Samhain and All Hallows

Samhain is the old Celtic festival of the beginning of winter. At this time, the ancient Irish celebrated their liberation from oppressive conquerors (Robin Herne, 2004). Later, it came to mean the night when the veil between the worlds was thin and the living could commune with the dead. It also symbolises the Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess.

The Crone Goddess is particularly associated with Samhain in contemporary Paganism, because she is the midwife and layer-out, the one who cuts the cord of both life and death. She represents merciful release; but she also possesses the wisdom of old age. Wisdom is traditionally represented (in the Bible and in other traditions) as a feminine being or quality. Wisdom is the joining together of instinct and experience and knowledge. It is the wisdom of the body, the knowledge of when to act and when to refrain from acting, when to speak and when to keep silent. Wisdom comes from reflection upon experience and knowledge.

Other festivals at this time of year are the Mexican Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) when people visit the graves of their loved ones and hold feasts in their honour; and the Christian festivals of All Saints and All Souls (also known as All Hallows, which is where we get the name Hallowe'en, a shortened form of the Eve of All Hallows).

Contrary to popular belief, the Hallowe'en custom of trick or treat did not originate in America. It has its origins in much older customs from the North of England called guising, where people would dress up as scary monsters and frighten their neighbours. The function of this custom is to express the repressed shadow side of the psyche in a harmless and fun way, so that we fear it less by making it visible.

Pagans build altars for their deceased loved ones, and recall them to mind in ritual at this time of year.

Many Unitarian and UU churches now celebrate Samhain and/or All Souls.

Several websites have suggestions for Samhain activities for children (but adults will enjoy them too): here's one with suggestions for children, by Akasha.

You can find out more about the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain from Robin Herne's article, Samhain Myths.

There's a lovely UU Samhain service by Elizabeth A Lerner.

Shared meals

Many religious traditions have shared meals as part of their practice.

Jewish tradition has the Seder or Passover meal, in which specific symbolic foods are eaten, representing different aspects of the Passover story. The youngest person present must ask, “Why is this night more special than all other nights?” and various other symbolic actions are performed, such as leaving the door open for Elijah, and raising a toast to the idea that one’s next Seder will take place in Jerusalem.

Christianity has the Eucharist, which commemorates both the Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples, and also the meal he is said to have shared with them at Emmaus after his Resurrection. The meal consists of bread and wine consumed in a sacred manner. There has been much conflict throughout Christian history about what the Eucharist means, who is allowed to partake of it, and what its effects are. Nevertheless it is a powerful ritual. Stephen Lingwood, a Unitarian minister, suggests that communion represents Jesus’ radical hospitality – his willingness to eat with people marginalised by society, such as prostitutes, tax collectors and publicans.

In Wicca, the shared meal is known as cakes and wine, and is usually consecrated by a woman and a man (or a same-sex couple), and then shared among the participants in the ritual. A portion is kept for offering to the deities as a libation.

In some Hindu traditions, a portion of the food is offered to the deities while it is being cooked, and blessed food is known as prasadam.

The ancient Greeks had a ritual of sharing bread, which is where we get our word symposium, which literally means ‘together bread’. In ancient Rome, there were dining clubs devoted to the god Bacchus (god of wine), which presumably had a ritual or spiritual aspect.

Many religious traditions (including Buddhism, Christianity and Paganism) give thanks for their food before eating. Typically, the meal blessing might include thanks to all the beings and processes that went into creating the food, and a wish that everyone in the world might have enough to eat.

Cooking can also be a spiritual practice. It is in many ways akin to alchemy (the transformation of one thing into another); indeed, a cooking vessel invented by a medieval female alchemist – the bain-marie – founds its way from the laboratory to the kitchen. In Jewish tradition, the preparation of food has special rituals associated with it. The magic of a lovingly prepared meal is powerful stuff, restoring both body and mind.

What is spirituality?

Spirituality has memorably been described by Lucy Bregman as "a glowing and useful term in search of a meaning".

