While the northern hemisphere of this planet is descending into winter, here in South Africa we're on the upswing, coming steadily and heatedly into summer.
I've written before about how the Pagan holidays are mirror-imaged in the southern half of the world compared to the northern half, where most of the traditions I follow arose.
Thus, in this season we are approaching Beltane in Joburg, while in London and New York Samhain, with all its dead-communicating imagery, is almost upon them.
We don't typically expect to hear from our ancestors at Beltane - so it was with a great startle that I awoke from a midday nap - one foot in the dreamworld, one foot in the real world - and felt the unmistakable presence of a man I have loved deeply, madly manically...over 24 years ago, and him dead for the same period of time.
Difficult to English how I knew exactly, but there was no uncertainty. This old flame was indisputably here, now, with me.
As I further broke the surface of the dreaming, I sought to question it. How could this be? Nearing Beltane in Johannesburg?
I do not know. Some say the veil is thin at both Beltane and Samhain - we just don't notice those on the other side as keenly at Beltane.
But is it possible that the Old Ways as practised by my ancestors up north have such a consequence that the reverberations can be felt, half a world and half a year-cycle away?
Is Samhain not, as I have believed, geographically based, but rooted in the living and non-living consciousness of humans? And of plants and animals and all living things? Have I held my beliefs slightly incorrectly all these years?
Possibly so.
But possibly not; the traditions of Wicca and Paganism are traditions of the human mind at root. And the greatest mass of those human minds still rests in the northern hemisphere of Earth.
And so - I am deeply touched and greatly moved to have felt the spirit/soul/presence of a much-loved flame. It was just not at the expected time or season.
Image: Gwyneth Jones
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