At Samhain, the Witches' New Year, we face darkness. The cold has come; frosts sharpen the nights. In that darkness, we have a chance to face the past.
Our local pagan elders are our tangible past -- they were there; they know where the bodies are buried. Sometimes they decide to dig them up! Not only did six elders of the Seattle-Tacoma pagan communities consent to answer some pertinent (and impertinent) questions from me, but also our publisher Sylvana Silverwitch talks about her experiences as a local elder. She does not mince words.
Memories can be painful. Freya talks about grieving your past but also celebrating it, and then letting it go. Kevin talks about a figure with roots in the African past, a lwa from the Vodou pantheon, Ezili Danto, who has made a home in the Americas. Alan also draws on the African past to discuss how ways from the village, applied to a family camp, can make a more spiritual life livable. Catherine considers how past pagans fed themselves for winter. Cynthia gives us Samhain stars, and Genevieve gives us Samhain songs.
We finish this issue with some fiction from Bestia Mortale, in which a figure from the deep past rises to meet our skinny, unprepossessing narrator. Most of us feel pretty unprepossessing facing the specters of Samhain.
It's worth the cost to do it, though. The shadows have their wisdom. Sometimes it's painful. All the same, look into the darkness, and listen.
Copyright © 2006 by the article's author