First, congratulations dear Jan on your first anniversary of this wonderful blog! 🎉 🍂 🍁 🧡 I was surprised as it felt to me like your lovely hedge mysticism and writings have been around since time immemorial. Perhaps they have.
Secondly, I really loved this post! I didn’t know Samhain was a whole season all thru November and some part of me breathed a huge sigh of relief to learn this. Thank you.😘
And third, I love the idea of creating our own holy days and I love the idea of grim reaper day and all you have made it. Altho I am currently in sunny Spain and away from my wild garden in England, I still resonate with all the changes in my soul.
So grateful for all you share with us! Nature Blessings! 💚🌙🍃
Thank you Melanie for the kind and encouraging words. Every day on the wheel of the year (Imbolc, Ostara/Spring Equinox, Beltane, Litha/Summer Solstice, Lammas, Mabon/Autumn Equinox, Samhain, Yule/Winter Solstice)actually lasts the entire season until the next one rolls around, isn't that freeing and wonderful? No need to celebrate on the exact day if life gets in the way there are approx. 6 weeks to find your footing and sink into the energy of the season.
Fiachra said to Cilicia now that our Garden is put to bed for its hibernation, we will get to light our bonfire tonight. See that big pile over there of fallen branches, diseased plant materials, discarded pallets, and rotten fence posts that I have collected over the year. We are going to light it tonight after dark. It is a new moon this evening so it will be the only brightness. To prepare for the fire we must also gather up all the other things that we have been carrying around that are ready to be burnt. Cilicia looked anguished. Oh no my love, I’m not talking about those physical keepsakes treasures that you brought with you, it is those other items that are not of a tangible nature that I can see you carrying. This afternoon I invite you to take this box of art supplies and create some images of things you carry with you that you are ready to release.
Such a perfect story to go with this post! Creativity and art-making offers a powerful way to release what we are ready to release and to embrace what we are able to receive. Thank you for sharing this, its wisdom made me smile.
Thank you for expressing this resistance I feel too. In recent years I’ve described it to friends and family as feeling like Christmas spam is gobbling up our fall holidays. Truthfully, I love Christmas, in all its layers of spiritual and Christian significance! But I want to love Christmas deeply in its own moment, after savoring a long slow thoughtful walk through the autumn holy days and markers of remembrance. This is the first year I realized Samhain has a season and not just a day, and I’m appreciating that this year. Rushing has begun to feel... kind of silly? I don’t think I mean that in a judgmental way, but more in the sense of, I have so completely lost interest that I feel irritation when I’m jostled back into the tinny canned Christmas hustle.
Hi Kate, "Canned Christmas" makes me think of canned spam (LOL) which leads me to consider the unwelcome intrusion of modern spam in our inboxes it's as if the premature birth of Christmas on November 1st is also an unwanted intrusion. Each season, each day, holds so much for us to live and love it seems unwise to rush through anything. Slow living is needed so we can as the saying goes "be here now". Thanks for telling me your experiences with seasonal rushing. Everyone is enriched when we share in the Hedge Mystic Community.
Hi Celeste in centuries past Christmas was a 12 day long holiday period of feasting, merrymaking and celebration. It was particularly popular in England during the middle ages. I wrote about Martinmas last year https://janblencowe.substack.com/p/martinmas-gateway-into-winter as well as Catterntide https://janblencowe.substack.com/p/catterntide. You can find them also in the archives on my Substack home page along with a post about Celtic Advent.
Thank you so much for sharing and being vulnerable by opening your heart and the pages of your life for us to learn from.
I realized many years ago that in this life I am one who weaves and stirs together various influences and elements to create something new and personalized .... or even something that is remembered... once forgotten under a blanket of snow in the icy tombs of our personal and collective memories. My heart glows when I find others who recognize and embody these particular natural and creative impulses...
