Samhain Ritual Essay
Samhain got a bit caught up in the hectic pace of life this year and didn’t affect me as much as it did last year. I had lost only our oldest cat this year, and while a meaningful loss, I think the loss of my cat Timmie a year and a half ago somewhat prepared it for me. A former college room mate lost his son after only a few days, and this was someone we honored in ritual, but it was not a loss I felt that intensely.
The ritual itself was solely our home ritual with me officiating. The ritual was largely improvised as I just could not bring myself to focus on it beforehand. I had an outline of the ADF liturgy handy and improvised the language of each step. The gates flew open as they always do in our rituals (again, holding them in the foyer of our house beneath Manann’s triskelion makes for pretty liminal space). As we called on Don, Son of Mil as the Patron of the Rite, I did suddenly become very aware of feelings of being indebted to those Ancestors who helped pave the way for this world of ours and also keenly aware that too many of them were forgotten. I like working with Don at Samhain as he is an Ancestor to humanity rather than a separate tribe such as the members of the Tuatha de Danann whom I usually work with.
My wife has a ritual she has been doing for a number of years in which she writes the name of those who have departed in this year on a piece of birch bark, burns it, and places the ashes in a potted lily. The lily was a gift to us at our daughter’s birth, so the imagery of the cycle of life and death this ritual is quite powerful for us. She performed this ritual with the names of our friend’s son and of our cat. I felt moved in the ritual to write an “X” on a piece of bark in honor of all those who have been forgotten and all those who passed without notice to the most of the world.
Our omen was oghams drawn asking in order the Nature Spirits, Ancestors, and Shining Ones "What message do the Sacred Kindred have for us?" We got, in that order, Eadha, Tinne, and Ioho, Using Skip's book, I got something about communication, justice and balance, and rebirth. Looking at other sources, I get a lot of stuff about conflict, work, and skill. I believe this message relates to me and my family about certain opportunities and challenges that have arisen at my job which hold both the promise of prosperity as well a disruption of our life. Asking a more experienced hand at Ogham, I was later offered the following interpretation: Eadhadh: Watch for natural omens. Pay attention to communication from those outside your normal sphere. Tinne: You're building on what others (ancestors?) have created. Respect that, and carefully forge your own way from that. Idho-old: Gods returning in ritual or in life. Looking back on the omen now, I think I am beginning to understand that the opportunity presenting itself does not have to disrupt our lives, that there through care counsel with others, awareness of conflicts (and addressing them fairly), and some measure of skill I can still have the upside without the upheaval. I also see the interpretation from my friend as consistent as I think the choice to be made needed me to consult with friends outside my day to day life, that I need to build my life also on the efforts of my wife (which have manifested in making connections outside of my work), and that my faith has become important enough to me to take my religious community into account when making life changes.
We closed the Gates though I felt that the energy lasted for sometime in the house.
The ritual itself was solely our home ritual with me officiating. The ritual was largely improvised as I just could not bring myself to focus on it beforehand. I had an outline of the ADF liturgy handy and improvised the language of each step. The gates flew open as they always do in our rituals (again, holding them in the foyer of our house beneath Manann’s triskelion makes for pretty liminal space). As we called on Don, Son of Mil as the Patron of the Rite, I did suddenly become very aware of feelings of being indebted to those Ancestors who helped pave the way for this world of ours and also keenly aware that too many of them were forgotten. I like working with Don at Samhain as he is an Ancestor to humanity rather than a separate tribe such as the members of the Tuatha de Danann whom I usually work with.
My wife has a ritual she has been doing for a number of years in which she writes the name of those who have departed in this year on a piece of birch bark, burns it, and places the ashes in a potted lily. The lily was a gift to us at our daughter’s birth, so the imagery of the cycle of life and death this ritual is quite powerful for us. She performed this ritual with the names of our friend’s son and of our cat. I felt moved in the ritual to write an “X” on a piece of bark in honor of all those who have been forgotten and all those who passed without notice to the most of the world.
Our omen was oghams drawn asking in order the Nature Spirits, Ancestors, and Shining Ones "What message do the Sacred Kindred have for us?" We got, in that order, Eadha, Tinne, and Ioho, Using Skip's book, I got something about communication, justice and balance, and rebirth. Looking at other sources, I get a lot of stuff about conflict, work, and skill. I believe this message relates to me and my family about certain opportunities and challenges that have arisen at my job which hold both the promise of prosperity as well a disruption of our life. Asking a more experienced hand at Ogham, I was later offered the following interpretation: Eadhadh: Watch for natural omens. Pay attention to communication from those outside your normal sphere. Tinne: You're building on what others (ancestors?) have created. Respect that, and carefully forge your own way from that. Idho-old: Gods returning in ritual or in life. Looking back on the omen now, I think I am beginning to understand that the opportunity presenting itself does not have to disrupt our lives, that there through care counsel with others, awareness of conflicts (and addressing them fairly), and some measure of skill I can still have the upside without the upheaval. I also see the interpretation from my friend as consistent as I think the choice to be made needed me to consult with friends outside my day to day life, that I need to build my life also on the efforts of my wife (which have manifested in making connections outside of my work), and that my faith has become important enough to me to take my religious community into account when making life changes.
We closed the Gates though I felt that the energy lasted for sometime in the house.