The Year is Drawing Nigh, a Samhain poem

The Year is Drawing Nigh

A Samhain poem by Muninn’s Kiss

As darkness fall, the veil thin,

The year is drawing nigh.

Shadows lengthen, gather strength,

The year is drawing nigh.

The dead they stir, and look around,

The year is drawing nigh.

Tonight they walk, tonight they dine,

The year is drawing nigh.

The sinks down, she’s dying now,

The year is drawing nigh.

Beneath the hills, the dying sun,

The year is drawing nigh.

Hollow hills, they open wide,

The year is drawing nigh.

Faerie folk, the mighty dead,

The year is drawing nigh.

Samhain’s fires, burning bright,

The year is drawing nigh.

To dance around, in death’s embrace,

The year is drawing nigh.

Ancestors dead, some long gone,

The year is drawing nigh.

We tip a glass, we place a plate,

The year is drawing nigh.

Death stands up, tonight he reigns,

The year is drawing nigh.

In darkness strong, the dying year,

The year is drawing nigh.

The revelers grow deathly quiet,

The year is drawing nigh.

All knees bend and all tongue stilled,

The year is drawing nigh.

For Death takes all and all will come,

The year is drawing nigh.

The Gates of Death, they open wide,

The year is drawing nigh.

His face you meet, at Death’s great doors,

The year is drawing nigh.

A friend, a judge, a lover, a blade,

The year is drawing nigh.

His embrace is sweet, but deathly cold,

The year is drawing nigh.

In love he strips you, bone from bone,

The year is drawing nigh.

Nothing left, you pass beyond,

The year is drawing nigh.

The veil it parts, the doors swing wide,

The year is drawing nigh.

Your last strong breath, last orgasm,

The year is drawing nigh.

And through you go, to what’s beyond,

The year is drawing nigh.

But Death’s great doors and Life’s fair doors,

The year is drawing nigh.

What’s dead and gone, will be reborn,

The year is drawing nigh.

A new breath breathed, a new day dawns,

The year is drawing nigh.

Death to Life, he takes your hand,

The year is drawing nigh.

All is gone, but all in new,

The year is drawing nigh.

The new dawn’s sun, in the east,

The year is drawing nigh.

The cold it flees, the shadows hide,

The year is drawing nigh.

Dark Samhain’s night to new year’s light,

The year is drawing nigh.

What was dead has come again.

Nine Acts of Witchcraft Become the Three Grimr, Part 1, Nourishment...

In 2009 and 2010, I wrote a series of ten posts on the first nine acts of witchcraft.  These posts were an analysis of the nine acts, the nine changes, G-d did at the beginning of Genesis which brought about the creation of the world.  I looked at them in sequential order as they occurred over the seven days in the myth.  I'd like to take another look at these acts by looking at them in a different way.

The nine acts are:

1. Let there be light.  (link)
2. Let there be a firmament.  (link)
3. Let the waters under heaven be gathered.  (link)
4. Let the earth put forth.  (link)
5. Let there be lights in the firmament.  (link)
6. Let the waters swarm and let fowl fly.  (link)
7. Let the earth bring forth the living creature.  (part 1) (part 2)
8. Let us make man in our image.  (link)
9. And he rested.  (link)

People usually focus on there being seven days, but few ever mention that there are nine acts.  The number nine doesn't occur often in Hebrew texts and thoughts compared to other numbers, but is is very common in Norse and Germanic myth.  Among many other occurances of the number, there are nine worlds, Odin hung on the Tree, a sacrifice by himself to himself, for nine days, and nine of the gods survive Ragnarok.  Also, in Greek myth, there are nine muses.  In Robert Cochrane's letters, you circle the alter three time three (9) times for the Maid, three times six (18 which is 9 time 2) times for the Mother, and three times nine (36) times for the Hag.  Also, he indicates nine Rites or Knots of the year during which the male and female clans would come together.

