The thinning

“The thin veil of Samhain is not a wall to fear, but an open door to wonder, remembering that what is gone is very rarely lost.” - robinreardonwrites.substack

I have been thinking a lot about tradition, modern change and authenticity. Struggling to navigate a world on steroids and a constant bombardment of stimulation.

I felt myself feeling a bit lost when on my favourite "holiday" Halloween i was feeling deflated and like the magic had gone from the world. God thats fucking dramatic, but it blends into how we see ourselves right now. How do we "keep up" whilst not burning out?

As a woman, i feel like i often shrink myself or brush over things to not seem like i take up too much space. Like my voice doesn't have equal clout because I'm not always the first to speak... which is bullshit. I feel and think deeply and that's a strength not a weakness...

The need to be quieter, shrink ourselves, it’s a lesson long ingrained, but there is change and there are different ways.

As the nights close in, now seems the ideal time for more magic..

The air changes before the calendar does. You step outside and the light has turned golden, afternoons fold early into dark, mist hangs low in early mornings, and the world feels older than it looked yesterday.

Long before Halloween turned into an aisle of shouting orange, this was Samhain. Summer’s end. The hinge. People stood together at a shared fire because warmth and light were how you told the dark you had seen it and would not look away.

The “ancient Celtic holiday” with bonfires and masks when the world of the gods stood closer to ours and a night whose roots carry straight into what we now call Halloween. But i think that still doesn't quite get it... the soul of it.

Flames simmered down to embers and carried to the common fire to be relit. Food on the windowsill for the ones who cannot sit at the table now. Turnips scowling at the door to keep mischief from crossing the threshold. Masks pulled close, not to pretend, but to pass safely through a night of crossings when the veil was thin and fairies and spirits might roam freely.

People much much smarter than me, can argue about labels and proof... but anyone who has stood in the late October air feels the change... an otherness that you feel in your bones, instinctual, biological - natural, science (and maybe magic).

Control arrived with calendars and institutions and did what power does. It tidied. It renamed. It put ceilings over fires and scripts over instinct. A pulpit rather than a conversation.

Then a different kind of power took over. We have built new religions with glossy altars and daily rituals of the instant, the show, unbearable loudness.

Feeds and metrics and “engagement” as sacraments. Institutions and industries promising authenticity while training us to live out of signal rather than sensation.

“We are quieter than we want to be. We carry tension in our body because we swallow our opinions.” — Deborah Frances-White, The Guilty Feminist

The roots of autumn, of Samhain is the counter-practice. Not "witchy theatre", or mystical branding. Our nervous systems were built for weather and firelight and short bursts of adrenaline, not for a permanent treadmill of energetic hyperactivity and dopamine chasing.

Our ancestors knew differently... they stood outside and let the wind, the elements tell them what needed to happen. They put their hands on and into the earth. They listened and felt, paused and learned.

And yet, there are many of us who are finding our way back.

Meeting round a low fire, leaving the phone for meeting in person. Midnight walks without a camera roll waiting at the end. More real and more natural. Not to escape but to help a sped-up mind remember the pace of the world. Practical mysticism, if it needs a name - i'm pretty sure it does not.

“Wild Woman teaches women when not to act ‘nice’ about protecting their soulful lives.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

Wildness still thrives and grows... Writing simple instructions (a spell, if you like), a mantra: light a candle, leave an offering, sit with the thinning and listen...

Because “witch” has often really meant a woman who remembers, a woman who would not be made quiet, a woman not easily owned. That urge to control or civilise, to shrink or shame, has always been about corralling what is alive in us. Siphoning our uniqueness, our energy and distilling it into a drink we buy to stay awake…

Of course it’s also carnal, all tangled up in sex, in the myth that submissive women are the most attractive, the ones who serve and satisfy without response.

I mean that’s great if you like a robot... but surely it’s much more alluring seeing your person in their power, and there because they want you.

And really, it was never or ever should have been, a man-versus-woman thing - are we not all seeing that's pure distraction to keep us divided?

“We are the breathing, living manifestations of the hopes of women who are not breathing anymore.” — Deborah Frances-White

Humans - anyone alive and awake - can reclaim our wild nature. Our sense of belonging, of soul and street and memory. And, I feel an insistence on more humanity - not less - is needed now more than ever.

Attention, not performance. Not old versus new. Less manufactured “realness”, more reality, more connection. Back to instinct, trust and the sounds around us when we stop scrolling long enough to hear them.

“Ceremony focuses attention so that attention becomes intention.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

And I’m not criticising (well not completely). We are all exhausted and powering to oblivion or paradise... depending on your financial status... we want to be seen to be doing. What?! ANYTHING!! Ah just bloody do it now, and yesterday and before and betwixt and between, on and on and on...

But maybe, if we can step outside for a moment and feel the air change. Stand in the dark and smell the smoke. Remember the people who came before and the warmth that kept them human. Maybe we can start to slow, think and breathe a little.

Happy Halloween.

Allana x