Embracing the Descent into Winter

It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life

that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawns on you.

– Phillips Brooks

The End of the Harvest and Samhain’s Significance

The Samhain energies hold the biggest passing of the year; the end of the harvest, the doorway to the winter, a moment of gratitude for all that has passed, and an acknowledgement of its meaning and purpose in our lives. It is time to gather a new flame from the community fire lit at harvest’s end, as the old hearth burns itself cold, and the wind sweeps out last years ashes.

The Descent into the Yin Half of the Year

Samhain, a three-day observation of the midpoint between the Spring Equinox and the Winter Solstice is considered the doorway to winter, and probably the most important of the quarter festivals. The seasonal energy holds a palpable descent as it enters the Yin half of the year, the left hand of darkness, and the potent threshold of the deep feminine cycle.

Everything begins and ends in the darkness.

The two forces of black and white, the Yin Yang polarities begin the journey to black, a division and a reunion in one breath, the life force drawing inward and descending back into the deep earth, Autumn’s rarefied harvest comes to rest.

The sun, the Solar Masculine, now weak in the sky, the days shorter and paler still. The nights darken, cooling and lengthening. The Land Goddess shrugs off her cloak of gold, orange and red as everything breathes out and lets go.

The energies of Samhain and the arrival of the dark principal bring death, loss, darkness, dissolution, decline, destruction, and the dissolve of our lives. A powerful acceleration of our necessary endings, descending from now until the still point of the Winter Equinox.

Samhain’s Invitation to Embrace Endings

My invitation to you in these weeks is to be still and look inward for the parts of your life that are in the Samhain phase. Where do you face loss, death and endings? Where has life’s force lost its joy?

Looking Inward: A Time for Reflection and Letting Go

Be in a place of questioning as you seek out the disempowerment and the hungry ghosts.
Know that your ancestors are at your back as you kiss your endings goodbye at the threshold.

Winter is coming.

”To be in silent harmony with one’s ultimate capacity means allowing one’s lot to reach its highest degree.”
I Ching. Hexagram 45