So, what is it? Does it imply the existence of a spirit or a soul, or of deities? No, not necessarily. You can be spiritual without being religious (and you can be religious without being spiritual). Religion is often regarded as outward conformity to a particular religious system, its beliefs, practices and values, whereas spirituality is the inner sense of connection, a more instinctive and intuitive way of life.

I regard spirituality as a sense of mystical connection with the universe and all beings within it. It can be inspired by nature, science, art, poetry, liturgy and ritual. In feeling this sense of connection, we experience compassion for the sufferings of other beings, and empathy with their joys.

We can enhance this sense of connection by finding a community with whom we can practice compassion and mindfulness; if we don’t engage in spirituality in a community setting, it can become self-centred and shallow, disconnected from everyday reality. We need the experience of actually living and sharing with others to enable us to grow and become our authentic selves. This can be done by the creation of a community of shared values, which models in microcosm the desired qualities of human community. Of course there will be conflicts and tensions, but it is in how these are resolved that the real values of the community will be tested and refined. It is only by this kind of radical openness and humility that the spiritual community can become strong and genuinely inclusive.

Practising spirituality in community could be called religion (a word that simply means to reconnect, or to reinterpret). In liberal religion, where the "divine" is usually viewed as immanent in the world, or as so diffuse that it's not a person, the source of authority is viewed as the self (as in one's conscience) and not a "higher power". Adherents of liberal religions (such as Unitarians, Pagans, Quakers, Buddhists, Liberal Jews and many others) regard differences of belief as interesting and stimulating, challenging us to broaden our minds. Mysticism, spirituality and spiritual practices are encouraged in these traditions.

Spiritual practices: grounding and centring

Many rituals begin with this simple practice, especially Pagan circles. It comes from the Taoist tradition originally, I think. There are several different versions of it.

Its purpose is to allow you to feel connected to the Earth (grounded), not floating away into fantasy-world, not obsessing about the past or the future, but being present in the now. The centring part of the practice allows you to feel connected to the cosmos and the four sacred directions, which are associated with the elements.

Begin by focusing on your breathing. Don't breathe in any special way, just notice how your breath comes in and out of your nostrils, and how your belly rises and falls.

As you breathe in and out, feel your feet planted firmly on the ground. Relax your hips and your knees and imagine a thread extending from the top of your head to the centre of the sky (this helps to align your spine with the axis of the Earth).

Imagine that your feet are tree roots, and extend your roots deep into the earth. Your roots push down into the earth, through the rich soil, finding their way among rocks, and down deep into the molten core of the Earth. As you breathe out, extend your roots; as you breathe in, draw up energy from deep within the Earth.

As the energy makes its way into your body, draw it up through your legs and feel it gathering and pooling in your solar plexus. Note the colour of the energy.

Now extend a tendril of energy up your spine. Imagine that your spine is the trunk of a tree, and extend your aura at the top of your head, growing branches. Extend your branches up into the sky, beyond the atmosphere, and reach for the energy of the starlight. As you breathe out, extend your branches; as you breathe in, draw the energy down from above. Feel it gathering and pooling in your solar plexus, mingling with the energy from below.

Now draw energy from both above and below at the same time, and let the energies mingle in your solar plexus. As you breathe in, draw in the energy from above and below; as you breathe out, feel it spiralling and swirling.

Now allow the energy to fill your whole body, extending out to your feet, your fingertips, the top of your head. Feel how you are aligned with the cosmic axis.

Now acknowledge the four directions: North for Earth, representing the body, sensation, physicality, and structure; East for Air, representing intellect, thought, inspiration and breath; South for Fire, representing passion, intuition, and spirit; and West for Water, representing emotion, the Moon, dreams, and the blood that flows in your veins.

Third Annual Pagan Values Blogging Month

Pax of the Pagan Values Blogject has just announced the third annual Pagan Values Blogging Month.

You can sign up for it on Facebook.

