Elders 21 – Samhain

At one point we were 27 around the fire, to welcome in Samhain, the time when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest. The time of inviting our ancestors to join us, to turn our minds to think about them again, remember their life and all that they gave to us, that continues within us. Ancestors known and unknown, including those Gina and Greg found on the field millions of years old. Ancestors who celebrated Samhain as we are dong now. The time of change from the light to the dark, the season shift to winter, when the sap returns to the roots, and of long dark nights, hunkering down.

After calling in the guardians of directions – air, fire, water and earth – we gathered and invited in our ancestors. We based the invitation on that old children’s game, I packed my bag and in it I put a book etc. only this time we unpacked the bag and out of came…

• Kali my dog
• John Macrae, a friend
• My grandmother, Marie
• My brother Justin, who died too young
• My mum, Hazel
• An agent of peace
• Tamsyn my wife and Halesworth town ought to remember her too
• The grandparents I knew and those I did not know
• My husband David, who died soon after we moved here, and Minion my black and white cat
• My mum, Marjory, my soulmate Rolly
• My grandma from Wrentham, Aunty Olive , and Gael of course
• My mother Katherine Douglas, my friend Brenda whose funeral I have just been to, and who I went to school with, and I’ve known her all those years
• My father Neville, Frederick Anthony AKA GBFD, who died 15 years ago exactly on this day
• My daughter in law who I loved very much, Jessie the dog, my grandmother and Cardinal Hume
• My heart dog, Millie
• My father William Guard who died at the age of 100, and mother Jean Guard.

On this glorious October day we walked to the field, to gather leaves for Kally to assist us work magic.  On an already mordanted white sheet, dipped briefly in iron, we lay our leaves, covered the sheet with a blanket, wrapped all in a thin film of plastic and rolled it up tightly into a long sausage, which we bandaged. This we put into the fish steamer for 30 minutes. While we waited we enjoyed our cake, and some of us ventured to plant some bulbs on Kali’s grave.

The great reveal, revealed that one end was much more pronounced than the other, and red maple turned blue, as did the tannin in the oak leaf.

Neil Mahler, the Suffolk Recorder of Fungi, also paid us a visit this day and found shaggy ink cap and Crepidotus mollis – Peeling Oysterling on ash, which we felt and smelt and wondered at.