THE CELTIC CONNECTION • NOVEMBER 1991
Page 3
Why We Celebrate Samhain
By TREASA O'DRISCOLL
HEN we examine the findings of scholars and historians, we learn that the people knownas Celts dominated Europeover2,000yearsago. Their territory stretchea from the Black sea to Iberia, from the Mediterranean to the North Sea and Ireland. There is a great deal of information available, some of it based on speculation and some on scientific conclusions, drawn from cultural and archaeological remains.
The Celtic literary revival, which flourished in Ireland, brought artistic inspiration to bear on 19th century antiquarian research. In the 1900's W.B. Yeats and A.E. Russell aligned themselves "in fealty to unseen kings and unimaginable light". More recently, Joseph Campbell pointed a contemporary finger in the direction of old beliefs and mythology, his emphasis being "not on the importance of historical events that may or may not have taken place, but on a requirement that something should happen, here and now in one's mind and will."
Supernatural World
It is in that spirit t T would like to draw attention I Tie aspects of the festival of ^amhain", which falls on November 1, the first day of the Celtic year. Justas in telling old stories, I add my own insights to the Celtic continuum, I also let my own experience lead me into an understanding of the festival.
The festival of Samhain was first celebrated by people whose attention was directed to a supernatural world, to the Gods, to a world of productive, generative, creative forces. Theearthly world was seen as an expression of this other world, seasonal changes in nature reflecting spiritual change in people's inner life. The Druids as spiritual teachers could devise rituals to further the connections between heaven and earth.
Fundamental to the original Celtic view of life is the knowledge that when the material world withers, the spirit awakens. This belief was based on actual observation. In earlier times, "seeing" was not as clouded as it has since become. Elemental forces were seen to be released from external nature, as leaf and flower faded, to return to their abode beneath the earth to assume their winter activity, working on seed and root to arise again in new growth in the Spring.
The death of a human being was viewed in the same way, thedrop-ping away of the physical body, released thesoul into itsown natural element to bloom again in another life. Because, traditionally, the association between the living
and the dead is very strong at this time of year, the Catholic Church recognized its importance, calling November2" All Souls Day". W.B. Yeats, who entitled a poem "All Souls Night", describes his own ritualistic invocation of the ghosts of his dead friends and his communion with them on this night in November.
Twilight was a favourite time of the Celts, the time of half-light between day and night, the middle ground between the natural and supernatural worlds. In my life, I liken this to the period between waking and sleeping. There is something very pleasant about that in-between stage that one would like to hang onto, though it always slips away. The Celts believed that it was at the point of twilight and at the point of waking and sleeping that contact was made between the souls of the living and the dead.
At night, thoughts can be sent out to the souls of the d ead, which can help them make their way into the spiritual world.
In the morning, the souls of the dead can impart their intuitions to the waking consciousness of the living, thus helping us in turn. This is still an important fact to remember.
Keening the Dead
The Celts made of Samhain a time when they could reassure the dead. Inorder to do this, they had to relate to them thoughts about the spirit world, thoughts about theactivitiesofnature. Theyknew that thoughts about the world of matter (which so preoccupy us today), have no relevance for the dead.
This reminds me also of the Celtic ritual of keening the dead. This
rite was performed by keening women, who were brought in during a wake to intone around the corpse. It was understood clearly then that a vibrational network connects us to one another during life in the body and that this has to be broken so the soul of the departed can go forward to another level beyond the physical.
In Europe, bonfires are lit at Hallow'een. This has its roots in Celticbelief. TheCeltswerefarm-ing people predominately and their cattle were very important to them. Manybattles were fought over cows with hundreds of people — and cows — being slaughtered. There are famous tales of cattle raids. In October, the cattle were brought down from the upland grazing pastures. The original celebrants of Samhain, unlike us, did not expect to have enough to eat during the winter and they knew that sickness and starvation lay in store for many. The original Saxon name for November (Samhain in Gaelic) was blot moneth (blood month) because it refers to the slaughter of those cattle who were too weak to live through the winter — in the original bonfires smouldered the carcasses of cows.
Fear of the Dark
Cattle are still very important today — consider the unspeakable experiments being imposed upon them in a human effort to improve on nature. Attempts have even been made to inject the animals with human genes. Since 1950, half of theworld's trees have been cut down, many of them to provide more pasture for the bullocks whose final destination is the MacDonald hamburger line!
The Celts and other ancient people such as Native Indians had an innate sense of the interdependence of man and nature. Untold disasters can ensue from the loss of this fundamental awareness.
The masks and Jack O'Lanterns associated with Hallow'een are post-Celtic. It was when the old beliefs faded, when, that amnesia set in. While new dimensions of consciousness,suchas reasoning, were evolving, the original customs degenerated into superstition. People, ignorant of their true origins, of the cyclic processes of death and rebirth, were afraid of the dark, afraid of the dead, and blackened their faces so that
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they would not be recognized. At the same time, the lighted candles on window ledges assured wandering souls of welcome.
Fire was an important aspect of the festival. When the light of the sun began to wane, and its heat to diminish, a concern grew about how to provide these essentials during winter. On November's eve, Irish Druids met near the Hill of Tara, to kindle the Samhain fire. Other fires around the country were extinguished, all to be relit from that central flame of Tara. What a glowing symbol of community that was!
In Ireland, at the turn of the 20th century, W.B. Yeats saw that the plays peopleattended had become very prosaic (rather like the soap operas of today). He founded a
magazine call "Samhain" which would draw people's attention to the need for another kind of theatre which might satisfy the longing of the human heart for deeper truth.
Out of that twilight movement, the Abbey Theatre was born. In this theatre, the tradition of storytelling and the folklore of Ireland whose landscape was so full of hidden presences, was carried intoa traditionof playwriting outstanding in this century.
I believe that through art, again today, we can restore our connectedness with All That Is, music, painting and poetry being the doors to a greater reality beyond the relatively limited reach of the five senses.
Celebrate the Celtic spirit
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Tuesday, December 3, 1991 Queen Elizabeth Theatre Hamilton at Georgia 8:00 P.M.
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