The Dark One

This last year has been a very intense one for me. An experience I had last Samhain with the Dark One was powerful and unexpected. Since then I have lived with that experience and it has deepened as I have moved closer to her. Although that's not right. I don't think you get 'close' to her in the way 'close' is usually understood. This year I am undertaking an extended meditation over the ten days from the traditional date of 'Halloween' which occurred this year just after the Full Moon, through to the Dark Moon, which I think is her time. Although I have not posted here very often of late, I'm posting  now in the midst of that extended meditation as as part of my reflection and note-taking of the process.

The ritual act that I will perform at the Dark of the Moon is gradually emerging from my  meditations and my planning. Although the ritual has been going on since the Full Moon, paradoxically growing as the Moon wanes. And paradox seems to define what is emerging. She is so close yet so 'other'. She is the mirror image of everything I hold dear, and so also its antithesis. Everything I am, she is not; she is an absence counterbalancing my presence. But also, again paradoxically, very present (?!)

Of course this extended meditation is going on alongside my everyday life: coming into focus when I have quiet times set aside for it, but also infusing all the other things I do. It's like an invisible life alongside my visible life. A secret place I can visit wherever I am and whatever else I am doing. I've never felt more like a witch.

Samhain

So the festival of Samhain approaches and the shops are full of Hallowe’en masks, ghoulish get-up and all the accessories for kids to go around doing ‘trick or treat’ calls. I must admit I have mixed feelings about it all. Of course it’s good that this festival is celebrated. I live in a cottage down a dark lane where kids are unlikely to come calling. But if they did I would be pleased to see them. But I can’t help thinking that the whole occasion has become trivialized and that by going along with it we are in danger of missing the point.

It is the coming of winter, a dark time. Trees are losing their leaves and the spirits of the living world seem to become thinner and closer to the spirits of the dead.

So I don’t see it as a time for fun and games. My own marking of the festival will be more serious and solemn and will take place at midnight to acknowledge the coming darkness. But earlier in the evening I will have some pumpkin soup and put a candle in the window to mark the season and show any passing children, ghouls or other spirits of the night that they are in my thoughts.