THE CELTIC CONNECTION • OCTOBER 1995
Page 3
SAMHAIN — THE CELTIC NEW YEAR
Joining the Worlds of Living and Dead
By CYNTHIA WALLENTINE s> OVEMBER EVE (\ I embodies a Prov-^/V ince of Time, which pulls in its wake the death of the year, disintegration into winter and the unyielding promise of life reborn.
As pastoralists, the Celts divided their year in half, with winter beginning on November eve at Samhain (pronounced "Sow-in") and summer beginning on May eve at Beltaine.
During the term of Samhain, the year was not quite ended and the new year not yet in place. This was a "time-less" season, where the crack in the screen between worlds gaped to allow the intrusion of shad -owy psychic forces. Souls who died during Samhain faced neither judgement nor purgatory.
Samhain marks the territory of the hag Cailleach, who presides over a season of feasting and sexual adventure, as the world is swamped by tides from beyond the earthly veil.
All life trembles as the screeching wail of Chaos tears across the temporal landscape. The festivities of Samhain originally encompassed the entire month of November, a season itself of "death revels."
The prominent features of Samhain were honoring the
Samhain marks the territory of the hag Cailleach, who presides over a season of feasting and sexual adventure, as the world is swamped by tides from beyond the earthly veil.
dead, soothsaying and storytelling.
On Samhain, food and drink were left for the shades of dead ancestors and dwellings tidied for their visits. This Feile na Marbh" or "Feast of the Dead" filled the dual purpose of appeasing one's ancestors, as well as ensuring their assistance and support during the coming year.
Divinations using apples, nuts, candles and water were used to presage the future. The jumping ora nut in a fire could foretell a future mate as easily as a reflection in a bowl of water could prophesise early death.
Throughout time, mankind has listened raptly by the hearthf ire to tales passed from generation to generation.
The incantory narrative of Celtic storytelling took place from "Samhain to Beltaine" — usually never during daylight and not in the summer months from Beltaine to Samhain. On the "lines of verse" legends unfold and the great heroes and monsters of Celtic lore live again.
The folk customs and stories of the Celts did not seek to assuage the bite of death - some effort was taken to enhance its eeriness and mystery. By this dramatic consummation, no life
was mediocre in passing, no person lessened in nobility at death.
November eve brought devilry and confusion, as boundaries between the years and the seasons evaporated in the misty night air.
Men and women impersonated each other or long dead spirits, by masking themselves or painting their faces black. Carts, wagons and buckets were heaved into neighboring fields or ditches as rightful possession became meaningless.
Gardens were disturbed, chimneys stuffed with turf and smoke blown through keyholes as the rules of civility blended into the atmosphere.
Carved gourds alight with candles bobbed down country lanes, creating a ghostly caval-
cade enough to frighten the life from any unwitting traveller. Fairy folk rode on high and ghastly spectres waited patiently on field stiles for mortals foolish enough to venture into the gloaming.
Folk customs derived from a deeper source, a deeper need to renew the divine cycle year after year. At Lough Gur, County Limerick, two horned stones in the enchanting stone circle "Lios" marked the Samhain sunset directly opposite from the circle entrance which marks the Beltaine sunrise.
The circle physically replicates the wheel of time, burning from one great fire festival to the next — a mandala, a promise of the unswerving potential and descent of life.
The alchemical participation of the community and the individual in the rites of Samhain and the other great festivals insures that the split between divine essence and human experience is healed and the spirit of the world is once again whole and undivided.
By taking part in the ritual, the . individual gains not only a perceived measure of control over the external forces which buffet the tribe, but protection from
the consuming collective pressure of the tribe itself.
The elimination of time, space and personal boundaries, foreshadowed by Samhain, allows the return of disintegration and the descent of humanity into the psychic and literal winter.
As the winter must be accepted, spring is promised and destiny arid vitality will soon again enliven both soul and nature. In accepting the tides of the season and the years, humanity thus joins in the timeless reverie of earth and the cosmos.
ON AN AUTUMN MORNING
The mist rests gently on the fields
Like fleecey sheep's wool It's coloured white like snow And looks like giant blankets of candyfloss.
I watch the whiteness as it circles over
Hallow and height, it then lies
on the ground Like an overstuffed quilt But not for long as it soon rises
again.
Rising over hilltops it reveals The silhouette of a handsome stallion
It stands proud and still as the Trees watch in awe as the web
of fleece covers their Nakedness.
Joanne Galten, 12 (1988) Borderlines ((1989) Poems by South Ulster Youth Published by County Monaghan Vocational Education Committee
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