This issue of Widdershins is devoted to seeing through the veil. By focusing on dreams, visions and trance journeys, and pathworking, we hope to gain some insight into the other side before we make the trip there ourselves.
There is another way to learn about the other side: ask someone there. On Samhain, the veil parts and the dead can walk the earth again. We honor the dead, but how often do we talk with them? The dead have seen wonders we can only guess at. We can toss out words like "the Isle of Apples", "Valhalla", or just plain old "Heaven", but to us, they are just words. The dead know these places -- they live there. They have passed through life and death. They know things; only a fool would ignore their wisdom.
Speaking of talking to the dead, I have a passing to report. The last issue of Widdershins was devoted to sacrifice. The cover article, by me, talked about environmental activists putting their bodies on the line for Gaia. In a line that is haunting me, I said: "While, at least in our country, their sacrifices are not usually fatal, they are very real." At the time, I was thinking of environmental activist Judy Bari, whose death by cancer was hastened by her old injuries from the car bomb put under her seat.
On September 17, the day the sacrifice issue went to press, another environmental activist named Gypsy (born David Chain) was murdered by a logger defending California's Headwaters forest. The logger shouted: "Better wear a hard hat, because this one's coming for you!" as he felled a giant tree at Gypsy and the other activists with him. Gypsy didn't make it out of the way in time.
Headwaters is the largest unprotected area of old growth redwood trees in the world. I've walked in Headwaters forest and can tell you that it is one of Gaia's sacred places. Gypsy died defending Gaia. When you honor the dead this Samhain, remember Gypsy, martyred warrior of Gaia. If you need an image, Gypsy was 20ish, thin, faintly Asian looking with a goatee and a bandana on his head. Talk to him and you may learn something of the Earth and Her mysteries. I will.
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