'Tis time for a new world and a new year

Have you noticed today a thinning of the curtain between this world and tother? Has it thinned enough to peer through? Did you grasp a curtain corner and pull it back a bit to peek and see what’s beyond? Do you know that before there was All Hallow’s Eve [Halloween], there was Samhain.

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.

This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

visitors crossing the  curtain?

Photo by J. Harrington

It doesn’t take much imagination to picture leaves blown from the trees this afternoon, sailing through the air, as visitors passing through the curtain that separates those living in this world from those in tother. If, as science tells us, we are indeed made of stardust, then belief in reincarnation of one sort or another could also be scientific, couldn’t it be? Is the entire universe in which we live an oversized recycling bin and the big bang a remanufacturing center? How you answer such questions probably depends on your basic world view, of which  there are many. One of my favorites is portrayed by Joni Mitchell and shared below. Another is described by Joy Harjo and, because tomorrow begins Native American Heritage Month, is shared here as A Map to the Next World.

Woodstock

by Joni Mitchell

I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm *
I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an' get my soul free 

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of man
I don't know who I am
But you know life is for learning

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation

We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
back to the garden

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