My birthday has passed.
It was a wonderful day and here I am in a new year of my life, another journey around the sun!
It’s been an extraordinary journey so far and, as usual, it’s been a wonderful time for casting the occasional, cursory glance over my shoulder to the past.
To this end, I have recalled many aspects of my relationship with my parents, especially in my younger years, realising more and more just how wonderful they both were!
When one is in the thick of it all it’s sometimes very hard to see the people behind the parent mask.
As a parent it became obvious to me how much of a mask one had to don, at times…from the tough to the understanding and sometimes with little in-between!
However, I recall much of my memories of my parents with enduring humour, for I now am fully cognisant of what I put them through!
And so my birthday was a time to celebrate with both my parents in mind, especially my Mother! 
Her permanent optimism must have been difficult to carry at times, especially when faced with loss, grief, unhappiness and the all-permeating poverty.
I admire her more than ever with each passing year of wisdom and reflection.
Love endures.
I am fortunate to have reached a point in my journey where it is possible for me to understand the woman who was my Mother and the man behind the mask of fatherhood…one he rarely let slip, but I was lucky enough to see the interesting and caring man behind that mask.
The celebrations continue into Samhain, the 31st of October.
Tomorrow the fire will be lit and the ancestors invited into the midst of the family and friends who will gather.
The following day will herald in the first day of the Celtic New Year…a great time of renewal, wishes and hopes for the journey ahead.
On another note, I am aware that Thursday will be the first day of November and I have several boxes of calendars here in the study, waiting to be re-homed!
So if you want to think about possible Yuletide gifts, then look no further!
I am happy to post on your behalf to anywhere in the world!
There is also a wonderful selection of Bealtaine Cottage books and a magical, mythical map…here are the links:
SPECIAL OFFER! Reduced to clear… Bealtaine Cottage Calendar for 2019
Price includes postage and packing worldwide! The calendar hosts a page of colour photographs from Bealtaine Cottage for each month of the year. The months of the year are written in Celtic script…ie: May is Bealtaine, August is Lughnasadh and so on…many of you are already familiar with the Celtic Calendar. The pictures on each month also feature some added wisdom from Bealtaine Cottage and information on the ancient festivals of Celtic Ireland.
€9.95
Magical Mythical Map of Bealtaine Cottage and Gardens
Beautiful map created by the artist David Gascoigne, especially for Bealtaine Cottage. The picture shows one side of the map…it is printed on both sides, see the photos on this page. The price includes all Postage and Packing to wherever you live in the world! Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.
€12.00
Bealtaine Cottage Guide to the Deep Midwinter
A little Yuletide book filled with colour photographs, recipes, reflections, lore, poetry and mirth to guide you through the wonderful days ahead. Fifty pages of sheer delight from Bealtaine Cottage to you. The book is fully bound and can be posted direct as a gift. Price includes P&P worldwide. Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.
€15.00
In Search of The Goddess Rising
This is the second book in the Goddess Permaculture series from Colette O’Neill at Bealtaine Cottage, Ireland. In this book I explore the ancient landscape, mythology, literature and life around Bealtaine Cottage… in search of the Great Goddess. The price of the book includes all postage and packing to wherever you live in the world! Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.
€21.00
“A Cottage and Three Acres,” by Colette O’Neill
Please email Colette if you would like a particular inscription in your book. From a desolate cottage set in 3 acres of monoculture sadness, to a vibrant, thriving food forest of life…the journey back to Eden over 13 years… Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.
€27.00
SAMHAIN…The Celts believed that Oidhche Shamhna, Samhain, was an open portal in time. 
This weekend marks the prelude to Samhain.
Monday is the day of 
It is a time of in-between…between worlds as the Celts believed it to be… 
The Celts understood the year to be divided into two halves associated with the dark and the light. 
The dark half begins at sunset on October 31st with Samhain.
Both festivals are closely linked, but Samhain is considered to be the most important.
In Ireland, years ago, great preparations were made for the sharing of a feast that included the departed as guests of honour. 
To enable them to come and go freely, all doors and windows were left unlatched; a special cake was made exclusively for their consumption, and a certain amount of other food was set aside just for them. 
This had to be left untouched by any mortal hand for the duration of the ritual period. Eating the food of the dead was considered to be a major sacrilege and it condemned the perpetrator to becoming a hungry spirit after death, forever banned from sharing in the Samhain feast.
As Bridget Haggerty writes in “Irish Culture and Customs,” “…As with many of the old festivals, Christianity stepped in to do whatever it could to eliminate pagan rituals.
In this case, it was Pope Boniface who took the festival of the dead and made it the festival of all saints and martyrs.
Originally it took place on May 13th, but a century later, Pope Gregory III shifted it to November.
In Ireland, All Saints Day was instituted in 998 AD by Abbot Odilo of Cluny and by the 13th century, although many of the old Samhain rituals persisted as folk customs, November 1st had become firmly established as a Christian festival.”
All Saints Eve is now 31st of October…Samhain! 
So what was always and only a great Celtic celebration has been claimed by a relatively contemporary religion as its own! 
However, Ireland being an island and its people being thinly removed from its cultural heritage, as John B. Keane once wrote in the play “The Field,” we have not forgotten our roots!
In the play, “The Field,” the parish priest proclaims Christianity to be a “thin veneer” over Irish people, in a derogatory reference both to the people and pre-Christian Paganism alike. 
Regarding the compassion displayed for those who grieved and mourned the loss of family and loved ones, we were far removed from how the Romans described us as “Barbarians!” 
As for the souls of the dead, all were honoured, unlike the Christian church here in Ireland which regarded the souls of un-baptised babies as being condemned to “Purgatory”.
Such was the the belief as I grew up and for the countless generations of those in my family before me. 
This Samhain I will try to remember and honour all my family and friends no longer in this mortal sphere.
Samhain, (pronounced “Sow-when”) is the most important time in the Ancient Irish (and Celtic) Calendar.
The time of Samhain starts at dusk, when the light and dark are in balance.
This was never regarded as a time of death, but a time of incubation for Mother Earth. 
It was the onset of Winter that allowed the Great Mother to get ready the seed for Spring. 
Samhain is the Celtic New Year’s Eve. 
It is at this time, between worlds, that the veil is thin. 
A time of possibilities. 
A time to pay honour to those who are no longer with us in human form.
This was a time of endings and the promise of beginnings, a time for stillness and reflection. 
It was understood that in the dark silence of Mother Earth, when all appears dead, comes the promise of new beginnings, the stirring of the seed beneath the ground.
It is on this night, some believe, that time stands still, allowing access to other worlds and into new consciousness. 
As I walked the gardens today, taking these photographs, there was a real sense of endings and beginnings, of approaching a marker in time.
A sense of anticipation and readiness for the sabbatical that is Winter…for Samhain means “Summer’s End” and as the Celts believed, this was Winter’s Beginning. 
As an integral part of their culture and interpretation of life, the Celts held strong the tradition of The Transmigration of Souls, a philosophy I believe in.
The Celts believed in two lands after death, the Underworld and the Otherworld.
The Otherworld was the abode of the dead. 
This is interesting, as it strongly suggests a “life alongside the dead”…and in that an understanding of the “Night of the Thin Veil,” 
Archaeological evidence has drawn attention to the richness of Iron Age tombs and the abundance of grave goods within them. 
There is literary evidence from Caesar that seems to confirm at least part of the Celtic Beliefs system. 
In his description of the Druids, he alluded to some of their lore that related directly to the movement of souls between one world and another or between one individual and another. He states:
Lucan (Pharsalia: I) stated that the Celts considered death as merely an interruption in a continuous life, as the spirit passed from one form into another, or from one world to another. 
Other writers, such as Diodorus Siculus drew attention to similar beliefs – that the soul was immortal and, as its body deteriorated with age, it simply moved to another, usually located in another world. 
And so we celebrate Samhain…