Even though I know this about myself I seem to continuously forget or allocate the knowing to a dusty shelf in my mental archives. But my somatic knowing keeps erupting... lol... and I am learning to attune to and honor such tendencies... thank you for a beautiful reminder.
After reading “Devoted to Death” by professor R. Andrew Chesnut ( https://global.oup.com/academic/product/devoted-to-death-9780190633332 ) I became even more interested in the history of the anthropomorphic representation of Death in various cultures. Such representation is found all over the world though Chesnut focuses his book on Santa Muerte mostly in US and Mexico. He anchored her historical and cultural roots in Europe which may surprise many.
The figure(s) now referred to as the Grim Reaper or Holy Death have deep histories and they both created and were expressions of potent life experiences and deep meaning.
Many in our modern cultures tend to intellectualize, sterilize, archive, or create a “distancing” between ourselves and the natural cycles of life especially illness, decay, and death.... However, if those who live in the illusion and striving for eternal youth were to pull our heads out of the cloud of denial and cognitive dissonance, we may discover an essential need for a more intimate exploration, representation of, or relationship to Death.
For many others in our contemporary times, Death is a neighbor, a child, a family, a village, a generation, an entire people..... an ancestor, a movement, a season, a harvest, and a promise. Then, of course, there are those of us who have one foot in each of these orientations.
Regardless of our current position, there is an essential and enfleshed human need to learn how to engage with Death ... to invite Death to tea, to dance with us through twilight, or walk with us through our gardens. Is Death a song, a letter, a form or figure? Is Death the pause between our exhale and inhale or the sinking of the sun or the moon beneath the horizon? Is Death a persona, a place, or a passage? Is Death a pilgrim, a child, a teacher, or a forgotten friend? Is Death the stone over our beloved or the whisper breeze that our body recognizes as the shift from late Summer to Fall ... or the rattle that sounds as the last leaf is released from the tree? Is Death a brick wall or a doorway... a destination or a threshold?
Your article reminds us that engaging with and exploring our relationship with Death is essential and that there is deep significance in recovering and/or creating our personal relationship with however Death manifests for us in the center of our lives. How we chose to engage such a relationship will define the type of life we live. Do we chose to live in fear or agony of impending doom and loss? Or do we chose to live our human life in a way that each moment holds mystery and creative potential? Is Death our enemy or a friend who walks with us through the garden of our lives?
Thank you for modeling a process of reorientation ... and for the reminder and invitation to reach into Mystery so that we can discover our relationship with the most dependable and intimate experiences of human existence.
I appreciate your deep thoughts and encounters with Death in its many forms and articulations. Thank you for sharing them here in the comments section your musings enrich all of us. There are so many levels to death as there are to life. Archetypal, mythic, imagery, intellectual, somatic ad you rightly point out is very potent. Sometimes I find myself terrified of Death and at other times I’m encountering a friend. There’s so much to be explored, experienced and understood. Conversations like this one are important, compelling and comforting.
This is so interesting. I have never been much of a gardener, and have pretty much left my outdoor space to rewild itself, which it has done with exuberance! This month marks a year of learning from the Cailleach, and since Samhain I have felt a powerful urge to tend to the land. My plans really are so similar to yours, and I love that you have given this period a name. I will think of you as I work through my garden over the coming days. Samhain Blessings to you! 💕
Hi Ali, The Cailleach is a land-shaper I'm not surprised that after working with her you have an urge to tend the land. Keep me updated on what you do with this new calling.
I have a garden. I also can cross the garden and the yard and climb up the bank then I am on a stunning nature trail. It is so beautiful, especially at this time of year. I related to your post completely. I have a bird feeder too. I grow herbs, flowers, veggies and berries in my garden. I'm studying at the Herbal Academy. I love herbalism, though they call it clinical herbalism. It is very intense. I make tinctures, syrups, elixirs, cordials and salves from the herbs I grow. Nature is my teacher.
