Awakened Woman e-magazine

	Sacred Turning
Drawing by Deborah Le Sueur

 

Harvest Reflections
by Diane Rae Schulz

The Autumnal Equinox, coincident in the Northern Hemisphere with Harvest time, is especially magnificent in Northern California -- the grapes, apples and other abundant crops of this blessed region are showering us with their gifts. Thirty years ago, as a newcomer to Sonoma County, I wrote this poem:

Harvest! golden apples in the morning sun,
First sight of waking eyes
Fill your baskets and skirts
With the fruit of careful preparation

Eat! juice exploding
Flowing drops from smiling mouth
and fingers
Bright child eyes rainbow iris sparkling Sees the Great
and wonders at It, and
Knows Why

It still rings as true as it did when I first became a child of the land. My joy at the bountiful harvest is like a child's wonder. Harvest parties come to mind -- a vat-full of shrieking children crushing the newly harvested grapes into juice, the crisp crunch of my teeth in a Gravenstein apple, the rich smell of vegetation yielding its gifts to us. And so we gather it, ferment it, dry it, can it, and prepare to hibernate for the winter, knowing we have plenty to feed us until Spring. We don't have the colors of New England in our trees, but all the Poison Oak turns red, a sure and definite sign that Fall has arrived in full force. The plants that have worked so hard can now go to sleep, knowing they have fulfilled their part of Life.

 

Hallomas -- Time Of Renewal

By Leslie McIntyre

Gentle warm summer breezes give way to stronger blustery currents of unvisible wind as the wheel of life turns in its never-ending spiral dance of creation, with endings becoming new beginnings. The Fall Equinox is upon us, asking us to remember the cycles of the earth as well as the internal cycles we experience when we slow down enough to feel them. The Fall Equinox is a time of harvest and abundance.

Following the Equinox is a festivity commonly known as Halloween which has its origins in earth-worshipping spirituality. Knowing the origins of certain Christianized holidays helps us to connect with a deeper meaning and sacredness of life. Although Halloween is probably considered much less of a Christian holiday than others, the medieval church managed to absorb the pagan idea of ancestor worship at this time of year, diabolizing the night-before festival while dubbing the following day All Saints Day and dedicating it to "a horde of Christianized spirits" (Barbara Walker, Women's Rituals, p. 116).

Who would think that Halloween is about the celebration of the sacred? Isn't it just for fun? (Though what is fun about the current association of blood, guts and gore with Halloween?) Well, no, not just for fun, though celebration is ceratinly part of it. Other names for Halloween are Hallomas, Samhain (Celtic), November Eve, All Saints and All Hallows. This holy day was one of the most significant pagan festivals of the year because not only did it mark the half-way point between the fall equinox and winter solstice, it was dedicated to honoring the ghosts of all ancestors -- the ancestresses being the basis of the tribal bond.

The words "ghost" and "guest" used to be the same word! The deceased guests were invited to feast with the living while the living eagerly awaited an oracular message or communication from the beloved dead. It is thought that the "veil" between the worlds is thinnest at this time of year. This means that communication between the living and dead is possible -- a comforting thought for our early ancestors who found a way to hold the awe-full inspiring mystery of death.

Hallomas is also considered to be the New Year for pagans -- the ending of the harvest and the beginning of a new cycle of life. The seeds from the fruit are gathered, as are the seeds from our own individual lives, and placed or held in the sacred dark to begin the process of gestation and incubation. The coming dormant time allows for the life energy to recollect and renew, to once again burst forth in the spring with a rich delicacy and loving tenderness. A well-known goddess associated with Hallomas is Hecate, Queen of the Underworld and Queen of Night. Her world is the place of the dark. On Hallomas, one enters the labyrinth of the underworld, the sacred womb. All life comes from the sacred dark and all life is renewed in the womb of the Goddess.

The honoring the cycle of life is fundamental to earth-worshipping people. The one constant is change. Worshipping in this manner allows one to feel the sacredness of the greater cycle that embraces us in our own cycles. Halloween has become, in this writer's opinion, a superficial commercial degradation of the Goddess-based spirituality of our ancestors. The preoccupation with ugly, gory and scary paraphernalia as well as with the demonizing of elder women and witches blatantly reveals the ignorance and hatred of the feminine carried in the collective unconscious. I try to educate people at this time of year as to the real meaning -- calling attention to shop owners if they have pictures of ugly "old" witches pasted on their walls and dripping bloody images plastered about. The work, of course, is never done.

Hecate's domain is the place of death and regeneration. However, in a patriarchal society, we are not taught the mysteries of life, death and regeneration. Without these teachings we have developed a macabre fascination with death and violence, not understanding the meaning of the sacredness and cycles of life. Death is frightening to us in a way that overwhelms us into denial. Once a year, people think about it at Halloween, but it has become the realm of the "Grim Reaper", far removed from the embrace of the Goddess. Acquaintance with Hecate in a sacred manner allows a person to remember that death is a companion of life and not an enemy of it.

Hallomas is the time of year to remember your beloved dead. Perhaps you can create an altar with pictures of the deceased and think of them as your guests. Make offerings of food and black and white candles symbolic of the ending of the old and the beginning of the new. Thank your ancestors for your life, for without them you wouldn't be! Allow the Goddess, the Great Cosmic Mother to rock you and hold you in her embrace of change. Let yourself become fluid and flexible to opening to the mystery of your own being and allow yourself to meditate on death. Perhaps you will be the blessed recipient of a message from beyond the veil.

 

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