The Life/Death/Life Cycle
Let life be life.
And let death be death.
Happy Samhain (pronounced sow-in) everyone,
This time of year was once considered to be the new year-the time when we let go of the old (just as the trees are doing with their leaves) and welcome in the winter months with their womb like ability to rebirth us into the vibrancy and lushness that comes with spring. In the ancient world they acknowledged that new things don’t begin with green shooting grass, but within the depths of winter where we first must dream our new selves into being, let them take firm root in our bodies and hearts, and spring forth when the time is ripe.
Winter ushers in the new. And Samhain, now known as Halloween, is the holiday that celebrates the turning of seasons into winter. It’s the witches’ new year 😉
It is a time to honor where we came from (our ancestral lineage), so that we might take stock of what we are no longer seeking to perpetuate, what is working, and how we wish to move forward when the time is ripe. It’s a time of honoring the death cycle: both by saying prayers and seeking guidance from those who came before us (and ancestors can also be teachers who you are not directly related to but whose teachings you feel strongly resonant with like Tibetan Buddhism, or Christianity) and also saying prayers of thanks to what is dying within us to create space for what is asking to be birthed through us over this next year.
So often western culture shies away from death, not realizing that we are shying away from the very process that allows for life. There is a ferocity to death, dying, and grief that we fear-and when we allow ourselves to face that fear-and deeply feel and be with those processes (both within ourselves, and with the world at large) we unlock spaces for transcendent life to come rushing through us.
Being with death will require your vulnerability. And I promise you will be ok.
When I say this to the women and men that I work with I don’t mean it in the sense that all will be graceful and easy if you only align yourself properly. This new age concept of being in full blossom at all times being the indicator of an “enlightened” being I find to be nonsensical at best, and deeply shaming of the more difficult emotions and aspects of life at worst. No, what I mean when I say “I promise you will be ok” is that life will indeed sometimes bring you tragedy, heart ache, and periods of time where it seems everything is falling apart. And you will grieve, you will rage, and you will sometimes be so uncomfortable and awkward inside the skin of your life that you will cry out to the heavens to please please please make it stop. And then it won’t stop-not until the timing is right, or you make the necessary changes being asked of you, or for some magical reason outside the ken of what is known to us it simply ends.
What I’m saying is, that in those moments, we have a core piece of us, that if we let it, will always be able to weather the storm. It is this piece that teaches us about our strength, our longevity, and our innate power. It is the piece of us that arises, like a phoenix, from the ashes of what used to be in full acceptance of what is now. We are like rough hewn rock, and the job of the powers that be is to shape us using both sadness and joy, despair and hope, life and death. In this cauldron we become.
If I could leave you with one feeling today-it would be this: that you are enough. That no matter what you are letting go of, no matter what areas of your life you are despairing at, or feeling uncomfortable within, you will be ok. You are wiser than you think, softer than you could have ever imagined, and stronger than you know. You have legions of healed and wise ancestors at your back rooting you on-and the way forward lies not in avoidance of your own winter, but in it’s deepest embrace.
Be well beloveds, and keep your eyes peeled for more writings from me. It’s my new years resolution to be more present in this space-to honor what is being birthed within me-in service to all of you.
Xoxo,
Gabrielle (The Whole Hearted Witch)