A snowy Samhain

Today we woke to pouring rain, that’s supposed to turn into 2-4 inches of heavy snow by midday. Autumn is starting to at least think about giving way to winter. Of course, this happens semi-regularly in Minnesota: Halloween and snow fall sharing the date.  Anyone my age who grew up in Minnesota remembers the great Halloween blizzard of 1991.  I don’t, because my family was living in Indiana at the time, but even further east, that year we had a pretty stellar ice storm that knocked out power for three days.  Our family of six camped out by the basement fireplace, and the trees looked like they were coated in crystals (of the very heavy sort, heavy enough to drop plenty of branches on cars and power lines). Those who love skiing rejoice at the fresh ‘sky snow’ that’s supposed to start falling fast, while the school bus drivers, commuters, and anyone who still had summery stuff sitting around outside curse the weather.

I think I’m somewhere in the middle–I enjoy winter, so I’m not madly shaking my fist at the sky, but we are still working on finishing up some outside projects, so a few more weeks of snow-free conditions would have been ideal.  At any rate, it’s outside of our control, so we’ll make the best of it, like the ducks are: I can see them swimming about in the shallows, framed by wintery tree boughs. 

Today, in addition to it being the modern holiday of Halloween, is also known as Samhain to those who keep to ancient Celtic spiritual traditions. It’s a Gaelic festival day that marks the end of harvest season and the start of the Celtic new year. It signals the start of the dark half of the year. In the Christian tradition, November 1 is known as All Saints Day, a day to remember all of those who have died, especially within the past year.  And with origins in Mexico, Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is celebrated by many with Mexican roots as a way to honor loved ones who have passed on, also on November 1 and 2.  This time of year, it is thought that the veil between the world of the living (the realm that we can see) and the world of the dead (the realm of the spirit) is at its thinnest. It’s a liminal space, a time to lean into the unknown, to call on the ancestors for direction, and to embrace the dark. It can feel like an undoing.

Necessary undoing

(After Krissy Kludt)

Darkness, be my undoing.

Unravel threads that try too hard,

holding tight to brightness

where shadow is better suited

for stitching a path through the unknown. 

Darkness, be my undoing. 

Drape a cloak of velvety black

over the threshold between wrong 

and right, allowing enough time 

in liminal space to feel a way forward.

Darkness, be my undoing.

Welcome tentative steps

taken in faith through uncertainty

each one an act of courage

an undoing necessary to be whole.

It’s an undoing, but it’s also a remaking, a building of what will be using what was as a foundation. I like looking at the year as a great wheel turning, this time of transition marking the gathering of shadows and night, a necessary rotation in the seasonal cycles. 

It’s worth noting that despite the necessity of marking each phase, for many folks, this is a hard season. It’s not easy to navigate through darkness, whether it’s the literal dark of night or the darkness of war touching everything. 

What I try to do when it starts feeling like darkness is going to swallow me up is notice light where it lingers, because it does, even during dark days. I try to remember to forgive myself for finding hard things hard. And I dig into the tiny things that help me get through the day, like mindfully drinking a glass of water, choosing foods that make my physical body feel good, and moving in ways that do, too. And when all else fails, lighting a candle has the power, subtle as it is, to provide just enough light to cast the shadows needed to accompany me forward and remind me of our shared humanity.

Darkness can be an undoing, but it can also be a time of opportunity to do necessary stitching, the kind that weaves light into even the darkest of days. Liminal spaces, and times the veil is thin, can be fearsome.  They can also be doorways into what else is possible even when it looks like there’s nothing but darkness up ahead.