Samhain, the Celtic Goddess fire festival, on 31st October, marks a time of endings and new beginnings. On this day, the Celts believed the veil between the living and the dead is thin and communication with the spirit world becomes easier. Like the mythical Ouroboros, the serpent with its tail in its mouth, this is a time for celebrating the cyclical nature of life – in our beginning is our end and in our end is our beginning. This symbol, adopted by the alchemists, represents the integration of the shadow into the light; a vital part of the individuation process and the evolutionary movement towards unity consciousness.
For me, Samhain is the time of the Crone; a time for gathering in to our deepest, most ancient wisdom; a time for sitting with death and finding the courage to rest in not knowing. In this age of great personal and global uncertainty, writing is a form of prayer, a ritual of connection, an intention to listen deeply to whatever sources of intelligence care to communicate with me.
Come Gather at the Fire
October 31st, Samhain 1992
I am climbing through the shadows of a steep hill above a green valley with three women companions. I am carrying on my back a bundle of dry firewood. One friend has a bottle of red wine for the libation, another carries a bannock for the offering. It is near sunset and we are walking in shadow. The grasses at either side of the path are long and dripping with moisture. Half way to the summit, a burly middle aged country gentleman and his dog pass on their way down. “Happy New Year!” he cries. For the people of the old ways, Samhain marks the turning of the year.
Not so long ago, and over many centuries, people lit bonfires at the tops of hills throughout Britain. The fires connected them in celebration and as a ritual of regeneration and faith in the future. They were symbols of rebellion too, because the ways of the Goddess were not the ways of the established authorities of church and state but the ways of Soul, connecting us with the Earth, with the cycles of the seasons and with the knowing that is written in our blood and bones.
Our guide has done her research before bringing us here and, as we reach the top of the hill, we are rewarded by a flat outcrop, perfect for our purpose. Stretched below us is a far-reaching view across the eastern Scottish lowlands. Below, as daylight fades, a few street and house lights flicker through the gloaming. The air up here is rich with the scents of damp earth and bracken.
Together we set the fire and, with our firelighters, kindling and the instant flame of a cigarette lighter, the twigs are crackling in no time. But in my mind’s eye I am crouching over a wooden hand drill coaxing a spark from the friction of wood upon wood, or in another time, striking flint against an axe head, and I can sense the presence of those who have walked before us. We move quietly through our tasks, preparing ourselves inwardly for the ritual. I am thinking about what I will sacrifice to the fire to mark the ending of the year and to make space for a new beginning.
Time past and time present are woven into one seamless garment within the life of soul and the imagination. It is thirty years since I lit the fire on that hilltop and yet I am there now, completing that chapter of my life and anticipating the next chapter. And here I am as an older woman, completing my current life chapter and wondering whether I have the strength and will to write a new one.
The flames of the bonfire on the hill, so fierce and fluid, draw me back and on this hilltop, at Samhain, I gaze into the incandescent orange heart of the fire, mesmerised by its untouchable beauty. I step a little closer to the heat and the skin of my face becomes taut, while my back, facing the shadows, is chilled. At the heart of the fire, on the blackened earth, embers glow red and burning wood sends sparks crackling into the dark; here, and then gone. Sparks kindle and fade like fireflies and orange flames lick the black sky with forked tongues; sensual, fluid, wild and free. Beyond, stars scatter like bright daisies across the velvet black meadow of the night sky, and we four women are held here in these mysteries of life and death, earth and space, with the planets turning somewhere far above, and our feet on the damp soil of Earth.
As the flames rise, dance and fall away, I am drawn into the power and mystery of fire, back into history and the gathering of the tribes. I gaze into the darkness beyond where once upon a time every hilltop was a beacon connecting people into a common faith and knowing; the wisdom of the People, the binding together of souls.
My friend pours red wine onto the earth next to the fire as a libation. Another unwraps the bannock from its cloth and sniffs the sweet fragrance of the yeasty flour before breaking the bread. She places a piece on the earth as an offering and then passes the bread between us so that we can all partake. What a powerful ritual – the breaking of bread and the sacramental wine. Surely these two acts go back throughout the history of humankind, before the Christian sacrament of holy communion in which the bread and wine are received as the body and blood of Christ. Perhaps we have always offered bread and wine to the gods and spirits of the Earth. But we didn’t need a priest to intercede for us. We created the ritual from our own authority, from our own soul knowing. We climbed hills and lit fires and shared our harvest with each other, with the elementals, and with all those from the unseen world.
This is what it is to gather at Samhain; to honour the old ways, to light fire and break bread, to share stories and look out to see all the other fires on the far hilltops. We honour the Earth and all her beings and celebrate our interconnectedness. We let go of what we no longer need, what has outlived its usefulness, so that we can be purified by the fire. Then we enter a new space, with beginner’s mind, a space where we can regenerate.
I don’t remember what I sacrificed to the fire on that Samhain thirty years ago. I was getting ready to throw off the constraints of the life I had been living; to slough off, like an old skin, the personality that had grown too small to contain me. I was nearly ready to set off on the next adventure of my Soul Journey but, whether I knew that then, or it was still an inchoate longing, I don’t recall.