Nature certainly is a wonderful teacher and herbalism is an ancient and healing art. I’ve made teas and salves from the things I grow or forage and working with the land in that way is a beautiful thing. It’s fantastic that you’re taking such an intensive course of study.
You have a property that is a Master Naturalist dream come true! Like yourself I am making preparations for winter. Getting my bird feeders ready, replacing damaged ones; we have some very “creative” raccoons and tending to the garden.
It’s to early to cut the flowering plants here but when they are no longer blooming they will be cut down to spread their seeds for the coming spring. I’m still in hope that the $200 worth of wildflower seeds that didn’t come up because of drought will still make a debut in the spring. I worked so hard preparing the ground and sowing the seeds! It looks like the rains might be returning?
After having work done on our pergola I had my husband rehang the Wren’s house. It had been sitting aside for a month plus waiting to be placed. The Wren’s were ecstatic! Flying around it and landing on top of it, looking to see that it was still suitable for them! It was so obvious that they were happy to see it back in place! They’ve reared their little family in this box for two years now and possibly longer. We’ve only seen two nesting seasons in our home. The past owner left the nesting house because there were babies inside so we inherited the Wren family. Our house has been named after them! Wren House!
Wren House! What a wonderful name for your home. I also have the honor of having birds return year after year to nest in our bird houses. I get a bluebird couple every year in the bird house over the garden gate, tree swallows in the two nearest the pond and of course house wrens not only in the bird houses but in odd places like the propane tanks! I hope the rains help your wildflower seeds germinate. Seeds can be very resilient so I’d be hopeful.
Yes I love it here.
I love having you here as part of the Hedge Mystic Community!
Thank you, I truly love this.
Hi Esme, so glad you liked this. Thanks for reading and commenting.
First, congratulations dear Jan on your first anniversary of this wonderful blog! 🎉 🍂 🍁 🧡 I was surprised as it felt to me like your lovely hedge mysticism and writings have been around since time immemorial. Perhaps they have.
Secondly, I really loved this post! I didn’t know Samhain was a whole season all thru November and some part of me breathed a huge sigh of relief to learn this. Thank you.😘
And third, I love the idea of creating our own holy days and I love the idea of grim reaper day and all you have made it. Altho I am currently in sunny Spain and away from my wild garden in England, I still resonate with all the changes in my soul.
So grateful for all you share with us! Nature Blessings! 💚🌙🍃
Thank you Melanie for the kind and encouraging words. Every day on the wheel of the year (Imbolc, Ostara/Spring Equinox, Beltane, Litha/Summer Solstice, Lammas, Mabon/Autumn Equinox, Samhain, Yule/Winter Solstice)actually lasts the entire season until the next one rolls around, isn't that freeing and wonderful? No need to celebrate on the exact day if life gets in the way there are approx. 6 weeks to find your footing and sink into the energy of the season.
Fiachra said to Cilicia now that our Garden is put to bed for its hibernation, we will get to light our bonfire tonight. See that big pile over there of fallen branches, diseased plant materials, discarded pallets, and rotten fence posts that I have collected over the year. We are going to light it tonight after dark. It is a new moon this evening so it will be the only brightness. To prepare for the fire we must also gather up all the other things that we have been carrying around that are ready to be burnt. Cilicia looked anguished. Oh no my love, I’m not talking about those physical keepsakes treasures that you brought with you, it is those other items that are not of a tangible nature that I can see you carrying. This afternoon I invite you to take this box of art supplies and create some images of things you carry with you that you are ready to release.
Such a perfect story to go with this post! Creativity and art-making offers a powerful way to release what we are ready to release and to embrace what we are able to receive. Thank you for sharing this, its wisdom made me smile.
