through the doorway of Samhain

November 1 is the Celtic feast of Samhain. Samhain, Gaelic for "summer's end," was the most important of the ancient Celtic feasts.

A chant for Samhain that I love:

A year of beauty. A year of plenty. A year of planting. A year of harvest.
A year of forests. A year of healing. A year of vision. A year of passion.
A year of rebirth. A year of rebirth. This year may we renew the earth.
Let it begin with each step we take. Let it begin with each change we make.
Let it begin with each chain we break. And let it begin every time we awake.

spirits and angels

Since today is Halloween, and in honor of the Celtic celebration of Samhain, I'm offering a true and mysterious tale of spirits and angels.

When I was a little girl, in the middle of the night of the first sleepover I remember having, my friend woke me up to ask why there was a man standing by my dresser. I looked around the room and saw nothing, but she insisted there had been a man standing there, and that he had been watching me while I slept.

This same friend reported this on more than one occasion during our childhoods.

When we were teenagers, years later, we were having a sleepover at another friend's house. There were 5 of us there, and we were in the kitchen, doing what adolescent girls love to do: listening to music, talking, and eating.

My aforementioned friend and I were sitting on one side of the kitchen table, our backs to the kitchen window. The other three friends were on the opposite side. They suddenly started screaming and ran out of the kitchen. My friend and I flew around the table and followed.

It turned out they had seen a man's face in the window. They each described the face in some detail. As they went through their individual descriptions, my other friend's face became more and more puzzled. "That's the same man I saw watching you those times," she said.

I've come to believe that this man is some sort of spirit being who, for whatever reason, has looked out for me my entire life.

I don't know who he is. My maternal grandfather died when I was young, and I do remember going to his funeral. But physically he doesn't resemble the descriptions of the man my friends described.

In any case, his presence has always been benign, and it's always been true that I have had an aura of safety that has carried me through some dicey situations.

I'd love to hear your stories if any of you want to share!

my new intention with reference to the novels

Ezra Pound said:

Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

Now I know why it is taking me so long to get these novels right AND why writing novels is such a transformative, wonderful process. It's alchemy of a very special kind.

cast-away

When I left for my office late this afternoon, Rafer Johnson was in his cast. He'd spent the morning (he and Redford put themselves in Salina's paddock this a.m.) lying in the sunshine on top of Salina's pile of hay, while she tenderly plucked strands from beneath him and Redford stood guard behind him.

We allowed Salina to spend an hour with Rafer and Redford in the barnyard this afternoon, and Rafer took an afternoon nap once again with Salina standing guard on one side and little Redford on the other.

When I came home tonight, Rafer's cast was gone! And in its place he now has a spiffy little splint on his ankle, to give him support as he heals that hairline fracture.

We're charged with the mighty task of taking the splint off every 2 days, giving him 1 day without it, and then putting it back on. For a month!

I'm not real sure how putting the splint back on the donkey is going to work. But we'll figure that out in two days!

Redford is now braying loudly for Rafer whenever Rafer is out of his sight. My daughter said that Redford did caprioles today when she had to take him for a walk away from Rafer during the procedure. The Flying Donkey returned - but at least this time it was on the end of a lead rope and there were no walls involved!

hush for a while

We suddenly have COLD here. I was shivering in the barn before we came in for dinner last night, but realized later in the evening that the temperature was 34 degrees out and would surely drop lower. So around eleven, I suited up in my husband's LL Bean down coat and my black fleece hat and marched out to the barn to blanket the horses.

I always wonder if I should blanket at all. But given that they go in and out all night long, and since two are older, I do it. I'm using single weight sheets, so not piling on the layers, but still... do they really need it?

By the time I went out last night it had dropped to 32 degrees, and the forecast for early this morning was wind - and a high not cracking the 40's. I tossed my blanketing dilemma to the birds and they got their sheets on.

It was so quiet out, the way it gets when the cold comes. Quiet with horses snuffling and then the pure sound of a donkey braying in the night. Rafer Johnson and Redford got cookies and then my husband came out to help. I mucked and he blanketed and we gave extra hay. Rafer Johnson escaped the barn and headed directly for the round bale! He is walking well now, using his leg almost normally. The puffiness is almost gone.

I was glad my daughter and I had devoted the day to switching the donkeys across the barn to the center stall, nice and warm, and moved Salina over to the end stall beside them. The geldings have their three stalls back. And everyone can come in if they want, or take a walk if they want. Donkeys in the barn aisle for now, but eventually they'll get access to the grass paddock with Salina.

Those LL Bean coats are warm - my body was toasty but my fingers started tingling in the cold night air. And those few moments of cold quiet reminded me of a favorite Sam Keen passage:


The Word is still spoken in sparrowsong, windsigh, and leaffall. An electron is a single letter, an atom a complex word, a molecule a sentence, and an indigo bunting an entire epistle of the sacred. The ocean whispers its mystery within the chambered sea shell. Listen quietly to the longing in your heart for love and justice and you may hear an echo of the holy word that addresses you. Hush for a while. Be still and know.


-Sam Keen

For some reason the cold nights and early mornings of winter are times I hear this most succinctly.