But nine is always related to three in myth, as is six.  Six is three sets of twins, and nine three sets of three.  When you look at the nine acts as groups of three chronologically, not much emerges.  In the first trinity, we see separation, separation, coming together.  In the second, we see three things coming forth.  In the third, we coming forth, making, resting.  While these sets are interesting and shouldn't be ignored, they don't form any patterns that are common for all three sets.  But if we group them by taking each one in the chronological grouping and put them with each in the next set and so far, some interesting details emerge.

Let there be light.  Let the earth put forth.  Let the earth bring forth living creatures.

Working backwards, we see the the earth bringing the living creature, and the earth putting forth plants.  The connection here between the two is easy to see.  The earth brings forth both.  The interesting thing is there are two words here.  Let the earth put forth uses dasha (דָּשָׁא), but when the earth obeys, it brings forth, yatsa' (יָצָא).  Dasha is to sprout, to grow green.  Yatsa' is to put forth, to depart or cause to depart.  So it sprouts, then grows up, out, away from the ground.  But G-d tells the land to bring forth, yatsa', the living creature.  And all the living things of the earth (not of the water or the air) are brought forth, pushed out of the ground.  And then, it says, G-d makes, 'asah (עָשָׂה), fashions all of them.  So they come forth, then are formed.

But back to the first triune, the first of the Grimr.  The first two are easily connected, the earth bringing forth.  Out of the earth they come.  But how does that connect to the first?  Let there be light.  To see the connection, we must understand nature and cycles.  Let's start with the creatures.  To begin with, they only eat plants.  Only later do some eat other creatures.  Plants.  So animals, the third part, eat plants, the second part.  So what do plants live on?  If animals get their energy from plants, where do plants get their energy?  Light.  Ah ha, light!  The first part.  So light feeds the plants and plants feed the animals.  Now this triune starts to make sense and come together.

But there's another element here.  The plants and animals come out of the earth, but where does the light come out of?  Let's look back a bit:

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.
3 And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light. 

And afterwards:

3 And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.

So, before light, there was the earth, darkness, waters, and the spirit of G-d (The four elements.  Earth and water.  The spirit is wind, air.  The darkness is black fire, see The earth was (tohu va-vohu), chaos and void...)  And it's the darkness that the light is intermingled with, not the rest.  So it would seem that the light came out of the darkness, just as the plants and animals came out of the earth.  There is a verse somewhere in the Zohar that says that light is brightest that comes out of the darkness.  The black fire of inspiration brings forth light, illumination, Truth.

So the darkness, the fire, brings forth light, and the earth brings forth plants, then animals.  The light nourishes the plants.  The plants nourish the animals.  The three are a cycle, the three become one.  On the first day.  On the third day.  On the sixth day.  The first act.  The fourth act.  The seventh act.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Snows of Winter, Heat of Summer

Image from SodaHead

Snows of Winter, Heat of Summer
By Muninn’s Kiss

Snows of Winter, heat of Summer,
Two times, two worlds.
The Twins, they dance.

Winter King, in darkness reigns,
Death and darkness, ice and cold.
A crown of thorns upon his head,
Clothed in shadows, hidden light.
Magic dark and waning sun.
Tettens, Woden, Hermes stalks,
From the Castle of Weeping comes.

Summer King in brightness reigns,
Life, rebirth, light, and heat.
Winged crown, light rebounds,
Clothed in fire, born in light.
The sun it rises, warms the land.
A Child is born to warm our hearts.
Lucet, Lucifer, Morning Star,
Riding forth on wings of the morning.

The Twins, they dance,
The passing year.
Light, then dark, then light again.
Two Kings reign, both to die,
Two grooms for oh blessed Night.
Life and Death, Light and Dark,
Ever changing, ever the same.
Snows of Winter melt and thaw.
Heat of Summer takes their place.
Out of darkness shines the brightest light.

Beltaine: Snows of Winter, Heat of Summer

"What potent blood hath modest May." ~Ralph W. Emerson

Image from MySimpleLife blog

The first of May, May Day, Beltaine.  Fertility, sex, the light half of the year, the beginning of the reign of the Summer King, the celebration of spring and approaching summer.  A happy day, a party day, a day of sunlight and warmth.  Rebirth after the long winter.  All things bright and warm.  Buds and leaves on trees, bright green grass, flowers coming up.

