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| Volume I No. 3 October 14, 2004 |
| Copyright 2004 by Osireion.com. All rights reserved. webmaster@osireion.com Subscribe To Palimpsest and Osireion Announcements Return to Osireion Home |
| Samhain and Death, A New Year and A New Life - continued Mexican Catholics celebrate Dia De Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, with similar bold images, such as decorated candy skulls and coffins, and skeleton figurines. But they also create home altars with photographs of deceased family members, light candles to honor the dead, and following Mass in the church take picnics to family cemeteries to clean and decorate the graves of loved ones. From the classical tradition, we have the story of Persephone, kidnapped by Hades and held captive in his underworld kingdom of the dead throughout the months of winter, and released each spring into the joyous arms of her mother Demeter, at which time the earth bursts into fertile bloom. In a parallel story, the Egyptian god Osiris is murdered by his brother Seth, is brought back to life by his wife Isis, and then chooses to return to the world of the dead as its ruler. Both myths illustrate the cyclical nature of physical life, the inevitability of physical death, as well as the certitude of non-physical life and eventual physical rebirth. Seth, our favorite "spook"at Osireion, spent two decades expounding on what he called "the eternal validity of the soul." His constant admonition to embrace and live life fully was threaded throughout with the reminder that this life is one of many, is one of our own choosing, and does not represent the totality of our being. Of his own deaths over the ages, Seth says that each one, looking back, made perfect sense and was beautiful in its own way, each one his own choice of transition to another phase of being. At Samhain the pagan world believes, as we say, the veil between the worlds is thin, that conditions are best for communication with individuals who exist in non-physical world. Samhain becomes that blink of an eye between the old year, the old life, and All Saint's Day, the new year and new life.  The natural world all around seems to be dying, although we know that the flowers and crops are merely lying down, in death giving themselves over to the miracle of transformation and rebirth in the spring. By looking to the earth, Gaia, we can be reminded of how beautiful our life and death and life again really are. We are assured of the rightness of the changing of seasons, the ones in nature, and the ones in our lives. We can relax the grip we have on survival, and experience the welling up of real life, the life of the spirit, which transcends all. As we embrace the inevitability of death, we suddenly find new life, new purpose. Sekhmet lives and writes in South Carolina, and is the founder of Osireion.com; She is a lifelong seeker and mystic, wiccan in practice, with years of study in creative consciousness.; For more information, write sekhmet@osireion.com. |
| You can help us by sharing Palimpsest with others.; Receiving it is opt-in only, except here at the beginning when we are starting by sharing with friends who we think may have an interest.  If we send you a Palimpsest by mistake, please click here and just type Unsubscribe. What is a palimpsest? In times gone by, parchment was too precious to toss in the circular file as we do our writing paper today. Sheepskin is, after all, quite durable. Many manuscripts which made it to modern times show that beneath the writing, there are faint images of previous text which has been scraped away. We like the sense of mystery, mystery being a hallmark of the spiritual path, and we liked the idea of there being layers of meaning to explore each time we return to something we thought we already knew. If you have ideas or suggestions for the Palimpsest or Osireion, we're listening. Be blessed! |
| Your Own Samhain Observance On October 31 you can celebrate the mysteries of Samhain in your own way. Enjoy the danse macabre of Halloween frolic, then when you return to the privacy of your own home and altar, and as the deeper dark of night comes on, try this ritual meditation. Enter your sacred space and turn your mind inward. Place on your altar a representation of each of the four elements, earth, air, fire and water. These are easily found around your house or in your yard. On Sekhmet's altar you will see fresh water in a small bowl which was the gift of a dear friend, salt in a tiny dish, a blue jay feather found in the yard, incense to sweeten the air, and candles, simple but beautiful objects which put me in a contemplative frame of mind. Also gather note paper and pen, an ashtray, and a small flower pot ready for planting.; Prior to this you should purchase or obtain seeds or a bulb to be planted in the pot. Dim lighting or near dark in your sacred space is appropriate for this meditation. Relax, breathe deeply, and remember. Reflect on the past year: what occasions brought you the most joy? The most sadness? What lessons have you learned? Who has entered your life, and who has departed it? Make a small list on one piece of paper of the things that have died, and that you are releasing. As you write feel those issues or situations flowing out of your body and into the ink and paper. Crumple the paper loosely, light it from a candle, and watch it burn in the ashtray. Keep your eyes on the flames and the curling paper, deliberately sensing the passage of the things you listed. Feel the lightness and cleansing in each cell of your body as you release these things. Speak to yourself these words, "I release all, I enter my own death. I am from the beginning, and I go on forever."; On the next piece of paper list the joys you have experienced this year, the lessons learned, and your hopes for the coming year. Feel new life flowing through your body, through your hand and into the ink and paper. Fold this paper in a way that pleases you, then plant it deep in your flower pot. Over the paper, now plant your seeds or bulb.. Water what you have planted with the water on your altar.Lift your candle and pass it over the pot three times. If you are burning incense, wave the smoke over your pot. If you have a feather, wave it over, too. As you perform these tiny symbolic acts, speak these words to yourself: "I receive all, I am reborn. I give life to these my desires. I am renewed, refilled, reborn." When you go to sleep, ask for a dream that will carry a special message for you in the new year. As soon as you awake in the morning, jot down any dreams, impressions, images that you can remember. Use these for reflection in future meditations. Happy New Year! |
| Samhain and Death, A New Year and A New Life Next weekend we celebrate the great festival of Samhain (pronounced sal-when'), which is the change from the pagan old year to the new. As Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe, Samhain was absorbed into the church as All Saint's Eve on October 31 and All Saint's Day on November 1. Folk tradition has kept alive some hints of the original holiday in the form of Halloween, a corruption of "All Hallow's Evening." Confronting and being playful with the inevitable demise of this physical existence is a long tradition found in most cultures throughout the world. Here in the West, we are left with the many murals that pepper Europe, depicting La Danse Macabre, the dance of death. A legacy of the devastation by the medieval plague, the church used this motif, of Death coming to the rich and poor alike in the form of a dance, to teach the importance of living a godly life. That motif is preserved in our times in the tarot, with the Death card, on which we see Death arrive on a white horse. - continued below |
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