Samhain Slowing by Molly M Remer

Today,
I sat and let both my breath
and my thoughts be soft,
extending my hands
and feeling my life and mind unclench
if only for these moments.
On Samhain morning,
we saw a buck
in the road,
trees still clad in autumn color
lit gold behind him
as he stood at the crossroads
before leaping away
between the trees.
On Samhain evening
we saw five bucks in the road,
young males teamed up
for this season of seeking and claiming.
On the drive home
an orange moon was on the rise
cresting dark trees
and peeking between hills
like something out of mystery.
I lifted my hand and blew it a kiss
this, my own solitary rite of Samhain.
On the first of November,
I sat with my memories,
naming off my most recent ancestors,
each face briefly coming to mind
as I felt grateful
for the oldest child privilege
of knowing each of them
in the flesh
and carrying the memory
deep inside me
of how my birth was celebrated
by so many loving people now lost.
We’ve had two frosts,
the hydrangea leaves
wilted to black,
the mulberry trees bare
and so we seek
the pines once more,
watching the sinking sun
illuminate the needles
and listening to the wind whisper
in the way it does
only through tall pines.
I feel my inner cauldron bubbling,
new ideas popping up
and beginning to rise.
But,
I stop and listen.
Now is not the time for production.
It is time for pine whispers
and slow mornings.
Time for tea and quiet reflection.
Time to be curious
about what might yet arise,
and yet,
patient
as it steeps.

Despite the pace of culture and the demands of living as part of a society, this season persists in inviting us to slow down. It invites us into cool mornings and cooler evenings, into the sounds of barred owls in the night, and mists rising over slow-moving rivers in the morning. It invites us to remember our ancestors and to contemplate how we, ourselves, might be good ancestors—both to children of our own, but to the shared landscape of living. I often write and remind myself and others that we each have ancestors of bone and ancestors of stone—a lineage of wisdom keepers and wayshowers that can include river bends, mountain ranges, and grandmothers, as well as intellectual or ideological lineages from writers, teachers, and poets we admire, whether still living or not.

In a post to My Moonstone Kitchen on Patreon, author Haley Post wrote: “October is like an advent calendar of my favorite things.” I’ve been inspired by this idea all month, looking behind the metaphorical “door” of each October day to see what bit of enchantment or scrap of magic I will discover there today.

In autumns past, I have written about the orb weaver spider who builds a web in our bedroom doorway each year. At this time of year I often write of both webs and thresholds, usually as metaphors, but one of the things that enchants me is how the outer landscape can mirror our inner lessons and I adore how this spider literally makes as a web across my threshold, even as I write figuratively about the web of belonging to which we are a part and how we cross thresholds of change as the seasons turn and our lives evolve.

Mary Oliver wrote: “Sit now very quietly in some lovely wild place and listen to the silence…and I say that this too is a poem.” Rachel Carson wrote: “One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, ‘What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?'” And, current writer Nancy Hendrickson writes: “Big signs are just a bunch of little signs stitched together… If you string together the small omens you’ve ignored, your life will start making sense faster than any reading you could get.”

What are you discovering in the “advent” calendar of October? What is inviting you to notice? How are you listening to the silence? What little signs are you stitching together? What do your ancestors of stone (or bone) want you to know or remember?

Keep it simple and sacred
whisper the trees,
let go with grace
and trust the turning,
watch how the leaf
rides the air
all the way to the ground.
Let life astonish you,
mess and magic all entwined.
Be patient with yourself.
Feel the mask slip away
as the mist rises
and mystery
invites you
in.