropriate.
ReplyDeleteAlso the bit on labyrinths at the end!
Love,
Terri