Samhain, Finding Balance 

I have always loved Samhain, from the cool, crisp weather to the décor and festivities. Personally, this time of year has always been about coming full circle, not only in the general Wheel-of-the-Year sense, but the wheel of my own life as well. Projects come to a close, I start to withdraw into myself, and I sense a calm within myself and around the world.

I swear it’s not just the tea and the warm blanket and the cozy spot in which I carry a book talking! 

It’s difficult to achieve that balance, though, when so many other things around us, from jobs to families to events and everything in between, are pulling us in hundreds, maybe thousands, of directions every day. As much as we may want to allow the Earth to influence our lives – to want to slow down just as the days are – there may be no real way to achieve that!

Samhain emphasizes the need for more balance in our lives, especially when it comes to finding wholeness and acknowledging things that may be taboo or not very pleasant in order to achieve that sense of balance. Specifically, Samhain calls to our attentions the existence of death, the realities of the Underworld (whatever you may believe about afterlife), and the honoring of the end.

To achieve that equilibrium, especially at a time when life is most fragile and vulnerable, I’ve had to make a very difficult decision: To give a nod to my inability to manage too many things in my life, and to take on additional projects when I was already overwhelmed. I found myself procrastinating on things I needed to do, finding no time to do things I wanted to do, and still somehow feel like I was being pulled in those thousands of directions I was talking about! I was drowning. I like to think that was figurative, but there were some days I literally had to catch my breath.

I also had to accept the fact that I simply don’t have the physical or mental capacity to achieve everything I’ve wanted to do, especially this Samhain season, which was difficult to accept and even more difficult to follow through with in the form of limiting my activities and achieving balance between giving myself to others and giving myself to… well, myself!

There’s an interesting side to this realization and this attempt to find balance, and that’s wondering how your actions will affect those who have come to depend on you. This may lead to a sense of guilt for leaving those people high and dry, fear that you’ll not be invited to help later.

The stark reality, though, is that there may be some disappointment, but many will admire your ability to recognize when too much is just that, and will welcome your attempts to bring that balance to your life. (I wouldn’t necessarily recommend trying this with your boss without a discussion about how to bring about that balance without quitting a project or the job itself, though!)

I recently experienced this with Samhain's Sirens (yup, this very effort!!), and was so overwhelmed by the acceptance, the love, and the caring my fellow Sirens showed me not only through this whole project and in other parts of my magickal and everyday life, but when I realized that my plate was too full and I had to start dropping some things, including Samhain's Sirens. At least for my planned blog posts and giveaways. While I was worried about how they would think, what they would imagine, and whether they’d be okay with this at all, they were most worried about my health and my ability to find balance.

It was a very powerful, provoking lesson to learn: You often put more pressure on yourself than anyone else in your life, and while they won’t know your limitations, you will… so the one for whom you have to be most concerned should be yourself. Find that balance, achieve that serenity, and most of all, know that others will completely understand.

Thank you so much, my fellow Sirens, for teaching me such an important lesson. 

The Giveaway for Today!

Song of the Day with Kestril Trueseeker 

By Sosanna from Confessions of A Modern Witch

When I started this project it was unthinkable that I would be able to actually complete the entire thing.  I was concerned about finding enough topics to tackle this unique but understandably unifying event.  We've taken the letters of the alphabet and brought them together for an entire year.  Not only that; but I have also unknowingly united three separate blog projects into one.

My post today is for The NaBloWriMo, The Pagan Blog Project 2012 and The Samhain’s Sirens Blog Extravaganza.  I decided that one word wouldn't be enough to cover all the different blogs so I thought, why not use ALL of the words.  I also decided that instead of using “bold” to emphasis the words, underline would be more fitting.

Samhain is the beginning of the New Year for unashamed Pagans around the world.  We spend our time preparing for the thinning of the veil so that undoubtedly we can reach out,  pay respects and possibly unite with our ancestors.  On a personal note, Samhain is when my partner and I uttered a set of vows that tied our lives together as well as our hands in a lovely ceremony.  People said it was uncanny and unusual, but we have been together for ten years now.

For me Samhain is quite different than the traditional Halloween.  Now I do love the costumes, people walking around as the undead, ugly witches walking the malls, while teenagers dress as sexy Cancan girls or the lovely assistant on the high wire delicately keeping balance with an umbrella certainly providing their parents with ulcers.  With umber skin or the grayed out uniform of Ulysses Grant our families march along the parade routes in the US for one lone night allowing our kids to indeed do the unbelievable deed of taking candy from strangers.  Samhain opens the divide in the spirit realm and allows us ever so briefly to see those that are gone from us.   It allows for happiness and understanding as we pay our respects by setting out apples or lighting a candle for those long gone.  Ultimately the way one celebrates is very personal.  Those unable to take an offering to the crossroads or to bury your apples at the four corners can take it upon themselves to find a way to pay homage.  There are really no unacceptable ways to pay respects to the dead. 

A great way to celebrate Samhain is to bring those unaccustomed to real meaning of this time of the year and show them a new way of thinking.  We take an unaccepted position and a view of a holiday that is unjustly and unfairly labeled as an unholy day and change it to something utterly amazing.

Use your time here to remember that those that are gone into the spirit world are not unavailable to you.  Simply open your mind and your heart.  They are not unreachable. They are just unaware of the barrier.  Do not unbalance the force but use it to create an unbiased space for your ancestors to unite.

With that, I hope that I've uncovered the point I was unarguably trying to make.  I had hoped to unmask the uncertainly and show that this wonderful Samhain holiday needs something that is not unattainable in order to be successful.  Just like life, this day requires one thing…..

U

Namaste and Blessed Be

Sosanna

)O(

Today's Giveaway

I’ll be honest:  sometimes, I’m just not that spiritual.  In fact, I might venture to say that a good bit of the time, I’m so busy doing things like cleaning toilets, buying groceries, editing pictures, doing the whole “life as a work at home and occasionally outside the home, sometimes in a professional setting” thing that my spiritual side just sort of disappears into an occasional prayer or lit candle when a friend is in need.  This is especially true in the Spring and Summer.  We’re busy with the end of school and with vacation and visiting and then stupefied with the heat.  You would think that gardening would give me a “tied to Mother Earth and all of her abundance” vibe, but really, it’s more about getting the stuff in the ground so we can eat it. 

Autumn changes that.  The kids are back in school and I can get more time to myself.  Life slows down, even just a little bit.  And I can take a moment to pause and reflect on what IT all means.

Folks get all gaga about Spring:  the flowers, the births, the pollen, and bees, and the warmth.  We’re dizzy and excited with LIFE, eager to get out in the sun and feel the light on our faces.  Autumn is not about that.  Autumn is about…well, it’s about things dying, really.

But WHAT a death!  What a glorious, rich, sensuous slide into cold and dark.  The air is spicy with harvested pumpkins being baked into pies and peanuts and pig being boiled and barbecued for weekend fun..  The beautyberry glows like amethysts from the roadsides before becoming breakfast for migrating birds.  The leaves flame up their own funeral pyres.  The light is a golden blanket you wrap around yourself against the chill.

You know what’s coming:  the cold of winter, the blankness of sky and tree and ground.  And so you savor what is left to you.  And you marvel that you are gifted with such beauty and bounty.

That’s one of the reasons why I reconnect with my spirituality during the Autumn.  Because even more than the nutty aliveness of Spring, the Autumn teaches me about what it is to live—and to remember that life is transient and precious.  It reminds me that others have left this world before me and that they are just past my reach, close by and present.  It connects me to the idea that we must store up our treasures and prepare for having less. 

There’s also the idea of balance that comes with the equinox (and yes, I understand that it comes a week before October…work with me here.)  There is a time when we aren’t rushing toward dark or light:  we can just be still.  In between cold and heat, in between life and death, just…still and able to think of where you are in that place and what you need to move on to the next place.  I find it a comforting place to rest.

Of course, there’s college football…

What?

Y’all, I AM a Georgia Bulldog.  It’s pretty much a religion around here, with Vince Dooley being the patron saint and Mark Richt being the current prophet.  (Or demon, depending on the Tennessee score…)

The point of all this is that Autumn, and especially October, makes me think about the bigger picture and the smaller one at the same time.  It’s the time of year when I feel most whole and when I feel that anything is possible because almost everything has happened over the course of the year.