Grim Reaper Day
a holiday to anchor you to the land
If you liked reading this, feel free to click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏
First a Note:
Today is the one-year anniversary of Hedge Mystic. When I decided to begin writing this weekly newsletter, it was about more than simply changing email service providers.
It was about allowing myself to do two things that had been on my mind for quite some time. First, it was about giving myself permission and space to explore writing and begin to see myself as a writer. Second, it was about forming a community. I wanted to find people who loved what I loved: the earth, the changing seasons, the inner life, the mystical, and the unusual place where ancestral roots, both pagan and Christian, come together through folklore, myth, and spirituality unencumbered by dogma. That is my inheritance, and I know that I am not alone in this.
Thank YOU for being here, for reading, commenting, and clicking the heart, which lets me know that you’ve heard my voice and that what I offer resonates with you. It is my sincere desire that this community continues to grow and that by being here, you find ways to connect with your own soul journey and go deeper into your inner life, discovering new insights and brilliant ah-ha moments along the way.
Happy Anniversary to each and every Hedge Mystic subscriber. You make this community, rich and fulfilling. Thank you. ~ Jan
Today’s Topic, The Grim Reaper
I feel an obligation not to rush the season even though Christmas decorations have invaded every store, and Black Friday Sales tempt our wallets even though Black Friday is still two weeks away.
It's an odd thing in modern times that the weeks before a holiday, the period of anticipation, have greatly eclipsed the time of the holiday, its actual day, and any period associated with it (the disappearance of the Twelve Days of Christmas comes to mind) due in large part to plastic, which offers us fake trees, wreaths, flowers, and decorations of all sorts allowing us to adorn our homes with electric lights, perpetually green boughs of pine and never fading poinsettias for many weeks before the holiday arrives. A hefty side helping of commercialism and a childish inability to wait patiently for what we long for also contribute to this modern phenomenon.
In an effort not to rush from Halloween right past Thanksgiving and headlong into Christmas, I make concerted efforts to stay present in Samhain, which encompasses all of November and the first three weeks of December.
It gets easier as the winter feast days of Martinmas, Catterntide, and Celtic Advent arrive in the second half of November. But right now, after the triple feast days of All Hallow's Eve, All Saint's Day, and All Soul's Day, I need an anchor to ground me to the season lest a tsunami of garland and tinsel sweep me away.
Enter Grim Reaper Day, an ancient and mysterious festival from the mists of time. Well, not really; I just made it up to fill the need to stay present to the land in early November. But it is a real thing for me, and I encourage you to create personal holidays and traditions when needed.
So, let me tell you about Grim Reaper Day.
Gardening season is over. Only the wild witch hazel is blooming now; even the asters in the meadow have gone to seed. Some berries linger, but as the temperatures drop, the birds' empty bellies make them greedy, and soon, the dots of red, orange, and deep purple that brighten the shrubs and vines will vanish, too, and the woods will be bare and gray.
Because my gardens are half-wild spaces, the goldenrod can reach seven feet, and the Joe Pye weed nearly six. The broom sedge and other grasses are tall and thick. When the snow comes, they will bend under the weight, break, and form a dense mat, haphazardly woven, that covers the ground. In the spring, it is nearly impossible to walk through this tangle, and it takes a long time for new growth to make its way above the net of last year's thick stems.
Of course, this is the way nature intended it to be. Many of the spent stems are hollow, and insects make their winter homes in them. The thickness of the faded plants offers cover to small animals and birds to take shelter away from biting winds and harsh storms.
But my land is only half-wild, and it needs some tending, or I risk losing the balance of human and other-than-human habitats I have carefully cultivated.
Grim Reaper Day arrives on the first Sunday in November. On that day, I walk my land and offer a blessing to protect it and all that live upon it. Then, after the blessing, my sickle, which is sharp, sturdy, and small, with a wooden handle I can grip easily, goes with me into the gardens, and I begin to reap. I cut the tall stalks of goldenrod and joe pye weed to about two or three feet, leaving plenty of lengths for insects to use, and I speak a blessing upon these little winter homes and those they will shelter and hide.