My dog and my
hike yesterday

But I let the dog out at six this morning to find snow on the ground.  The wind was cold, the air chilly.  Not a bud on any tree.  The grass is still brown.  At least there aren't snow banks and below zero weather at noon like Beltaine last year.  It's hard to think of May Day as a time of rebirth when the land is still dead.  Hard to think of warmth, sunlight, coming summer, in the bitter wind.  Winter is dying here at 7200 feet in Wyoming, but it isn't dead yet, and Summer hasn't yet rose and is still a ways off.

I didn't do anything to celebrate, really, nor ritual, nor magic.  It was a day like any other.  I went to bed at five this morning and got up at six, since the dog wanted out, then kept whining in her crate.  I went out to the living room and let her out, then slept on the coach until after noon.  We went with a friend out for lunch and I had a Philly with no cheese (if it's still a Philly with no cheese).  We went to his house and played some video games.  We went home to let the puppy out, then went to some friends' house for a group of us that meet each week and ate there.  Then we came home and are watching Game of Thrones.  Nothing of Beltaine in any of that.

Image from Scenic Reflections

Wiccans and many neo-pagans celebrate Beltaine on the first of May, but not everyone does.  Nor do everyone celebrate it under that name.  Some, Christian or not, celebrate Roodmas, the Feast of the Cross, on May 3, though others in September.  There is a lot of esoteric symbolism associated with Roodmas, though I won't go into it here.  Others celebrate Beltaine on the astronomical midpoint between the equinox and the solstice, around the 5th or 7th of May, depending on the year.  To the Celts, Beltaine was the month corresponding to May, and was celebrated at the beginning of that month with a feast.  So the first of May, except of course, like with all things, that month doesn't line up with ours.  For some, it's the tides that matter, not a specific day.  In communist nations, the first of May is Labour Day, the day to celebrate workers, a very important thing in a communist society.  To the Romans, it was the celebration of Flora, Goddess of Flowers.  To the Roman Catholics, May is the Mary's month, and many celebrate May Day as a celebration of her.  Either way, this time of year was, and still is, important in many cultures.  There is a spiritual importance to this day or the time close to it, whether the importance came from the power in the time, or the time came from the power that has been at that time.

Image from
Arthurian Adventure

Beltaine, by whatever name, by whatever date, is a liminal point, especially in much of Europe, a point of transition, just as Samhaine is.  Many believe that on such days, the veil between this world and the Otherworld is thinnest.  It's a time when things can cross over.  This is important in tales of faeries.  It also is a time when things from this world can cross over easier.  It's a time of magic.

The seasons and the tides, solar, lunar, and stellar, pull on us.  They effect our emotions, they effect our minds, they effect our souls.  Our society today tend to try to ignore the natural rhythms, the pull of the tides on our souls.  We want to be in charge of our own destinies and try to do it by ignoring Fate.  But to ignore her is not to overcome her, but to put her manacles on us.

From MADD About You blog

Though I don't worship nature and "Mother Earth", I think we need to learn from and listen to her rhythms, to what she has to teach us.  Listen to when spring comes, and summer, and learn from the world around you, what sprouts when, what buds when.  How the snows of winter bring the water that allows the hay fields and prairie to grow.  And watch people.  My sister didn't believe the moon effected people until she became a teacher and found that the children were wilder at the full moon and calmer at the new moon.  We can learn a lot from the world around us, if we open our eyes and ears.

The answers to all things are in the Air - Inspiration, and the Winds will bring you news and knowledge if you ask them properly. The Trees of the Wood will give you power, and the Waters of the Sea will give you patience and omninesense, since the Sea is a womb that contains a memory of all things. ~Robert Cochrane, third letter to Joe Wilson

Image from SodaHead

Witchcraft isn't found in books and secrets.  It is there for anyone to learn, through sight, through hearing, through smell, through taste, through touch.  And through the senses beyond the physical.  There is nothing hidden that won't be revealed.  Let he who has eyes see.  Let he who has ears hear.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss