Twas the night before Halloween and all through the house, costumes were being sewn – there was even a mouse! The ghosties and ghoulies were hung with great care, with the hope that they would give someone a great scare! The pumpkins were nestled all tight in the garden beds, with little tea candles shedding light in their heads.
I love Halloween! The pumpkin carving, the costumes, making taffy and seeing all the little ones so wiggly excited as they holler at the door “Trick or Treat”. I used to be terrified as a child that someone was going to say “Trick” and make me sing, or recite a poem or something equally daft (hey I was 7) instead of just handing over handfuls of sweeties! With my kids I have always had a “mummy tithe”, in other words when we would get home from trick or treating we would go through all the sweeties and make sure they were fine and dandy, sort them into piles (not my idea but my youngest ones) and then count them. So if one of the boys had 100 sweeties, the tithe amount was 10, thus 10%. Now do the math, I have 5 kids! Yes, that’s right I would get a motherlode of all my favourite things, little mini smarties, kitkats, mars bars and Aeros. Nom, nom, nom. It would last me all year, unless the kids found where I had hidden them.
At the time that most of us celebrate Halloween it is also the festival of Samhain, the third and final Harvest festival where we celebrate with fire, eating and honouring the dead. In many places, Samhain coincides with the end of the growing season. Vegetation dies back with killing frosts, and therefore, literally, death is in the air. This contributes to the ancient notion that at Samhain, the veil is thin between the world of the living and the realm of the Dead and this facilitates contact and communication.
Now people can get rather tweaked when we talk about death, but if we look to Nature that is what is happening in the Northern Hemisphere. The trees are releasing their leaves and going into a more dormant state, the ground is getting colder and harder, and we are starting to turn inward. As we turn inward there is often a reflecting process as to what is working for us and what isn’t. To me (as someone who used to get tweaked about the word Death), it’s just a release, a release of an idea, a habit, a belief etc.
There are many glorious celebrations and rituals that you can do to celebrate and honour Samhain.
Go for a nature walk – celebrate the cycles of life that nature shows us.
Make an ancestor altar – Gather photographs, heirlooms, and other mementos of deceased family, friends, and companion creatures. Arrange them on a table, dresser, or other surface, along with several votive candles. Kindle the candles in their memory as you call out their names and express well wishes. Thank them for being part of your life.
Renovate (yes I said that) – Select an area of your home or life as a focus. Examine it. Re-organize it. Release what is no longer needed. Create a better pattern. Celebrate renewal and transformation.
Bonfire Magic. Kindle a bonfire outdoors when possible or kindle flames in a fireplace or a small cauldron. Write down an outmoded habit that you wish to end and cast it into the Samhain flames as you imagine release. Imagine yourself adopting a new, healthier way of being as you move around the fire clockwise.
Now with Halloween and Samhain burbling in your mind let’s crack on with the reading. It seemed very appropriate to do it outside on a bed of leaves and instead of glorious polished crystals, we have glorious rocks that I have gathered as I explore (after all they are crystals in the rough). Divine Circus was the hands down, have to come and play, deck of Oracle Cards that wanted to come work with you this week. Which I feel is really appropriate!
Let’s take a moment and just breathe, come back into your body, breathe in through your nose and sigh it out through your mouth. See a glorious stream of golden light funneling down through your head as you breath in and as you exhale see it whoosh out through your heart. When you are ready pick the card or cards that resonate for you.
Shall we go see?
RED COUNTESS
Deep within, you know what is true and what to do (or not do). Yet there is so much noise and distraction in the world, and even at times in our own minds, that listening for our inner wisdom can seem like trying to hear gentle birdsong in the midst of a rock concert. Even so, you are hearing an inner truth, and deep down, you know it. Can you trust that it is safe to not only hear your inner voice but act on it too?
There is something that you know. You’ve felt, sensed, heard or realised this truth more than once. Even if others see or feel differently, you just know what you know, even if you don’t quite know how you know it!
Give your truths value. Hold your feelings and insights in high enough esteem to pay attention to them, to give yourself time to process what you think, feel and sense. Know that they’re worth acting on, even if that action just means to trust more and stop worrying.
SUPERNOVA
Something in you needs to be unleashed. This is not quiet and steady growth, but more like a wild explosion of creative energy and sacred fire. The sparks your rapid growth will create shall ignite your body, mind and soul, inspiring you to expand even beyond what you believe is possible. Your light will shine far and wide. You cannot control it, but you can trust it.
A rocket is capable of travelling far and with great power and speed, before settling into an effortless orbit far beyond the world in which it began its journey. To launch, however, requires power. A quiet and continued power is not appropriate for the task. A raw and explosive force is needed to propel the rocket from the known world of earth towards its destined orbit in space. You are in a time or rapid growth so accelerated and powerful that it can feel like an explosion, as if you were the rocket being launched into space. It tends to be of high intensity but short duration.
As a rocket moves from the dramatic force of the launch towards the eventual peace of an effortless orbit, the rocket will jettison the very thing needed to get the journey started. This is about letting go of old attitudes, ideas, ways of being and attachments, to allow for utter freedom to ascend. After the launch there is another birth of sorts: the settling into a new pattern of life at a higher altitude, with more peace, effortlessness and consciousness. Each phase happens naturally and you’ll feel when and how to respond to each phase in your life as you trust yourself.
CROWN OF THE BUTTERFLY BAMBINI
Just as nature imbues the butterfly with an innate ability for radical transformation, so too do you have natural instincts within, guiding you to grow in dramatic, utterly life-changing ways. Progress is your perfection. Growth is your attainment. Do you shun what you have been or mistakes you have made? Or instead, do you wear your ability for transformation as a sacred crown of power?
Transformation is an ability, an art, a sacred power. It requires an ability to go through the death of an old self, to be reborn again. That death might be an identity, a lifestyle or career, or an inner sense of self that no longer seems enough to truly reflect who you are becoming.
It requires both strength and flexibility, to be like bamboo, to bend without breaking. Are you willing to let go of what you have known, who you have been, without judging it, except to understand that you are outgrowing your past and becoming your future in this very moment? This takes great courage whilst flexibility of mind allows you to believe there are other possibilities in this life beyond what you have already experienced. The strength gives you enough courage to bear the loss of the known and the terror of the unknown, perhaps even turning that terror into excitement for what may be.
Don’t dream small dreams, for you are capable of far more dramatic and colourful creations. Trust in the magnificence of what you are becoming, the expression of the transformational intelligence and power within you.
Wishing you a spooktacular Halloween, a delicious Samhain and don’t eat too many of those tiny little choccie bars (though they are super tempting)! Have a fantabulous week and remember to laugh often and be gentle with your glorious self! See you next week.
