Winter is Summer’s End

notes from Samhain, our weekend of trans-dimensional gathering

We had spent the weeks before in planning, thinking about pumpkins, processionals, purification, and death. We had lost 3 close friends this year, all friends of the grove and their passing has affected us deeply. We chose to focus this ritual on particularly honoring them, their journey and our connections.

We had dumb suppers out for many nights, each was completely eaten, either bit by bit or all at once.

Uncle Magoo arrived pre-dawn the day before our ritual (his birthday). And we began.

We anticipated lots of folks, though some people last minute did not arrive and everyone (except Katrina and Zara Jane) came last minute. This always throws off timing or perhaps redefines our sense of when things begin.

So timing is everything and we are always beginning.

We of course start early, the ritual of setting up, the daily rituals of walking, looking at the birds, pacing the land.

We made a fire and hauled wood and drank coffee, quietly walking through the sparkling frost.

We scry ice circles shining in the sun and melting in the fire.

Our ritual fire burned from sun up to sun down, from frost to dark.

Offerings and wood were frozen from the night. We brought out the rest of our sacrifice and began.

My notes are jumbled as we were tranced throughout the day and night.

No one remembers some things but we all felt everything.

I had just finished the Calieach (Kale-Leek) soup and the ones who were there had finished eating Halloween loot, when Susan and then Heather arrived. Heather brought out oils and incense for all to choose from and we flocked around the table finding our oil and redirecting our energies.

Then we gathered inside for our pre-rit.

Actually I said to Bryan that we should start and he said “ it begins now” and it did. We went on a journey, the ritual of the pre-ritual, and this time in particular we began without our knowing.

Bryan talked about the procession as the time between being dead and reborn, which is like the time after you go to sleep and before you dream.

Perhaps that is where we begin.