The holiday spirit

Image from T-Shirt du Jour


The snakeroot is blooming and the mushrooms are popping up. Yup, the woods are full of poison, which means Samhain is almost upon us. I've been trying to get myself in the mood to make some preparations, but the weather's been warm, I've been busy, and the spirit of the season is elusive. It seems to happen this way every year. I always want to be excited about planning something special for Samhain, but I never feel any enthusiasm until the night itself. Of course, I've had some wonderful experiences puttering around in the dark doing some solitary, impromptu ritual. Maybe that's all I'm good for and I should be okay with it, but one of these years I swear I'm going to do it up right.

The one thing that is giving me a little spiritual inspiration these days is our resident feral cat. She's lurking underneath the bird feeders nearly every evening at dusk, and more often than not I watch her eat her dinner as I eat mine. I guess that sounds a little gruesome, and maybe surprising coming from a bird lover like me, but bitter experience has taught me that it is best to regard the feral cats as the wild things they are. I don't feed them, and I don't resent the fact that they kill to survive. Watching that little gray tabby tear into her prize every night is a reminder of how the world works, a vicarious chthonic ritual that lets me touch something dark and elemental. Death can be a horror--see the Congo posts--or it can be beautiful. Understanding that beauty is what Samhain is about.

Which reminds me, as much as I blush to admit it, of the William Cullen Bryant poem, "Thanatopsis." I don't know if schoolchildren in the rest of the world have to grapple with it, but I don't think it's possible to get through high school in America without reading it. I actually had to memorize it, which tells you just how ancient I am.


THANATOPSIS.

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, e're he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,—
Comes a still voice—Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go[Page 13]
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone—nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre.—The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings
Of morning—and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings—yet—the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest—-and what, if thou withdraw
Unheeded by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh[Page 14]
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man,—
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

From Poems by William Cullen Bryant, 1854. Via Project Gutenberg