Samhain 2010

"We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle; easily and often breached. Yet, still we would live no other way."

- Irving Townsend

This year has seen the death of three of my beloved feline companions. As I spread their tiny white bones and gray ashes upon the Sedum bed, as the remains of their manifest form return to Mother Earth, I know that their Spirits fly free upon the wind into the ether and we are One in Love. Among all the bones, only Demeter's skull remains intact. Demeter was Mother Earth 'felinized' and so it seems proper that her bones were strong and solid, resistant to the intense fires of cremation just as she was resistant to chaos around her. The longest bones are those of Imhotep's legs. And so, I honor our lives together, the love we shared, and their many gifts to me. Candle, sage, water, salt, blessings, prayers; elements and spirit joining, purification, charging, consecration. I am eternally grateful that they chose to be with me during this earthwalk; they are in my heart and memory forever, as are all the others that have come and gone before them. So many and I am so blessed.

In many traditions, the days around this time of year are ones spent in reflection - upon the ancestors and loved ones who have died. In Wicca, tomorrow is the beginning of the New Year, and Hecate guides us through the crossroads. The veil between worlds is thinnest, and we can become thin ourselves, opening to the connections across time and space. I welcome whole-heartedly the wisdom of those who have gone before. These moments/days are beautiful reminding us of birth and death, and the deep knowing that life is eternal.

For what is it to die, but to stand in the sun and melt into the wind? And when the Earth has claimed our limbs, then we shall truly dance.

KAHLIL GIBRAN