This week on the Celtic Calendar . . . Samhain

From ghoulies and ghosties 
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night, 
Good Lord, deliver us! 
                                       ~Traditional Scottish Prayer

Just as the new day in the Celtic tradition begins with nightfall, so too does the new year begin as darkness closes in around us. Samhain (pronounced sow-in) starts at sun down on October 31 and marks the beginning of the new year on the Celtic calendar. 

Like other threshold times and places, the beginning of Samhain, is a thin time when the veil between heaven and earth, this world and the next, is particularly permeable. It was thought that this liminal time allowed the ghosts of ancestors to come back and visit their former homes, along with more undesirable visitors from the other world who managed to sneak through. 

Many of our Halloween traditions come from this idea of discouraging the not-so-friendly spirits from visiting. Jack-o-lanterns carved from rutabagas or turnips were placed in windows or by doorways to frighten away trickster spirits. In case scare tactics didn't work, treats of food were left as offerings for the ghosties and ghoulies and faerie folk who might be out wandering on Samhain night. Later customs saw people dressing up as these creatures, going from house to house to collect the treats and sometimes playing a trick or two on their neighbors in the process.

Community bonfires are one of the earliest Samhain traditions. Bonfires were lit in the hills or in the center of towns to keep the evil spirits at bay. As people left their homes to participate in revelries with their neighbors they'd extinguish the fire in their hearths. Before returning home, they'd take fire from the communal bonfire in order to light their home fires afresh, often encircling their houses, barns and fields with the new fire as a form of purification and blessing.

In practical terms, Samhain was a time to finish bringing in the last of the harvest, move livestock from their summer pastures to shelter closer to home, and to begin to settle in for the long, dark months of winter where light and resources were scarce. It was a season not only to take stock, but also to plan for the year ahead.

Spiritually, Samhain offers us the opportunity to honor those who have gone before us. Festivals such as Dia de Muertos and All Saints and All Souls day on the Christian calendar invite us to give thanks for the wisdom of our ancestors and the inspiration of the saints who have shaped us. During Samhain as we reflect on those who have passed out of this life, we are also called to take stock and consider the things that may be germinating in the dark, waiting to be born into this world. Samhain is a time to douse the embers of the old fire and kindle new the sparks of new passion and energy in our lives.

This week on the Celtic calendar . . . Michaelmas

"On Michaelmas Eve and Christmas,    We will all taste of the bannock." ~ Scottish Reaping Blessing

September 29 is Michaelmas, one of the cross-quarter days on the Celtic calendar.  Ostensibly the feast day of Michael the archangel in the Christian church, in the British Isles the day was celebrated as a harvest festival marking the end of the growing year.  It was a time to celebrate the abundance of the fields and streams before the leaner, colder season shifted the focus from field to forest, from gathering to hunting. Like many harvest festivals, Michaelmas was celebrated with traditional foods.  So if you were a Celt in years gone by, what would have been on your table this evening?  

Instead of a Thanksgiving turkey, you'd be enjoying a stubble goose, a bird fattened on the grain that remained in the fields after the harvest.  And if you were too poor to buy a goose for yourself, never fear.  Chances are you'd be given a goose in payment for services from the local lord or food would be shared with you from the community.  To soak up your goose juice, you'd have a slice of struan, a bread made from the grains harvested from those same fields that fattened your goose.  If you lived in Ireland, your struan would be a yeast bread, baked in the oven.  In Scotland, you'd have a slice of bannock (unleavened bread) cooked on a griddle. The ingredients of your struan would depend upon what grains you grew, usually some combination of oats,barley, rye, wheat or maybe even corn. 

If you lived in the Hebrides you'd also get one of your five-a-day with a healthy serving of carrots. The Sunday before Michaelmas, the women would take a three prong tool (designed to look like the trident of St. Michael) into the field and dig up the wild carrots, tying them with a triple strand of red thread keeping them covered with sand until time for cooking.  If fruit is more your thing, there would be apples from the beginning of the apple harvest and the end of the season's blackberries. According to legend, when Michael threw Satan out of heaven, the deposed angel landed in a blackberry bush and from then on has "spit on the blackberries" on the feast of St. Michael, making fruit gathered after September 29 unpalatable.  

No matter what was on your plate, however, Michaelmas was an opportunity to not only offer blessings for the harvest and all that helped bring it to fruition, but also a time to share that bounty with those less fortunate in the community.  So no matter what is on your plate this evening . . . be it stubble goose or KFC, take a moment to remember all those who made your food possible and all those whose plates are empty.

From a Celtic Blessing for Michaelmas
O Michael the victorious,
     Jewel of my heart,
     O Michael the victorious,
     God's shepherd thou art.
Be the sacred Three of Glory
Aye at peace with me,
With my horses, with my cattle,
With my woolly sheep in flocks.
With the crops growing in the field
Or ripening in the sheaf,
On the machair, on the moor,
In cole, in heap, or stack.
     Every thing on high or low,
     Every furnishing and flock,
     Belong to the holy Triune of glory,
     And to Michael the victorious.

This Week on the Celtic Calendar: Ordinary Time

Ordinary time. It's that season on the church calendar between Pentecost and Advent when nothing much is going on. No feasting or fasting. No preparation or celebration. Liturgical life is just . . . ordinary.  

Daily life, however, is another story. Rarely are our lives just ordinary. The human condition seems to swing back and forth between activity and rest, strife and peace, sorrow and joy. It's a rhythm we see mirrored in the landscape around us, in the turning of the seasons, in the turning of the tide.

Perhaps that's why the concept of ebb and flow features so strongly in Celtic spirituality. Nature, that first book of revelation, reminds us that what is ordinary is change, movement.  

The tide comes in, the tide goes out. The lesson for us in ordinary time is to learn to live in the moment and go with the flow.

This week on the Celtic Calendar . . . The Feast of St. Melangell

Now they reached Melangell’s lonely church:
Amid a grove of evergreens it stood,
A garden and a grove, 
where every grave
Was decked with flowers, 
or with unfading plants
O’ergrown,—sad rue 
and funeral rosemary.   
                            ~Robert Southey

May 27 is the fest of St. Melangell.  Despite her popularity in Wales where her story has inspired countless poets, the tale of Melangell and her hare isn't widely known in the rest of the world.  Born in Ireland of royal parentage, like so many of the women Celtic saints of her era she fled her homeland to escape an arranged marriage and ended up in a secluded valley nestled in the Berwyn mountains where she spent fifteen years living and praying among the creatures of the forest and field and avoiding human contact.  

One day as she was deep in prayer, she heard the distant horns of a hunter and soon a frightened hare, pursued by a pack of hounds, ran into the clearing and under Melangell's skirt, seeking shelter.  Rather than attacking Melangell in order to get to their prey, the hounds were brought up short, stopped by a force field of holiness that emanated from her.  Soon the owner of the dogs, the prince of Powys, rode up on his steed, furious that a

trespasser interrupted his hunt. Brochwell tried to encourage his dogs to go for the hare, but when he blew his hunting horn, it stuck to his lips and didn't make a sound.  After hearing Melangell's story, Brochwell asked her if she'd be willing to accept the surrounding land as a gift and establish an abbey that would offer sanctuary to all who needed it.  Melangell agreed and spent the rest of her long life offering shelter and hospitality to those in need.  

In latter years the church and Melangell's shrine fell into disrepair.  The church and shrine were restored in the 1990s and the St. Melangell Centre was established to offer pastoral support for cancer patients and their loved ones.  In 2003 the Centre expanded their ministry to offer sanctuary to anyone in need by providing space and resources for quiet days, retreats, and educational programs.