Pax writes:

We must not be afraid to discuss the values and virtues and ethics we have discovered in our contemporary Pagan faiths. There are enough books on rituals and spells and prayers to last us a few generations… let's start writing works on confronting poverty and hunger from Pagan perspectives. Let us set aside the fear of prejudice, and the once glamorous but now tattered and worn mantle of the outsider and the rebel, and take pride in ourselves and our faiths, in our works and lives and worship and in our Pagan communities and our larger communities.

Learn more about the event.

When you get your contribution written/recorded and posted in June put a link to it in the comments stream on the Facebook page. Tags such as "PVE2011" and "Pagan Values" are also encouraged.

Pagan Values Blogging Month 2010 and 2009 produced some excellent reflections on Pagan values and virtues - it was popular theology in the making.

Spring Equinox

Spring Equinox is a festival of balance, as day and night are equal (but after this the days get longer). It’s also the time when the coming of Spring is really becoming apparent.

According to Bede, the ancient Germanic pagans honoured a goddess called Eostre or Ostara who was associated with hares and the Moon and eggs; however there is no reference to this goddess in any other text.

Although Spring Equinox is about the balance between darkness and light, with the light in the ascendancy, an important point about Pagan symbolism is that darkness is not seen as negative, but as a time of rest and renewal and refreshment before the return of daylight. Some people use darkness as a metaphor for ignorance and evil. That symbolism has no place in Pagan ritual.

In Wicca, darkness does not symbolise evil. The darkness is necessary for rest, growth, and regeneration. Death is not evil, but a necessary adjunct to life. If there was no death and dissolution, there could be no change or growth. The cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth is part of the interaction of the polarities. Suffering is also part of the process of growth; just as a tree is shaped by the wind, we are shaped by our experiences. It is only by experiencing suffering that we acquire sufficient depth to know the fullness of joy. It is then that the full light of consciousness dawns in us, and we achieve mystical communion with the divine.

Spring Equinox can be celebrated by a tug-of-war between two teams representing the darkness and the light, or by Easter-egg hunts, or by painting eggs.

Visualisation

Visualisation is a practice used by many Pagans to explore and transform the inner self. It is derived from the Kabbalistic practice of pathworking (visualising the pathways on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life). Visualising can develop the imagination and be relaxing and gently energising.

Here's an example of a visualisation:

The sea shell (by Yvonne Aburrow)
Start from a high tower in an upper room. Descend ten steps. Walk down the hill on which the tower stands, along a track down to a round cove, where rocky outcrops enclose a calm stretch of water and a smooth slope of sand, and a stream runs down the beach to the sea. Walk to the edge of the sea (you can paddle or dive in, whatever you like) and find something which is meant for you under the water (could be a shell or a pebble, or whatever). When you are ready, return to the shore.

Now it is time to return back up the slope, through the fields to the door by which you entered. Retrace your steps up to the door, open it and close it behind you. You can lock it if you want. Then climb back up the steps, and return to the space in which you are sitting.

(This visualisation is good for preceding a story-in-the-round or other storytelling activity, as it symbolises accessing the subconscious.)

Other ideas for visualisations

• Some of the meditations and prayers available from the Unitarian Universalist Worship Web
• Pagan themes: the eight festivals, the four elements, stories from mythology
• Stories and poems from other spiritual traditions, especially Sufism and Taoism
• Some of the parables of Jesus would make excellent visualisations (e.g. the pearl of great price, the mustard seed, the parable of the seeds)
• Themes from Jungian psychology – e.g. different archetypes

Safe visualisation practice

• Create sacred space – light a chalice, say a prayer, create a sacred circle, or whatever you feel is appropriate
• Do not visualise yourself leaving your body
• If you do any inner work with the emotions, have a trusted friend or group who can pick up the pieces if it becomes distressing
• Eat afterwards in order to ground yourself
• If you open your chakras, close them again (all except for the crown and base)
• It’s best to use simple visualisations that can be memorised, rather than using a tape. If you buy tapes, first listen to them all the way through without visualising to check you are happy with them.
• Work out what the purpose of your visualisation is before you start.
• Don’t take part if you feel uncomfortable with the person leading the visualisation – your instinct is probably correct.