Samhain Musings ~ Ghosts of the Land
“Yea, she hath passed hereby, and blessed the sheaves,
And the great garths, and stacks, and quiet farms,
And all the tawny, and the crimson leaves.
Yea, she hath passed with poppies in her arms,
Under the star of dusk, through stealing mist,
And blessed the earth, and gone, while no man wist.’’
~ Frederick Manning, Kore
Samhain approaches. We enter the dark. Some hate the passing of the summer but I am ready, though summer already feels like a distant memory. A Ghost. We find ourselves in the twilight of the year, in autumn and already dusk has fallen. We stand on the brink of nightfall and as we head towards Samhain we find ourselves in that liminal time and space where the ghosts feel closer, the nights colder and darker, our moods a little more melancholic. I love these days, this time of year when nature sheds that which no longer serves and shows us the beauty that can be found in doing so.
And so my attention turns to ghosts. To the spirits of those that have left this realm or whatever you want to call it. The veil thins. The spirits abound, gossamer thin but there and I wander the land where I live, seeing the ghosts of the past, feeling the shadows of those will soon pass and losing myself in my stormy thoughts.
As I walk the dog on this damp grey day, on land that is soon to be lost to the gentrification and ‘progress’ that society demands, I can’t help but feel a sadness at the hopelessness of it all. The sky is a blanket of clouds, thick and grey and low. The air is damp, the kind of damp where you don’t really know whether it’s raining or not and if you live anywhere in the British isles, you’ll know what I mean. It isn’t cold though, and still the colours of autumn and the fresh air make me feel somewhat better but there is still, lurking just beneath the surface, a mourning for that which will be lost. The ghosts of this land haunt me already.
‘’With slow, reluctant feet, and weary eyes,
And eye-lids heavy with the coming sleep,
With small breasts lifted up in stress of sighs,
She passed, as shadows pass, among the sheep;
While the earth dreamed, and only I was ware
Of that faint fragrance blown from her soft hair.’’
~Frederick Manning, Kore
I’ve written before about the loss of land my community faces, and the signs of that impending loss greet me like angry welts. The diggers have been and gone, testing the land, checking the foundation of where the proposed building will take place. The field is littered with mounds caused by the scraping away of the earth and the rapid and untidy efforts to refill what was taken. The community cannot wait for their new boxy homes, poorly built and squashed in on land that should belong to the community. And no matter what I feel about it, I understand the allure of new homes and money, blood money I call it, paid in compensation for the upheaval caused to peoples lives. Really, it is little more than a bribe. To the poor (and most of us here are), the money is tempting. It doesn’t matter that it will soon be spent, no doubt on shit that isn’t really needed (but that’s their business and I don’t judge them too harshly). We’ve been promised a better quality of life, as though the building of new homes will make the poverty that abounds here disappear. But it’s not just homes for the community either, they’ll be a mix of homes, the poor alongside the not-so-poor. Land is a commodity.
But what will really be lost is the outdoor space that we have. Gardens will be smaller, the field will be reduced by a third, at least for now though I don’t doubt that once the threshold of building there has been crossed, the floodgates will open until the space dwindles away and is lost altogether. Mature trees, flora and fauna. All gone. Covered in concrete, only the ghost of what it once was remaining.
Like I said, the ghosts already haunt me.
And yet, in the same town, the divide is quite striking, for the prospect of building threatens another beauty spot, another place where people have free access to the land. And getting outside, spending time out in nature is good for the body, mind and soul, we are all a part of it after all.
The local community has rallied round and formed an action group to save this space. And I am glad, and am a part of that group for I’ll try to save as many of the wild spaces we have left. But there isn’t a council estate that borders this land. The people here aren’t looked down upon, seen as the lowest of the low. They are not so poor, not so easily swayed with false promises of prosperity, not so easily bought with money that will soon be swallowed up by the simple process of moving.
But even as I’m pleased with the group effort of trying to save the place, the ghost of what may be lingers somewhere not too far away, close enough to be felt.
The land lay steeped in peace of silent dreams;
There was no sound amid the sacred boughs.
Nor any mournful music in her streams:
Only I saw the shadow on her brows,
Only I knew her for the yearly slain,
And wept, and weep until she come again.”
~Frederick Manning, Kore
Where I live is not special and the issues affecting this small town are occurring everywhere in the world. The machine of Capitalism calls for progression, for the gentrification of those working class areas and as lovely as the dream may be presented, it is just that. The poor are ever pushed out, marginalised, mocked and looked down upon. The land is seen as wasteland unless something can be built there. Nature is being lost and with it the rights of people to access it. Like I already said, we are a part of nature and when we are separated from it, we suffer. We become like living ghosts, shades living half lives.
The antidote? I don’t know, but I do know one thing, and that is that we must link up. We must overcome the superficial divides that separate us, that keep us closed in our own little groups, our own small echo chambers. I think more people are becoming aware of just how important nature and those few remaining wild spaces are, not only for us but for those other beings we share this world with. I can feel the animist revolution beginning as more people come to experience the spirit of the land, feel it connect with our own selves. Of course not everyone will consider themselves an animist, many will not understand the meaning of the word, but they know that when they are out in nature, they feel better. They feel. The spirit of place seeps into their bones, mingles with their own spirits and elevates them. They may not be able to find the words to aptly describe this feeling, but they still feel it.
Ghosts have been on my mind lately. As an animist, the spirit of the great forests that once covered these lands remain, but I don’t want to walk among the ghosts of what was, not when we can save what we have left before it too passes and is lost.
EMMA KATHRYN
Emma Kathryn, practises traditional British witchcraft, Vodou and Obeah, a mixture representing her heritage. She lives in the sticks with her family where she reads tarot, practises witchcraft and drink copious amounts of coffee.
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