Destiny Awaits at the Crossroads of Winter
By CYNTHIA AUSTIN
“No one goes so far as the person
who does not know where he is going”
– C.G. Jung
The leaves are brown, the wind is cold, the green of the year has blown away. It is November, the season of Samhain.
In every year, in every life, there are seasons, of incubation, birth, expression – and of dissolution – where we now find ourselves. And in step with the season, even dissolution, at its heart, is unreliable.
The harvest celebration of Lughnasadh on August 1 lays a track of mown hay to the great fire festival of Samhain on October 31.
Our familiar “trick or treat” derives from that ancient fete, a boon is begged and if it is not forthcoming, a “trick” shall be.
Older still the “treat” was once the Irish “Feile na marbh,” the feast of the dead, laid out for ancestors passed over. Ill fortune became the “trick” laid upon those who ignored the civilizing demands of tradition.
There are many rich reasons for tradition in any season. Cultural and religious expectations, history, personal and societal norms – traditions give us a framework upon which to build our lives.
Tradition is the structure humanity imposes to contain itself, a set of patterns that arise from observations, over time, of our own nature.
But what of November? What of the door that swung wide on the eve of Samhain, that permits phantasm, real and imagined, to traverse our world for a piece?
What of those energies, some personal, some not, unbound from time’s arrow, that swirl around us to remind, entreat, threaten and promise?
The tradition, the structure, of this season is the lack of it. Chaos, randomness, the sheer serendipity of a world run amok are the guiding principles of Samhain.
Dissolution is a natural process, the wheeling of spirit into matter, and matter back into spirit is continual. In this season, the sometimes sudden evaporation of matter into spirit – of shocked groundlessness or personal devastation – predominates.
One likes to imagine oneself immune to annihilations – but they are common. Losing a job, enduring an illness, discovering one’s reality has no actual bearing – the “unstuckness” that ensues in the wake of an unpleasant surprise or accident, all these are the domain of the season of Samhain, regardless of the time of year.
And groundlessness eventually leads to a crossroads, always after dark and always alone. The shock that proceeds from a disrupted life is raw material, the unworked fabric of both heaven and hell, the domain of angel or demon. Who one meets up with at those diverging paths is a deeply personal turn.
Just as the solidity of life evaporates into phantom existence, so spirit sinks back into matter with the settling of paths, the choosing of new routes. It is this guarantee that revokes the license of absolute chaos in the season of Samhain.
Beneath chaos is the original pattern, the distinctive tradition of each life, and the road chosen will be a reflection of the entirety of that life up to the very moment of choice.
When the wind howls and the ground disappears, when you find yourself out later than you should be, when no one else is looking and the choice is forced – give way to your own heart – not to seeming circumstance for it can lead you astray.
Give way to the heart, for no force is stronger than compassion for one’s self – and in that unwitnessed moment the world turns, the beginning that was born of dissolution is realized.
Though it is stormy, the wind has died down. Though it is winter, a new life has barely begun. In the darkness, though still alone, give thanks to the phantasm passing by, for its fearful countenance gave you direction, a reminder of the dearest tradition any one of us can hold – the unique journey of our own heart.
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