On Samhain, Vigilance & the Fomorians

The dark half – we’re into it now. These Heathcliff skies, all moody and grey, clouds curdling up at the horizon, bringing rain but promising snow. This is Samhain time, the midway mark between autumn equinox and the winter solstice. You can feel, and see, the shift:

Wind has come, taken the leaves, turning the young aspen stands into groves of skeletons, just the bare bones of it all.

Frost has come, stealing into the yard a few times, hardening her ardour, stealing the last of life from the garden, putting an end to the harvest. Laying it all to rest.

And Cold has come too, quieting all the rustling and hustling and bustling of the last few weeks, creatures now picking their spots, settling down, even the partridges seeming to moving out of the woods and closer to the yard. Hare is almost fully white (I suppose that is two of us longing for snow). Bear and her cubs might already be sleeping.

Samhain - this mingler of life and death, this harbinger of the ascendant darkness – has many of us reaching for the cozy, for the comfort and intimacy of the fireside and tartan blankets, fir boughs and candles. But that’s not Samhain. And now, more than ever, I feel I need to pay attention, to not rush off quite yet to the more appealing markers of the year, our department store imaginings steeped in all that irresistible mistletoe and gift giving.

So trying to stand still, pause and think about all of this in a more useful way. Think of the lesson and the lore. It was at Samhain that the Fomorians –a perverse race of giants, all swaggering and steeped in a primeval greed - would come calling, exacting what they felt was owing to them from the people and the land, taking grain, milk and even children. A grim reaping indeed.

And not so different, in a way, to what is happening right now in so many places. This isn’t just a dark time of the year, it is a dark time in history. So maybe best to leave the snuggling and sleeping for the bears, this is no time for cozy. For a while then, even though I hear the tinsel calling, I’m going to spend some time thinking, toughening up. There is a duty to be vigilant, to not tolerate those big baddies whenever they come calling, dragging their racist or sexist crap behind them, posturing and threatening. We have our own Fomorians. Time to send them packing.

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