Thank you for expressing this resistance I feel too. In recent years I’ve described it to friends and family as feeling like Christmas spam is gobbling up our fall holidays. Truthfully, I love Christmas, in all its layers of spiritual and Christian significance! But I want to love Christmas deeply in its own moment, after savoring a long slow thoughtful walk through the autumn holy days and markers of remembrance. This is the first year I realized Samhain has a season and not just a day, and I’m appreciating that this year. Rushing has begun to feel... kind of silly? I don’t think I mean that in a judgmental way, but more in the sense of, I have so completely lost interest that I feel irritation when I’m jostled back into the tinny canned Christmas hustle.
Hi Kate, "Canned Christmas" makes me think of canned spam (LOL) which leads me to consider the unwelcome intrusion of modern spam in our inboxes it's as if the premature birth of Christmas on November 1st is also an unwanted intrusion. Each season, each day, holds so much for us to live and love it seems unwise to rush through anything. Slow living is needed so we can as the saying goes "be here now". Thanks for telling me your experiences with seasonal rushing. Everyone is enriched when we share in the Hedge Mystic Community.
I've never heard of feast days of Martinmas, Catterntide, and Celtic advent. What does 12 days mean?
Hi Celeste in centuries past Christmas was a 12 day long holiday period of feasting, merrymaking and celebration. It was particularly popular in England during the middle ages. I wrote about Martinmas last year https://janblencowe.substack.com/p/martinmas-gateway-into-winter as well as Catterntide https://janblencowe.substack.com/p/catterntide. You can find them also in the archives on my Substack home page along with a post about Celtic Advent.
Beautiful. I love this idea. Thanks for sharing it.
You're very welcome Patricia. Thanks for reading and being here.
PS Have you seen this documentary?
https://fiveseasonsmovie.com/
If you haven’t yet seen it... I think you would enjoy the subject...✨🌱🌷🌾🍂🍁💀✨
I’ll be sure to check it out!
just watched the trailer looks great
I love this article.
Thank you so much for sharing and being vulnerable by opening your heart and the pages of your life for us to learn from.
I realized many years ago that in this life I am one who weaves and stirs together various influences and elements to create something new and personalized .... or even something that is remembered... once forgotten under a blanket of snow in the icy tombs of our personal and collective memories. My heart glows when I find others who recognize and embody these particular natural and creative impulses...
Even though I know this about myself I seem to continuously forget or allocate the knowing to a dusty shelf in my mental archives. But my somatic knowing keeps erupting... lol... and I am learning to attune to and honor such tendencies... thank you for a beautiful reminder.
After reading “Devoted to Death” by professor R. Andrew Chesnut ( https://global.oup.com/academic/product/devoted-to-death-9780190633332 ) I became even more interested in the history of the anthropomorphic representation of Death in various cultures. Such representation is found all over the world though Chesnut focuses his book on Santa Muerte mostly in US and Mexico. He anchored her historical and cultural roots in Europe which may surprise many.
The figure(s) now referred to as the Grim Reaper or Holy Death have deep histories and they both created and were expressions of potent life experiences and deep meaning.
Many in our modern cultures tend to intellectualize, sterilize, archive, or create a “distancing” between ourselves and the natural cycles of life especially illness, decay, and death.... However, if those who live in the illusion and striving for eternal youth were to pull our heads out of the cloud of denial and cognitive dissonance, we may discover an essential need for a more intimate exploration, representation of, or relationship to Death.
For many others in our contemporary times, Death is a neighbor, a child, a family, a village, a generation, an entire people..... an ancestor, a movement, a season, a harvest, and a promise. Then, of course, there are those of us who have one foot in each of these orientations.
Regardless of our current position, there is an essential and enfleshed human need to learn how to engage with Death ... to invite Death to tea, to dance with us through twilight, or walk with us through our gardens. Is Death a song, a letter, a form or figure? Is Death the pause between our exhale and inhale or the sinking of the sun or the moon beneath the horizon? Is Death a persona, a place, or a passage? Is Death a pilgrim, a child, a teacher, or a forgotten friend? Is Death the stone over our beloved or the whisper breeze that our body recognizes as the shift from late Summer to Fall ... or the rattle that sounds as the last leaf is released from the tree? Is Death a brick wall or a doorway... a destination or a threshold?
