On Nature Connection - Samhain '24

The end of October is the end of the Celtic year and the liminal beginning of the next cycle. What comes first... the falling seed of late autumn or the emerging sprout of spring?

Today there is the colour of fire in the air at dawn, in the leaves and the frosts are coming soon (well, at least, they usually are). There are home fires in hearths again.

Samhain is traditionally a fire festival and an honouring of ancestors. It's time to remember traditions, old stories and those who have gone before, and we can honour all our ancestors right back to a green blob in a puddle if we like!

Looking at the plants around me I see there are many ways of ending. Annual plants have made seeds for the next year. Biennials stored energy in their roots ready to make seeds the following year. Perennials are retreating underground into tubers, roots and corms.

Trees shed leaves to weather the stormy weather and send energy to their roots to help them stand tall for the next solar cycle.

It’s time to let the breath of the year out and watch leaves fall or dance in the air, carrying our hopes of the year to the ground. Worms are drawing leaves into the earth to nourish the soil. Once full of green life, plant stems become winter homes for mini beasts. Fungi 'flower', making visible the unseen world of the recycling, regenerative, and obscurer parts of ecological systems .

In truth this is not an ending, but a moment in the spiral of life.

It is a time of reflection. What were my growth points? What didn't bloom that I had hoped or thought would? We can let go of all that was not done this year and lay old agendas to rest.

What did you leave un-finished this year... and do you need to carry it on into the next year?

We can write words on leaves and consciously and intent-fully let them go, burn them in the fire, or let them float away down a river.

If you were to see the water cycle as a year, you could say this time of the year is when the river nears the sea. The estuary. In Ian Siddons Hegginworth’s beautiful environmental art therapy book, E.A.T. me, about the Celtic Tree Calender, this time of year is associated with the plant Reed, and he suggests making reed boats to carry your unfinished dreams or personal precesses for the year, back to the source. I've done this several times at a the mouth of the River Axe at mid to low tide, when the outflow is strongest.

Close to where I live Guy Fawkes night celebrated in style in Ottery St Mary, with people running with blazing barrels of tar through crowded streets. I love the balance of Fire and Water, of fire festival and misty dark nights, of dew laden cobwebs in low morning sunlight.

This year I am wondering about my relationship with endings... and also the endings of relationships. Do I finish tasks off well? Do I fuss unnecessarily over getting things perfect? How do I say goodbye?

A memory stirs as I write. I feel frustration, heat and sadness as I think about an ending in my personal life that was unexpectedly final. Zip. Nada. No communication or transformation. While it was right that the relationship as it was came to an end, several years later I still struggle with accepting that there was no re-constitution into something new - even with the understanding that this was affected by ancestral stuff and old family patterns.

So I'm going to write some words on paper and burn them as efficiently and in the least polluting way possible at Halloween. I've decided to update the old wood-burner I heat my tiny home with for the most clean burning stove I can afford. This week it will be "out with the old, ready for the new." Even though my fuel is renewable I am still very aware that I am burning stored solar energy and carbon to keep warm and cook with.

I wonder what is the best way to life regeneratively, and what else to I need to stop doing or do differently next year.

And so, back to the moment of Samhain. Here are some questions we can ask ourselves:

What is my relationship with endings... is there anything to change?

How do my parents and grandparents affect the way I move through life now?

What patterns of behaviour would I like to lay to rest?

Is there anything stuck that needs a new perspective, re-framing?

In Nature all that is no longer needed or useful is transformed into something else.

Our breath tells us that.

Breathe in, and let go.

Ready for the next cycle. It can be as simple as that.

Wishing you a wonderful season ahead.

C