Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Time Between
Well, I saw it last night, right on cue.
The season's first domestic Yule tree.
It was November 7.
Oh, I understand Christmas creep. I understand the thirst for magic. I understand the craving for celebration by those who really only have one holiday.
By my reckoning, we're a little past the midpoint of the Samhain thirtnight. We're still in the season of the ancestors. The big, public rituals and gatherings are over now. This is the quiet part of Samhain, the interiority, the tag-end, the tail: the time to reflect and look within.
And then comes Time Between: what my friend and colleague Magenta Griffith calls “The Fallows.”
To the eye stunned by the riot of color that was autumn, the sere winter landscape looks colorless. But it's not. The land becomes a symphony of subtle variations on tawny. There's much in fine gradation to be seen, for those with eyes to see.
There's wisdom in waiting, in taking time to breathe. Time to settle, time to take stock, time to clean.
Rebirth will come; there's no stopping the Wheel.
But first comes the time of Not-Yet.
First come the Fallows.
Time between is Fallows called
which fallow lies between
Midwinter's and the hinder end
of harvest, Halloween.
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Back in the early 70's when my family first moved back to Richmond the stores still had Thanksgiving decorations after Halloween. Big paper cutout figures of turkeys and pilgrims to put in the store windows. Small effigy candles of turkeys and pilgrims to put on the dinning room table. By the end of the 70's Christmas decorations had swept that away and were going up the day after Halloween. Now the Christmas stuff competes with the Halloween stuff for shelf space in October.