The Crossing

Every year as the leaves begin to fall and the earth starts to settle down for the quiet seasons the border between worlds grows thin. It’s never very thick in the first place. The corporeal world and the land of spirits, ghosts, and all things supernatural have a way of bleeding into one another. Even when the metaphysical ‘dam’ is at its tightest, so to speak, things have a habit of slipping through. But as harvest ends and winter begins the flood gates open. The spirits of nature and of the departed can cross over and walk amongst those to whom they are invisible. It’s possible for corporeal dwellers to cross into the incorporeal world too, but such things are seldom done.

In days gone by, the dwellers would light great fires to welcome their departed home. One night, for ancestors and descendants to feast, and dance, and be reunited at the death of the year. The festival is called Samhain and both living and dead, spirit and earthbound, anticipate that handful of hours when all of nature stands undivided.

Of course, dwellers cannot see the visitors, but I remember a tingle, a faint awareness that they were there too. Your father, or baby sister, were also staring into the flames, maybe with a hand on your shoulder, or clutching your leg. I say that I can remember these things, there isn’t much that I can remember anymore. I am left with impressions, wispy sureties that I can clutch to, but no details. It is something that all of us departed suffer as the centuries pass. The waning of who we were. It is one of the reasons that Samhain holds such a place in my dwindling consciousness. It gives me the chance to reconnect with who I was, a chance to catch a glimpse of my mother’s smile in that of my great-great granddaughter, or even the whispered memory of my own name when I hear it called out in pursuit of her grandson. It is a night for purpose to be restored, for both living and dead to remember where they have come from and of their place in the world.

        One of those few memories left to me is the first night that there was no fire lit for me, no family waiting on my return. I drifted that night, untethered from a land that I could no longer navigate. I think that I return each year in the hope that someone will remember and that a distant descendent might call me to them, but I cannot remember. I still hope, but it has been so long. I have fleeting memories of stopping by other fires, privy to scenes of reunion and silent wholeness that I cannot share. Believe me, I have tried. Unless the fire is lit for you, you may not intrude on another’s Samhain, you may only skulk at the edges of its light, yearning for what another has. But now there are no fires. As the centuries passed fewer and fewer fires were lit and fewer and fewer dwellers sought the murmur of their ancestors on the wind. To cross the border on Samhain now is to do so without a guide. No pyre blazing through the cosmos to welcome you home. No, to be one of the departed now is to be alone.

        As our reunions have ceased, our worlds have drifted. The dam grows tighter and fewer things slip through. There are fewer spirits abroad on the earth and images of the world that we have left no longer imprint themselves on our shadowed world of darkening fogs and long sleep. But nature will always follow its ancient cycles, and at Samhain the flood gates still open to those who would cross. Not many do so now. The nature spirits will still make the journey, but they do not rely on memories and custom to call them. They are bound to the earth and the earth knows its' duties. My fellows, the departed, have largely consigned themselves to their new fate. They drift, unheeding of the eddies and shifts of our grey, diminishing existence, their bond to the earth severed.

        Still, there are those of us who still make the crossing. Not out of hope, that died in us long ago, but out of a desire to endure. Our consciousnesses may dwindle with the years, but we cling to the belief that, in retracing old steps, we recapture a fleeting glimpse of what we were in life. Perhaps, deep in our souls we still hope to recognise in the changing world a feature that might identify one of our family. I never have, but then, there seem to be so many souls now, and there is only one night. Any such hope is futile.

        Whether it began long ago or recently, I do not know, but at some time, the nature spirits took pity on us forsaken souls. Now, each year they will ignite a great werelight in invitation to those of us who still make the crossing. They call us to observe Samhain with them and share in the death of the year. Always, the beacon is lit at a site of ancient power. Such places have an ability to magnify, allowing us to capture more of ourselves than other locations. I find that I can remember myself at these gatherings. Never quite so much as what I could when my family would summon me, but enough to recall my sense and faint memories. It is a kindness that they offer us and a fulfilment of their own desire to see nature united in an age when it seems ever more divided.

        When it came, invitation flared at the edges of my consciousness, pulling at my spirit, suffusing me with a warmth that I had forgotten. The urge was bittersweet. The old desperation, unfelt since I had last crossed, was kindled. But where it once had burned bright, it now sputtered, buffeted by sorrow and crushing weariness. I could allow myself to fade entirely. I could surrender the last vestiges of who I had been and wander the shadowlands as so many had before me. There was nothing for me now beyond the divide. The dwellers did not remember me, and they did not want to. Maybe the world no longer needed the departed to remind it of its past. But I needed the world. I am not ready to surrender. I may not be remembered, but I want to remember.

        I surrendered to the impulse and followed the glow through the fogs and over the horizon. Once more I found myself amongst trees, ferns beneath me, and stars through the thinning canopy of leaves and bald-looking branches. Phantom scents of leaf mulch and earth touched the edges of my senses. I fooled myself into thinking that I could feel the breeze that rustled the leaves on cheeks that I no longer had. I imagined that I could hear the canter of hooves and the baying of hounds racing past as they had when I lived, chasing a hart or a boar who had lost the race countless years ago. I could see the werelight now, casting the spaces between the trees a dull orange. The invitation led me out of the trees on to a broad heath, not one that I recognised. The gathering place was far to the north of where I had lived my life, and I did not want to leave the familiarity of the woods. But I had accepted the invitation.

The beacon had been set above an old stone that had once stood at the centre of a greater circle. Long ago, the dwellers had gathered here to celebrate the great festivals. Once they would have come here to meet their ancestors on Samhain. But there were no dwellers now, only the faint shapes of nature spirits in their animal forms watching the werelight from the shadows. In the glow I could detect the eddies that betrayed others like me who had accepted the invitation. There were so few. There were fewer spirits too. None leapt and danced around the fire. No shapes twisted in the light. There was no celebration of nature’s unification. We had been called to stand vigil. A reminder to the earth that in the shadowlands we acknowledged cycles and customs. We were here to observe the death of the year and to offer our memories of years that had gone by.

Into the circle strode a figure, a small one. Sionnach, the spirit of the red fox. Once she had been foremost amongst the cavorters of Samhain, leading her earthly brethren in twisting dances through the woodlands and hedgerows of the land. Now she stared into the flickering werelight, the twisting reds and oranges reflected in her eyes. She began to sing. Her song was low and sad. She told the story of the land, how the seas had ebbed and risen and ebbed again, how the first seeds had bloomed beneath the earth and burst into the first trees. She sang of the mountains, who had risen in fire during great wars fought by ancient giants and of the rivers that tumbled like lifeblood from the earth into the sea. Even quieter now, she sang of the coming of the dwellers and of the great pacts that they had made with the earth and of the magic that bound them. A shift rippled amongst the listeners as she sang of the first Samhain and the joy of nature in the meeting of its parts. Her voice gained in strength as she sang of great heroes, both dweller and spirit and of the Wild Hunt that had surged through the barrier between worlds with each full moon. And now she sang of magic’s waning, and of the great forgetting. Dawn touched the eastern horizon and the stars waned. Sionnach’s song faltered and the werelight dimmed. United in grief for what was we watched the new sun rise, as we faded beneath the faltering stars.