Summer's End

The Celtic year is divided into two halves. One half is summer, the other is winter. Apparently one of the earlier etymologies of 'Samhain' is that it means 'summer's end'.

And for whatever reason, I love summer's end. The harvest, preserving it, the crisp air, the rich gold of the sun, the first snows. I love all of it. The change of the seasons. And to mark the change of the seasons, I gathered with the Spiric Pagans tonight to celebrate summer's end.

It seems to be the longest ritual of the year and I always find it to be the one that touches me most deeply. The focus of it is honouring the ancestors, remembering those who are gone, and celebrating the cycles of life and death and the ending of summer.

Particularly touching to me tonight was the remembering of those who are gone. These people mark this festival every year, and it is very comforting to me to know that if anything should ever happen to me - if I were to die - then these people would carry my memory on every year at this time. And it's not just because they know me - part of the rite includes honouring those we don't remember. So even after there was no one left who knew my name, because I was part of this group of people, and touched them and changed their lives, some part of me would still be carried on in that. I would not be alone - I would be remembered.

Sometimes spirituality can be a powerful thing. And whatever I carried away from the ritual tonight is still with me, not yet integrated. The thoughts are carried still within my mind, and it is too full for so much noise and conversation tonight.

Snow, Tea, and Impending Doom?

Okay, I apologize (sort of) for the title. There's no impending doom, and it has nothing to do with tea or snow.

When I woke up this morning and looked outside, it was on a white world. Snow fell while I was asleep. And there's always something about the first few snows of the year that are magical to me. The crisp air, the usual landscape being covered with white and made fresh and new again. It pulls at something inside me where I want to curl up at home in a sweater, with a fire and a cup of tea.

Speaking of tea, I'm heading over to the Spiric people's get together to blend some teas for xmas gifts. We're making an immune blend, a relaxing blend, and a skin-improving blend. Should be fun except for the having to go out in the snow when all I want to do is stay home with my sweater and tea.

As for the impending doom, I've been talking to a few more people recently and found that there are more people than I thought who also feel drawn to natural medicine because they feel like there will come a time when we will need it - not because more people are drawn to alternative treatments, but because there won't be access to modern medical help.

There are quite a few herbalists who feel this way, and now I find out several people where I work now were also drawn to the field because of this feeling.

Compounded with that is my current draw towards wild fermenting to preserve food, natural canning methods, and how to grow a garden big enough and sustainably enough to be the main food source year round. Something tells me I'm going to need this knowledge, but I don't know for what or even when I'll need it - yet. All I can do is keep learning what I'm drawn to learn and hope that if I ever do need the information, I'll have learned enough of it.