As I go along, I gather bundles of cut stalks and grasses and move them to the edge of the woods, creating brush piles. These will also serve as shelters for small animals during the winter. The cutting of flowering plants shakes them and scatters their seed, ensuring food for ground-feeding birds, field mice, and voles, as well as a new generation of plants.
In truth, it will take more than a day to cut everything down, so Grim Reaper Day becomes a week-long festival of honoring the land, the cycles of the season, and the shared space I inhabit.
It's an interesting experience embodying and enacting the archetypal energy of The Grim Reaper. The ancient cycle of the seasons plays itself out in my personal ritual in my own backyard. When I complete my task, the land slumbers, and dreams as the winter sets in.
However, not everything is asleep. Grim Reaper Day is also the day I put out my bird feeders and contribute to the health and well-being of the flocks of birds that remain in the woods throughout the winter. This year, I needed to replace a bird feeder, and that entailed pouring concrete and making a sturdy base for it. Grim Reaper Day is a day for completing outdoor tasks and helping all in my sphere of influence prepare to survive the winter.
Grim Reaper Day is also an exercise in working with earth wisdom and seasonal insights. The Grim Reaper is, of course, Death, yet if you look carefully, you will see that the cutting down is not a tragic ending but rather a preparation for safekeeping through hard times and a planting of seeds for new life and growth when the sun returns.
Winter is about taking care of gardens, birds, animals, our own families, and ourselves.
How will you prepare for a winter that cares for your needs, the needs of those you love, and the needs of those in the wild outdoors? Have you ever created your own personal holiday? Have you modified existing holidays to reflect better what you long for and what feeds your soul? How do you stave off the rush to Christmas or Yule and honor Samhain throughout November and early December?
The comments section is a safe and welcoming space to share your insights and experiences.
Comments and conversation are always appreciated and enjoyed, so feel free to let your voice be heard. I read them all and try to respond to each one.
Thank you for reading Hedge Mystic and participating in this vibrant and growing community of creative, spiritual humans. You are always welcome here, appreciated, and loved.
Just 48 hours left to….
Take a new moon to full moon journey with me. This offering is especially for women who are intrigued by what the Crone can awaken in them.
Learn about some of the ways the Crone appears in myth and folklore.
Work with the energy of Scorpio season, early winter, and the phases of the moon.
Engage with your wild immortality, erase regrets and lean into possibilities, remove the blindfold, and free your mind. All this and more make up the seasonal energy of the Crone.
From the new moon to the full moon, 14 days of sacred sisterhood and circle time await.
You’ll dream, muse, journal, and create in intuitive ways carried along by the Crone Energy of the season.
If you’ve been traveling with the 13 Moons of Samhain Class or if you created ancestor art in the Free Mini Samhain Creative Journey, this is a perfect way to continue discovering your stories and shaping your future self.
Available immediately upon joining
Welcome Module Video
Orientation - including process art video classes
Overview - of the journey including energetic influences, oracle + tarot cards to help you prepare
November 11th - New moon materials available
November 18th - Waxing moon materials available
November 25th - Full moon materials available
Course includes:
written materials
images
videos
audio files of guided journeys
art invitations
journaling questions
private classroom
sharing
And, of course, I will be there to guide you and provide insight, especially for you, as you share your experiences and art.
Before the madness of the holiday season is upon us, gift yourself quiet, introspective, and creative time to find a part of yourself that longs to come forward. Find out more about who you are and who you are becoming through inner journey work and creative self-expression.
Thank you for reading Hedge Mystic and participating in this vibrant and growing community of creative, spiritual humans. You are always welcome here, appreciated, and loved.
If you liked reading this, feel free to click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏
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!
Thank you. I love it.