Your article reminds us that engaging with and exploring our relationship with Death is essential and that there is deep significance in recovering and/or creating our personal relationship with however Death manifests for us in the center of our lives. How we chose to engage such a relationship will define the type of life we live. Do we chose to live in fear or agony of impending doom and loss? Or do we chose to live our human life in a way that each moment holds mystery and creative potential? Is Death our enemy or a friend who walks with us through the garden of our lives?
Thank you for modeling a process of reorientation ... and for the reminder and invitation to reach into Mystery so that we can discover our relationship with the most dependable and intimate experiences of human existence.
Happy Grim Reaper’s Day!
I appreciate your deep thoughts and encounters with Death in its many forms and articulations. Thank you for sharing them here in the comments section your musings enrich all of us. There are so many levels to death as there are to life. Archetypal, mythic, imagery, intellectual, somatic ad you rightly point out is very potent. Sometimes I find myself terrified of Death and at other times I’m encountering a friend. There’s so much to be explored, experienced and understood. Conversations like this one are important, compelling and comforting.
This is so interesting. I have never been much of a gardener, and have pretty much left my outdoor space to rewild itself, which it has done with exuberance! This month marks a year of learning from the Cailleach, and since Samhain I have felt a powerful urge to tend to the land. My plans really are so similar to yours, and I love that you have given this period a name. I will think of you as I work through my garden over the coming days. Samhain Blessings to you! 💕
Hi Ali, The Cailleach is a land-shaper I'm not surprised that after working with her you have an urge to tend the land. Keep me updated on what you do with this new calling.
Thank you. I love it.
I have a garden. I also can cross the garden and the yard and climb up the bank then I am on a stunning nature trail. It is so beautiful, especially at this time of year. I related to your post completely. I have a bird feeder too. I grow herbs, flowers, veggies and berries in my garden. I'm studying at the Herbal Academy. I love herbalism, though they call it clinical herbalism. It is very intense. I make tinctures, syrups, elixirs, cordials and salves from the herbs I grow. Nature is my teacher.
Heddy! How wonderful! 😊💖
Nature certainly is a wonderful teacher and herbalism is an ancient and healing art. I’ve made teas and salves from the things I grow or forage and working with the land in that way is a beautiful thing. It’s fantastic that you’re taking such an intensive course of study.
You have a property that is a Master Naturalist dream come true! Like yourself I am making preparations for winter. Getting my bird feeders ready, replacing damaged ones; we have some very “creative” raccoons and tending to the garden.
It’s to early to cut the flowering plants here but when they are no longer blooming they will be cut down to spread their seeds for the coming spring. I’m still in hope that the $200 worth of wildflower seeds that didn’t come up because of drought will still make a debut in the spring. I worked so hard preparing the ground and sowing the seeds! It looks like the rains might be returning?
After having work done on our pergola I had my husband rehang the Wren’s house. It had been sitting aside for a month plus waiting to be placed. The Wren’s were ecstatic! Flying around it and landing on top of it, looking to see that it was still suitable for them! It was so obvious that they were happy to see it back in place! They’ve reared their little family in this box for two years now and possibly longer. We’ve only seen two nesting seasons in our home. The past owner left the nesting house because there were babies inside so we inherited the Wren family. Our house has been named after them! Wren House!
Samhain Blessings Jan!
Wren House! What a wonderful name for your home. I also have the honor of having birds return year after year to nest in our bird houses. I get a bluebird couple every year in the bird house over the garden gate, tree swallows in the two nearest the pond and of course house wrens not only in the bird houses but in odd places like the propane tanks! I hope the rains help your wildflower seeds germinate. Seeds can be very resilient so I’d be hopeful.
Thank you Jan! Still haven’t given up on the wildflowers! It’s a sweet blessing to have birds nesting close by! 💖