Minneapolis: Samhain 1986
For the big public Samhain that year, we wanted to avoid the usual cliches: the skulls, the jack o' lanterns.
So we threw a Wild Hunt instead.
300 people crowded—probably in contravention of fire regulations—into a park building in South Minneapolis.
The drums come up. We're dancing.
Suddenly, the Deer is among us: tall, lean, naked in antlers and paint, he dances with a cervine grace.
The drums change. Enter the Hunters, men and women, pounding the butts of their spears on the ground.
The Hunt ensues. We become the trees of the forest: the Deer dodges among us. The Hunters pursue.
(With the eye of years, I see the potential danger here. I like to think that we saw it then, too. In fact, no one was injured.)
The Hunters surround the Deer. Then comes the moment of grace. Seeing that he can't escape, he gives himself to it.
The Deer crouches, then springs straight up into the air. The Hunters' spears track him as he rises and falls. As he lands, the spears thud home.
The Hunters kneel: first silent, heads bowed, then keening. People mourn with them. Real tears rain down. Everyone has some private grief; public mourning heals.
The Hunters hoist the Deer onto their shoulders. Exit Hunters, with Deer.
Today we celebrate Samhain, and I'm drawn to think of my ancestors, my mothers bloodline and my fathers, back to the beginning, and as I step out to the threshold of my home, darkness gathering about me like a shawl, I give thanks to Gwyn ap Nudd, my patron god, lord of the wild hunt, and I give thanks to those that stand we with me unseen at the liminal places, who have seen my victories and my sorrows, and held my hand soft as the mist that caresses my cheek. I give thanks for each of them, my ancestral guardians, my beloveds, those whose bones are now a part of the rock and soil, those whose ashes are scattered on the wind, and whose memories are dust in the barrow mounds upon the hills, those who walked this long road before me. I remember you and you live in me, always.
