ISSUE NUMBER 110
Dedicated to Celts Everywhere
OCTOBER 2002
Seasonal Passage Illuminates the Underworld Promise of Samhain
By CYNTHIA AUSTIN
SUDDEN chill swirls by; an inaudible whisper murmurs a forgotten warning and is gone. Beneath a blanket of bright leaves, decaying vegetation and harvested fields, Nature closes her eyes to the bright half of the year.
Samhain, the great fire festival today known as "Halloween," begins at dusk on October 31. November 1 is the beginning of the Celtic winter as well as the New Year. At harvest's end Samhain marks the conclusion of this season of life, the rightful time for reveling in the evaporation of boundaries, be they between neighbours, years or spiritual dimensions.
As old as the season that it turns, Samhain legitimatizes the passage from light to dark. This ancient festival ritualizes the act of Nature and the psyche turning inward toward liminal space and braces for that journey by celebrating the chaos that precedes it.
In the psyche dissolution does not require disappearance, but rather, transformation. Samhain fuels the devouring aspect of nature and consciousness, and by so doing, prepares the individual and community for a coming time, facilitating endings that beget seeds which lie aground until spring, a Ume of action and growing.
Within its swirling cloak of confusion and change, Samhain harbours constancy. The Wheel of the Year follows a fixed law of change, thereby allowing each season the stability to produce effects that endure. In Samhain is the immutable promise of transformation for those who would face the dark ground of the Self.
Beyond the individual psyche, the arrival of year's end thins the expanse between this world and the next. By Oidche Shamhna (the eve of Samhain), the contents of both worlds mingle in the twisting skyward smoke of the great festival's bonfires, mixing the concerns of humanity with the divine firelight and blessings of those beyond time's reach.
In the propitiation of the Feile na Marbh, the feast of the dead, deceased ancestors are cared for and remembered. In the disguises and divinations of the evening, the underworld power of the season and the coming of the winter hag Cailleach are recognized. The bonfire that burns on the hilltop above calls for an answer from the ground below.
The brilliantly burning river of underworld promise rises and roars past, consumptive, chaotic, fecund. Blacken your face, don a mask, engage the orgiastic dance of life, of deatli, of all that we have. Defy self-consciousness, throw your head back, let the fire of life course to your soul and honour that great underworld tide of light as it thunders in the darkness of the Samhain night. Blessed Be all who were, who are and will vet be. Happv New Year.
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
MUSIC:
CD REVIEWS & MUSIC NEWS...........................................3-4-6-19
CEOL AGUS CRAIC........................................................................7
COMHALTAS CEILTOIRI EIREANN..............................................8
NEWS:
WELSH NEWS.......................................................................3-10-11
SCOTTISH NEWS..........................................................................12
IRISH NEWS...................................................................................16
NORTHERN IRELAND...................................................................17
MONTHLY COLUMNS
FINANCIAL COLUMN BY MARY HENNESSEY...........................18
HEALTH COLUMN BY MAUREEN KEANE..................................19
CULTURAL & COMMUNITY:
LETHBRIDGE IRISH........................................................................9
FAREWELL TO BRITISH CONSUL: IAN KYDD...........................10
DYLAN THOMAS CIRCLE.............................................................11
ROYAL SCOTTISH CULTURAL DANCE SOCIETY....................12
INTERVIEW WITH DON MULLAN:
AUTHOR OF EYEWITNESS BLOODY SUNDAY.........................14
BLOODY SUNDAY: THE MOVIE..................................................15
THE MAGDALENE WOMEN..........................................................19
SEATTLE NEWS ROUND-UP BY JOHN KEANE........................22
COMMUNITY NEWS..................................................................2-27
CELTIC HERITAGE SOCIETY................................................24-25
NEW YORK NEWSLETTER ..........................................................23
SPORTS:
SPORTS NEWS........................................................................26-27
ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST
Artist Deirdre Keohane resides in Castletownbere, County Cork with her two children Conor and Caoimhe. She has worked on a number of projects in Castletownbere, including a major mural project in the town. In October 2000, Deirdre accompanied 80 Irish volunteers with the Children's Chernobyl Project to the Nivinki Children's Orphanage/Mental Asylum near Minsk, Belarus. She painted murals there with the assistance of the children who continue to live with the devastating consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine.
WIN FREE TICKETS
Win a free pass for two to a special advance screening of Bloody Sunday on October 15 at 7 PM in Seattle, (see page 23 for details). Entries must be received by October 14. E-mail or fax only (see below). Mark entry: Bloody Sunday.
Win a pair of tickets to: The Celtic Heritage Society's Halloween Dance Party on October 25 at the Hellenic Community Centre. (See page 5 for details). Entries must be received by October 24. Mark entry: Halloween Dance Party.
Win free tickets to: West Coast Kitchen Party, Featuring: Jimmy Rankin at the Commodore Ballroom - November 28. (See page 9 for details) Entries must be received by: November 22. Mark entry: West Coast Kitchen Party.
Win a free Storytelling Festival pass, including Friday and Saturday night concert performances (November 1 and 2) and all daytime performances at the Vancouver Museum (November 2 and 3). Pass does not include workshops and special Sunday night (Nov ember3) concert. (See page 5 for details). Entries must be received by October 28. Mark your entry: Storytelling Festival.
To enter any of the ticket giveaways, mark the name of the event on your entry and Mail to: The Celtic Connection, #741 -916 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V5Z 1K7, Fax: 604-438-8419 or E-mail: cbutler@telus.net.
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