Let the darkness have its way

On the concept of 'quality of time' and what this season has to teach us beyond Christmas cheer and bad candy.

Nov 12, 2024

Beyond all the haggling and fighting on Social Media about our most sacred practices around the beginning of winter and Samhain or Calan Gaef in a world where Witch-tock became a marketing ploy and visual witches have been overcome by the ghouls they called in over the algorithm, I am called between worlds for no other purpose but to sleep and rest.

This year’s decline of the living world into the soft winter rest has come with a deep personal pain of loss and while I am called to support and help, the echoes of this grief calls back all the grief that was not allowed expression throughout moments of my life that would have needed the support I am offering now. It’s the eternal reason that motivates every acting celebrant or chaplain or amicus mortis or death doula that I have encountered.

But as a druid, this time of the year - even if the energies have not shifted yet and we are still in a full swing of golden October warmth and gold - brings about a much needed moment of rest.

As our former Chosen Chief of the Druid Order Philipp Carr-Gomm reminded us

“Here’s your chance to get off the Wheel. This is the end of the line. The Game’s up. What a relief to be free of this endless cycling round and round: from growth to decline and decay back again to darkness and seeding and endless new days and more things to do. Samhain is the time when Time stops. If you’re a druid you’ll have three days to get off the wheel and pretend that time doesn’t exist, usually between 31^st October and 2^nd November, and then the whole game will start up again. Unless you’ve got off for good that is.”1

This year, the depths of pain and loss, and still so much unprocessed loss in the wider field of years of many lives lost, it all mingles together. The personal, the global, the communities we serve, the people we love… into a a blanket of suffering.

And in a society that has lost almost all its coherence of ritual around death and the ending of cycles, it should come to nobody as a surprise that need then is covered in consumerist flight into decorations for Christmas (as a promise of a better, child-like time of wonder)2 or a over-(s)/textualised, strange celebration of horror of Halloween devoid of the much needed trickster energy we need as a society.
When I watched Kristoffer Hughes, Chief and incredible cultural leader of the Anglesey Welsh Druids lead us into a journey of cultural death practices, with his usual charm and laughter, but also curiosity and his personal deep, deep resonance3, the level of disconnect we cultivate with the cycles of nature is hurting us.

Now, this is not the spot to go off on a tangent on how ecofeminism is needed and how our relationship to the female and nature affects our ethics, but I want to dig a bit deeper and pivot a bit.

The disconnect is so big, but we feel the loss at such a deep level that modern New Age search for meaning has led to a mix of appropriated cultures flooding social media (and the book lists of newly published books) with postings on ‘our ancestors did this…’ and ‘the celts believed that…’ often without any kind of research, let alone practice often blocking out genuine folklore sources, practices, or historical fact. We can debate about that forever, but the fact is: it fills a void. A need.

A need for ritual, and a need for space and the stopping of the wheel.

And because we live in a society that does define the best way to live as an individual that works, and consumes, there is not place for this need. So, we try to find it in our history. Elevating a reconstructed false reality to an authority so we can simply slow down. But what if I told you that this is not needed?

We are part of the natural world, no matter if you live on a mountain like me, or in the middle of a city. The natural world around us is reflected in our rhythms. And certainly, it may require a bit more work to tune into nature’s rhythms living surrounded by metal and concrete, this ancestral link into the land can never be lost or truly severed.
Proof of this is the often used adage of ‘get out into nature and you will feel better/healthier etc.’.

The quality of this time of Samhain/Halloween/All Souls or whatever feast day you practice and feel pulled towards, is tuning into the depths. It is calling to us from the earth as the famous veil thins… it thins the separation between our living preoccupations, and the eternal vibration of the universe around us.

The cauldron is not just a symbol of the witch, it is a symbol of all the brews of knowledge of our myths, and the passing of time and the bounty that comes from it. It is a space of ritual to burn what ails you and to collect the grains from the harvest and place them on your altar with intention. Handing it over to the Crone, this figure of old, to stir and hold and tend to your innermost pains and aspirations, is a sacred act. It is done here, in this quality of time. In this moment. It is and will never be linked into a specific date or a calendar imposed on a natural cycle4.

The cauldron and its many forms present at the moment in our pagan homes calls us inwards. While often seen as a simple symbol of fertility, the truth is much, much deeper and darker. This quality of time between the end of October and the mid-end of December is a special one. The time of the witches - even in its fun Halloween’y way - is just the beginning. It is the calling us into the time of the Enchantresses, the Hags and the Hidden Ones5 and the Old Ones. Now is a time of cultivation, purification and clarification. A time of intention.

Death and the dying are but a concept to the living. Sure, sure, we all have the one memory or trauma around death and deep loss. But without personal knowledge, we remain forever spectators of a profound mystery of life. That, no matter how much we bargain on our looks, on our wealth and success, it will inevitably end. Once a year, we witness the world dying around us.

We see places turn from lush green into dark and empty in a matter of a few weeks. And all we have found as a modern society to do, is invent ways to avoid this from happening or even just seeing it. From evergreen trees made of plastic to skipping directly after Halloween into Christmas, we avoid whatever links us into the dark. Case in point: I worked on a book in March when a publisher decided on a title that was different from the English and that had ‘dark moon’ in the title, because ‘dark’ and ‘darkness’ are a marketing impossibility. No matter how much the ever present 'shadow-work’ press becomes, we seem to step even further away from the idea of a time in the year where we learn to rest. And we do it, by tuning into the process of turning inwards. By turning into our own darkness. Creating space within ourselves to see and confront the parts of ourselves we do not like, or even the parts that continue to hurt our loved-ones, the parts we wish we could separate from has deep meaning and is important work for anybody. During this particular time quality, it can even become a personal quest for inner knowing.

Not unlike a woman during her bleeding period, when she delves into her personal inner labyrinth and rests in the arms and the cave of the Elder and Crone Goddess, we are linked into a deeper knowledge during this time. Not unlike women in the process of transitioning from their fertile life phase into the next stages of Elderhood (aka menopause) and the ones already well established in their elder age.

Seek these women and ask them all the questions about this time and quality of this passage.

I started writing this article before a general election cycle plunged a lot of my timeline and circles into dark thoughts about the future. I am finishing it up a week later with the same echo.

What we see play out on the world stage is repressed darkness and shadow taking form once more bringing out all of our hurting. And it asks us to align ourselves with our highest purpose. Do not go looking to around to be validated in your actions now by anybody else, but yourself.

If the world makes little sense to you now, then let it be. Let it find its harmony or chaos. Create balance for yourself. Be a haven of so much peace within yourself and peace for the people around you, especially the raging and the bigoted ones that place their hope in the facist saviours of the moment, that you radiate it outwards. Become quiet while you hold yourself and your fears. Turn inwards and asks what you wish to create with the pain and the anguish you experienced in the last weeks.

We are living now in a descent into the darkness on so many levels. And we cannot fight it. No matter how much we wish we could. Much like a woman cannot fight her natural cycle (even though many try) if she wishes for an authentic life, much like a person ageing cannot fight the process (even though many more try). We cannot fight this descent as a collective. And this particular season has a soft and very respectful way for us to start tuning in and become curious.

Again: please, turn inward first, in every shape and form you wish to explore. And create all the safe spaces and contribute, fight and resist.

So that when that first spark of life returns in February, when under deep snow and cold, roots feel called back to life, you know without a doubt where you wish to turn and what energy you wish to bring out. There will be no more space for fear or hesitant thought within you.

Because you let the darkness have its way with you.

Let the darkness have its way

On the concept of 'quality of time' and what this season has to teach us beyond Christmas cheer and bad candy.

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