Samonis, the November Feast
It’s the end of the year tonight, and tomorrow Winter begins and the Hag rules. Tonight the ancestors come and feast with the living. The veil between the worlds is thin, and you must be careful not to get lost in a place you can’t return from.
This is my favourite holiday, usually. I greet it with joy and abandon most years.
However, this year I feel a strange melancholy, a solemnity settle over me. It’s time to get back to basics, the earth whispers to me, and I know it’s right.
So I am restarting my witchcraft education. From the beginning. Simplicity. I am reading The Twelve Wild Swans and doing the Elements Path. I am taking my time. Becoming a practicing witch is not a race against the clock; it’s the work of a lifetime. (Page 16.)
Today I attune myself with the earth, the air, the fire, the water, and the directions in which they reside. I get my hands messy in the guts of a pumpkin. I have a feast with some friends, enjoying the simple pleasures of companionship and fireworks (in celebration of Guy Fawkes Night; in this Commonwealth country we do it a week early). The night ends with a write-in for NaNoWriMo, at midnight, in a famous Canadian coffee shop that’s open 24/7 and has really bad coffee but pretty good hot chocolate.
I will also finish the homework that’s due tomorrow afternoon, and do the reading required for class so I can have the option of skipping lecture and going straight to seminar. (Lecture is at 9am, and I will be up fairly late tonight.)
My partner was supposed to be over visiting this weekend, but it may be better that he’s not. I miss him, of course, and am sad I don’t get to spend my favourite holiday with him — but I’m feeling the need for spiritual growth, spiritual solitude right now, and while we share many things in our life, spirituality is not one of them. (Which, overall, is a good thing.)
Most importantly, today I am going to allow myself to get things done at my own pace. I’m not going to allow myself to feel guilty if I’m not working on a particular project. I have things to do, but they can wait. It’s only the end of the year once every 365 days, after all, and this holiday requires my attention and meditation. Work can wait until tomorrow.
“… a famous Canadian coffee shop that’s open 24/7 and has really bad coffee but pretty good hot chocolate.”
I am so glad I’m not the only one who thinks their coffee is awful! To their credit, though, at least they’re not overcharging for it, unlike an even more famous non-Canadian chain.
Sunflower
Very true, and more often than I’d like I end up drinking their coffee, because it’s my boyfriend’s favourite (I love him, I love him, I love him) and we’re cheap and/or poor.
Mind you, I was kind of irked that they gave me a coffee when I ordered a hot chocolate the other night (a vanilla latte — very specific mistake). I didn’t notice until it was too late, though.
I have a friend who lives in Buffalo and works there, and when we met she asked me “What is it with you Canadians and your obsession with our coffee? It’s horrible!” XD