Honoring the Cycles of Life and Death, by Anodea Judith

Honoring the Cycles of Life and Death

By Anodea Judith

Once upon a time we lived in deep connection with the natural world. The cycles of the seasons, the phases of the moon, the dance of light and dark, birth, life and death, were deeply woven into everyday life. Nature was a part of us, and we were a part of everything around us.

We’ve lost touch with those cycles, but they affect us nonetheless.

What we now call Halloween was once a sacred time of connecting with the ancestors, communicating with loved ones who had passed away, and acknowledging that everything dies in order to be reborn. It wasn’t about costumes and candy, but a time when the veil between this world and the spirit world was believed to be the thinnest. It was a time of getting quiet, surrendering to the darkness, and seeking the vision that wants to be born in the spring.

In the ancient Celtic calendar, they called this day Samhain (pronounced Sow-on, which means summer’s end), and saw it as the end of the old year and the start of the new. This is when (in the northern hemisphere at least) the plants lay down their stalks, drop their seeds upon the ground, and enter the Underworld for the winter. It was seen as a time of letting go of what has served its purpose, not a time of building or creating.

In the play of gods and goddesses that danced through the cycles of the year, this time of the waning sun was when the masculine god gave up his solar drive to rule and entered the realm of darkness and death. This was an initiation, a time to connect with the spirit world for the guidance of what is to be reborn on the other side. His death, like the stalk that drops its seeds, is what impregnates the Earth Mother as she gestates for the winter.

All things serve their time and purpose.

The acts of destruction, so rampant in our politics these days, result from the linear masculine drive that denies the natural cycles of death and renewal. Systems that are not allowed to evolve organically then have to be destroyed in order to evolve. But that destruction is always messy and painful, causing immense suffering. It’s not done for the purpose of regeneration, but an unconscious reaction to a rigid system in a dynamic world. Our movies are filled with explosions, especially institutional buildings. Like children, we want to blow up what we can’t understand or fix.

This destruction has been repeated through history time and again. Every war and conquest, every fallen empire, is a cosmic act of destruction resulting from failure to change and adapt. Sometimes the long-term outcomes are progressive, such as the French Revolution rising up against the monarchy of Louis XVI, or the end of apartheid in South Africa and the Civil War ending slavery in the U.S.

Other times the result is disastrous: Rome fell as it overreached its military conquest and fell into corruption and Barbarian invasion. Germany’s weakness after WWI gave rise to Hitler. The Iranian Revolution gave rise to Islamic theocracy. The U.S. is falling into dictatorship.

Can we let go of what is not working, and let the feminine cycles of rest and rejuvenation have their due in the natural order? Can we return to the sacred cycles of life with respect and honor, and allow things to change and evolve?

This Samhain – in the days between Halloween and November 5 – think about what you want to let go of. Allow that shift to take place in your body. Shake it out, stomp the ground, yell and scream, or write things on paper and burn them.

Then meditate in the null space of the darkness, and allow yourself to dream and vision. Dream of the world you want to see rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Dream of what you want to create, what you want to be different, what wants to emerge from you. Plant the seeds, symbolically or literally, with prayers and respect.

We can’t stop these cycles from occurring, for they are the underlying cosmic structure of Nature. As the days get shorter, welcome the darkness. Go into your chrysalis, and let the old structure of the caterpillar fall away.

There is a new butterfly waiting to emerge that could be beyond your wildest dreams!

Reprinted from Substack