The Wheel of the Year has turned once more and we now find ourselves in November, the penultimate month of the year.
Here in the northern hemisphere, we have significantly fewer daylight hours to play with - and with sunset occurring at around 4 o'clock in the afternoon, we may find ourselves feeling the urge to hunker down and cosy up against the chilly weather and dark skies.
The trees are still doing their best to hold onto their glorious autumn leaves but the weather is becoming so blustery it won't be long before they become bare and wintry.
So wrap up warm and make the most of the fading fire-lit glow of the natural world this month.
For the ancient Celts, each new day began at sunset rather than at sunrise - and when the sun dipped below the horizon last night, the seasonal festival known as Samhain (pronounced 'sow-en') began.
This ancient celebration is said to mean 'summer's end', signposting the final harvest and the end of longer, brighter, warmer days.
Samhain encourages us to accept the descent into wintertime with its darkness and bittersweet chill, with one foot planted firmly in the past and the other rooted in the here and now. The future will grow from the past and the present; now is not a time to worry unduly about what is still to come. What will be is not yet written.
The 31st of October is more commonly known as Halloween, but between yesterday evening and sunset tonight, we are given an opportunity to remember all those we have loved and lost.
At this time, the veil is said to thin between this world and the next, and so we honour our ancestors in the only way we can — by living fully and wholeheartedly, by opening our senses to the oranges and golds glittering on the trees like fairy lights, by listening to the crunch and fireside crackle of fallen leaves beneath our boots, by smelling the scent of bonfires, pumpkin spice, and the seasonal change in the air, and by wrapping up against the cold air's nip against our rosy cheeks.
By awakening our senses and embracing all that is around us and within us, we embrace the act of living - and life, by its very nature, is filled with polarities and opposites, those old familiar bookends of joy and sadness. It would seem that we can't have one without the other, however hard we may try.
But by living life fully and open-armed, noticing that we are alive, here and now, we surely do the greatest service to our ancestors and all those who came before us. Now, we remember those folk who lived and loved and lost, and whose DNA runs in our blood like a baton passed on to future generations. Today, we set another place at the table; we remember them.
As we witness November's arrival, we may find ourselves, too, mulling over those times in our lives when one door has closed and another has opened.
When has this happened to you, and what did you learn from this change of direction on the spiral path of life?
Samhain encourages us to reverently mark those things that have ended in our own lives whilst trusting that new opportunities and adventures will soon beckon to us.
We are given a chance to look back and be grateful for what has been, for the blessings and lessons learned, but we are also given an opportunity to not dwell there too long and to let go like the autumn leaves, enjoying a momentary pause as we slip into the shadows as the sun sets on Samhain.
This is a time to slow down, simplify, cease unnecessary stress, and allow ourselves to rest and retreat as our future quietly weaves itself.
Samhain, and the month of November, remind us that beginnings and endings are intimately intertwined — and that hidden within every ending is a secret pathway to a new beginning.
