The Night of the Thin Veil

September has been an extraordinary month of sun and still air, little has moved and time has appeared to stand still. Sunrises and sunsets have been spectacular.

Indeed, September 2013 will be remembered here in Ireland for the “Indian Summer,” often promised and rarely received!

Tomorrow is the last day of September.

We are now past equal day and night and on the descent to Samhain and the night of the “thin veil”…

I have spent as much time outdoors as possible, walking and watching the light play with the changing seasons.

The Celts believed in the sacredness of times and places “in between”.

The places, “in-between,”  the shore and land, thresholds, night and day, life and death.

The place between life and death was honoured in the form of a wake, for the soul took time to depart and journey onwards.

Bealtaine and Samhain are in-between times, when time stands still, as transition occurs.

Bealtaine is the transition to summer and Samhain the passing into winter.

‘Tis a pity that Samhain has been so commercialized, into the freak show of Halloween…it is not to be tolerated! Samhain is a lovely time of remembering and honouring the ancestors and all those who have passed from our lives during the year.

I hope you take the time to celebrate with a gathering of family, friends, feast and fire…reclaiming our precious traditions from the corporate nonsense of plastic pollution and Hollywood freak show!

(All photos today were taken by me, in the local area around Bealtaine Cottage.)

Blessings

Colette