"It was their custom at the Feis of Tara to pass six days in feasting together before the sitting of the assembly; three days before Samhain and three days after it, making peace and entering into friendly alliances with each other."
___ Geoffrey Keating, "Forus Feasa ar Eirina"
The Festival Assembly of Tara, at which notbles and learned people of Ireland ratified and renewed laws, took place every three years. During the festival it was strictly forbidden for any robbery, assult, or legal wrangles to take place. Anyone so engaged was summarily sentenced to death, and not even the king himself had power to pardon the one who had disrespected assembly of peace. Samhain (SOW'en) marked the beginning of winter and the cessation of hostilities between warning factions. The poets and their retinues quartered with the rich households of Ireland until Beltane, (BEL'tenn'a; May) so that the winter months might pass more quickly by their entertainment.
Samhain means 'the summer's end'. In early days, this festival heralded a period when the gates of sid
(SHEE), the faery gates of the otherworld, were open and when the ancestors were nearer to the otherworld than at any other time.
After a preliminary evening of half-fearful, half-mischievous activities, the daytime temper of Samhain was one of gravity, wherein all the changes could be acknowledged and assimilated. Of all the Celtic festivals, this is the one at which we best experience the overlap of one world with the other. It is time to assemble peacefully and be conscious of the ordering of our affairs, bringing ourselves into alignment with the blessings, work, and opportunities of the darker half of the year.
"Spend part of this day in assessing your place in life: look at the unfinished. Assess your current spiritual position, scrutinize your motives, clarify your commitments; recognize and discard inappropriate patterns that no longer serve you."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
November
"Month of November - very fat are the swine;
Let the shephard go; let the minstrel come;
Bloody the blade, full the barn."
-- anon. Welsh poem
The season of winter begins at Samhain, the Celtic New Year, on the eve of November. The meditation themes this month include destiny and fate, cycles and ages, fullness and emptiness, enduring traditions, overcoming difficulty by finding deep resources, the nature of action, and directions and spaces.
And so I start "The Celtic Spirit" over again for a turning of the Wheel of the Year.
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