Samhain closes the harvest and ushers in the dark time. This is one of the great hinges of the year, a thin time, the dark pair to Beltaine.
In May, we celebrate what is new, soft, tender, bright, and growing. Now, we honor what is old, enduring, hard, shadowed. We recognize our earthly life includes endings.
It’s not a sad time. There is comfort in saying yes, this is the round of our lives, this is how the circles turn and return. It’s a celebration of being held in many circles of ancestors, of life cycles that allow for wisdom and depth.
This year it feels as if the thin places are barely there, as if we could reach out and touch Mystery if we have the courage, or perhaps the audacity, to do it.
This is in part because of the harrowing times we’re living in. As we watch things we thought secure begin to crumble, and stability we thought would last show its worn places.
It’s an invitation to come into the depths, to rest in what is and be still.
The Sun separates from Uranus to trine Neptune and square Jupiter. We are in large conversations here, talking about big change. We see into, and under, and between, and within, in ways not usually possible.
We are changed.
The Moon and Venus are both out of bounds. How we feel, what we love, how we relate have been unmoored. We have the chance to ask, what do I, myself, need and want?
This is a time of deep dreaming in a very intentional way. Among the Australian peoples, the Dreaming is what sustains everything. Nothing exists being dreamt.
What will you dream in this dark time of the year? What deep seeds will you plant?
Image adapted from Thomas Stephan
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