Solstice windows and Equinox marker, MoonCourt, Australia: marking Her Turas.

In our everyday sacred journey around Mother Sun – the “Turas”[i] of our Planet Earth – our orbit is moving us towards the Seasonal Moment of Samhain/Beltaine: the cross-quarter between Equinox and Solstice – further into Autumn towards Winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and further into Spring towards Summer in the Northern Hemisphere. The Moment will be at 13:13 “Universal Time” on the 5^th May … that’s May 5^th 23:13 EST Australia – my place. All global times are available at http://www.archaeoastronomy.com/

In the Southern Hemisphere our Planet enters the Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn, as the dark part of the day continues to grow and to dominate. It is a time for remembering all who have gone before, those who have passed into the night, the ancestors, all of whom have enabled this present moment. It may be a time of celebration of Transformation, as the year turns; and a time for dreaming and conceiving the new – for new re-solutions. It is a Moment of celebration of Dark and its processes – the comfort and rest it may bring, its sentient fertility rich with possibility, in which the past is composted, and out of which the new may be composed/conceived.

In the Northern Hemisphere our Planet enters the Season of Beltaine/High Spring, as the light part of the day continues to grow and to dominate. It is a time for remembering the beauty and sweetness of the dance of life and essential deep desire for it. It may be a time of celebration of Allurement, as a cosmic power:[ii] a Moment of celebration of Light and its processes – the diverse abundant colour wavelengths received into our eyes awakening our senses[iii], the warmth received on our skin, the manifestation of flowers, fruits and beauty, and the passion enkindled out of which relational connections deepen. The creative nature of passion and desire felt deep within and expressed multivalently, is worthy of much more contemplation.

Samhain and Beltaine are essential to each other – one cannot be without the other; and they occur at the same time … are co-incidental. Knowing a sense of death – the knowing of the passing of All is intimate with enjoying the moment of Now – its gift and all its beauty. What’s more, Life is built on Death – this moment and all presently manifest beings would not be here, if all had not passed before. Death is actually the Mother of us all – we may be thankful. In the ceremonial celebration of Beltaine/High Spring we may remember how “we are united with all who have come before us, in their desire, in their longing …”: to sense the wholeness of form and trans-form, the flux and unity that this Event of life actually is. Both Seasonal Moments have traditionally often been times of high revelry celebrating a wild fertile space – one a genetic fertility, the other a trans-genetic/imaginal fertility. It could be a kind of excitement felt in bodyminds in anticipation of the fullness of dark or light, the climax (as it will be at Solstice – Winter and Summer). And in the evolutionary story the advent of meiotic sex is connected to the advent of death[iv]: there is intimate connection.

For some Samhain/Deep Autumn Poetry: Celebrating PaGaian Samhain on YouTube

For some Beltaine/High Spring Poetry: Celebrating PaGaian Beltaine on YouTube

Many will celebrate the Moment on traditional dates, and yet others will enjoy it closer to the actual astronomical moment. Here in Australia where I am located, since I am travelling this year my Samhain/Deep Autumn celebration will be a modest ceremony, close to the moment on the 5^th May. I invite celebration:

Earth’s tilt leans us further into the Dark –
 this is the time for conceiving the new …

You are invited to celebrate

SAMHAIN


In this Moment, between the old and the new,

all is possible.:

The veil is thin that divides the worlds.

We remember the dead, let go of the past,

conceive the Not-Yet.

We remember that we are More, much More.

We meet to trans-form yet again,

in the Womb of the Dark Shining One,


of our own bodyminds.

…oOo…

PaGaian Cosmology blogs for Samhain/Deep Autumn

PaGaian Cosmology blogs for Beltaine/High Spring

Samhain/Deep Autumn and Beltaine/High Spring meditations are available on PaGaian Cosmology Meditations CDs and are also available (at that link) for purchase in digital format. The meditations are appropriate for groups as well as individuals, for enhancing seasonal participation in this holy moment.

Some Samhain and Beltaine story may be found in Appendix F of PaGaian Cosmology or if you have a paper version of the book, there is an Index for references throughout. These Seasonal Moments in relationship to the whole Wheel of the Year may be found in Chapter 5, and ritual/ceremonial scripts are offered in Chapter 7 though they of course have always evolved and been adapted to personal and regional poietics. The on-line versions are different from those in the paper copy of the book.

Samhain/Deep Autumn and Beltaine/HighSpring notes, images and meditations that have been part of PaGaian Cosmology courses over years are available: Celebrating PaGaian Cosmology On-Line .

NOTES:

[i] Turas is a Celtic word meaning “journey”, “pilgrimage”, and refers especially to the circular, spiralling prayer used by people in Celtic countries as they walked sunwise around a sacred site. (Caitlin Matthews, The Celtic Spirit, p.31)

[ii] Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, p.43-52.

[iii] See Laura Sewall, “Earth, Eros, Sky” in Earthlight, Winter 2000, for more on this.

[iv] See Elisabet Sahtouris, Earthdance, NE: iUniverse, 2000, p.134-135, and Ursula Goodenough, The Sacred Depths of Nature, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998, p.143-149. More can be made of this link between these Seasonal Moments: orgasm has been termed “a little death” in French.