Listen to the Silence
Samhain, one year later, 1993
One year after that first Samhain fire, I was living in the far North-West of Scotland. Oh lucky me! Except it wasn’t luck, it was choice. Just as flames must burst from wood, I chose to be free. And that is a big choice. I can celebrate it now but back then I made that choice with fear and trembling. I was literally shaking in my boots in the face of what I saw to be a bold and risky, life changing decision: to step out of the mainstream of consensual reality, and go off on my own, wandering and dreaming. This decision was a response to a deep inner calling – everything in my being was crying out for stillness, solitude and a deep listening; and my longing was mixed with the need to throw off the heaviness of despair and disillusionment. Perhaps it was no choice at all but the inevitable unfolding of my purpose, as the petals of my soul unfurled in their own perfect timing. The old story I’d been living was all used up and to stay and try to breathe new life into that story would have meant shrivelling my soul. I could not, and would not, choose to stay stuck and despairing so I made a radical choice and stepped out of my old story. Something new and delicious was tempting me in another direction, out of sight and not yet revealed. But I could feel it. And, like Spiderwoman, I lunged into the void, spinning a silken parachute from my being.
You see how easy it is to make a heroic story, a romantic myth. But let’s get back to that Samhain in 1993…
I am living with my cat in the north-west Highlands of Scotland, beside Little Loch Broom, a sea loch surrounded by mountains. I have been here for five weeks. The house I am renting sits on the loch side and looks down across the water to Ben More Coighach, with the mighty An Teallach behind.
The north-west Highlands has been my spiritual home for a few years now. This elemental, mystical landscape is my soulscape. Disillusioned with humanity and battered and bruised by being a warrior of the heart within a competitive, “me-first” culture, I have been drawn here as if to a clear, cold, cleansing pool. It seems to me that the life I have been living has become wrong and false and I am thirsty right down to my toes. It is only here, in these remote mountains that I might drink my fill of the renewing waters of life and water the seeds of my inner sovereignty and queendom.
The desires of my soul at mid-life are drawing me inward, away from the outer world with all its demands, conflicts and distractions, and into the imaginal realm. Here, time ceases to travel in straight lines and becomes circular and cyclical. Reality expands beyond my individual story and becomes a garment woven from interbeing and connectedness. For now, I will find my sense of belonging, not with humanity but with the mountains and the sea, in a soulscape that sets all the cells in my blood and bones dancing and all the wires in my nervous system singing in unison. Such a call is irresistible, no matter what the cost might be.
And so, here I am at Samhain on a leaden late afternoon, setting out alone to climb the hill behind my new home. This time I have no sticks to light a fire, no wine for the libation, no bannock for the offering. Just me and my imagination.
I climb through the damp brown bracken until I find a flat ledge and a rock where I can sit. The mountains of An Teallach rise majestic behind me to the East, and to the West is the sea. I am held like a tiny nut in the great shell of the mountains. I can’t say this is a comfortable holding because the arms of the mountains are wide and empty. There is something austere and unforgiving in these ancient granite rocks; billions of years old, they are some of the oldest in the world. Watchers, guardians, elders, they have no patience for human folly. An Teallach means the forge, the anvil, the hearth, and a shiver runs through me as the mountain seems to say,
“You are here to be cleansed. Allow me to strike your inertia until you resound with a deeper truth.”
Focus Your Intention
As the light begins to fade I focus on my intention for being here. I have come to cut the cord of attachment with my old life, an old way of being, the outgrown story of self. All of this is represented by a relationship that has been causing me grief. I want to let this relationship go and yet I am trembling. As much as I yearn to let go and make space for new life I am also clinging on to what has given my life meaning, direction and purpose. I have already let go of so much and I am not sure if I can survive without this relationship, even though it is mostly fantasy and longing, to live without it would bring me face to face with my aloneness. And I am not ready for that.
As I stand gazing out into the gloaming, the silence resounds like thunder bouncing off ancient granite. I hold the tension of my inner conflict – my desire to let go so that I can be free to re-create myself tugs against the fear causing me to hold on tight to what has shaped my life thus far. I allow the energy of this conflict to build until it becomes too much to hold…
And then letting go happens…
And I fall backwards into the void, into the vast lonely emptiness of space…
Somewhere in the valley below I’m sure I can hear the howling of the last wolf. And all the creatures who once roamed these mountains – bear, lynx, bison, golden eagle, beaver, wild goat, stag – are here now, all around me, in the shadows.
The damp air kisses my face and the scents of earth and bracken stroke my lungs, and not a single bird sings for me today
Take Responsibility for Your Freedom
A few days later I received this message from the mountain:
“There is something beyond your need for acceptance and security, the limited needs of your personality. What you are seeking can never be yours on those terms. Your soul is calling you to freedom.
Like me, your soul is ancient, has seen it all, and has a much bigger perspective than your personality. Your soul knows who you really are and what you are here on Earth to do. Listen to it, trust it, follow it if you dare.
Come up here and see what I can see: the beauty and the absurdity of human aspiration, the delusions you comfort yourselves with.
The free human spirit is fired by courage and imagination.
There is nothing more exciting or exacting than following your own authentic truth.
Freedom is responsibility – the ability to respond to your world.
This planet is in a state of urgent crisis. The threat to life of nuclear war and nuclear waste; the poisoning of the environment; the violence with which you treat each other, are symptoms of a profound separation from soul life.
You have lost your sense of community with the Earth and with each other.
You have lost your way home.
Your soul will lead you home, if you will only listen to it.
You must learn to live without illusion, with courage and according to your own truth. This world-soul work is more important than comfort, material riches and status. These are luxuries the human race cannot afford. This is the end of an era of human history and your present forms of cultural organisation are dying.
Everything may not work out the way you would like it to.
Put your house in order.
Put back into the Earth what you take out.
Do your work.
Find help.”
Listen to the Silence is from my book, Migration to the Heartland, A Soul Journey in the land of the Awakening Dawn which I will be republishing next year.
