Spirit Guides
Today is el Día de los Muertos, the Mexican Day of the Dead. Families welcome back the returning spirits of their loved ones by constructing ofrendas (offerings), altars decorated with pictures and mementos of the departed, and all the loved ones’ favorite foods are prepared and shared. It is a celebration of life as much as a way to keep the memories of the dead alive and present. For the past two years we have put up an eight foot folding table in the kitchen and made that our ofrenda, spread with a tablecloth and decorated with all the things that remind us of my middle daughter, my little sister, my great-grandmother, my husband’s grandparents. Recently, however, that table has been serving as a catch-all for the things we are shifting around in preparation for moving Rena, my oldest, upstairs into her new “big girl” room. It’s a move that has been on hold for years as we fought the mold that inhabited that room thanks to a leaky roof, but we’ve finally won that war (fingers crossed!) and are mid-project, much interrupted by my husband’s insane work schedule and the necessity of outdoor preparations for winter. Facing the prospect of clearing the table before it could be brought downstairs proved too daunting for me today, so we’re going simple. Our ofrenda this year consists of the three spirit guides the girls and I carved yesterday, a few dried marigolds from the garden, a paper fall gnome decoration that we made at a library craft event, a cardboard cross that Lee painted that has two rocks balanced on it, and a pillow Rena recently unearthed that says, “Peace, Love and Joy to All Who Enter Here,” all grouped on the windowsill overlooking the remains of my garden. The spirit guides are glowing with the light of the votive candles made with beeswax, rosemary essential oil, and a heady meditation oil blend. I miss the big altar less than I expected. Sometimes simple is nice (and also, there’s not much here for the kitten to knock off and lose under the stove, so that’s a plus).
Last night we ate our Samhain meal in silence, as is traditional, in memory of the voices we no longer hear. The first snow fell outside, dashing my hopes of burning the pine wand I had crafted on Samhain last year, my first truly witchy act. Since Samhain is also the Celtic New Year, it is appropriate that I mark my “spiritual rebirth-day” on Samhain as well. This year I crafted my willow besom and my first bunch of sage for smudging in preparation for cleansing my sacred space, which I haven’t done yet but I will soon. Today, with the snow melting under a bright autumn sun, I cleared the garden. This is a spiritual act as much as a practical one. The pepper plants, tomatoes, marigolds and nasturtiums had all succumbed to the heavy frosts in the last two weeks, and I needed to pull them out before I could spread the beds with the leaves that are down and ready to be raked as soon as they dry out. My least favorite part is untangling the perpetually overgrown tomatoes from their cages; it is also the part that feels most like a metaphor.
As I worked, my mind wandered. This is the time for clearing out the old beliefs, habits, and mental frameworks that are preventing further growth, and for tending and pruning those that encourage growth. Over the course of the last month I have slid back into a lot of unhealthy habits that have made life much more difficult and miserable than it could have been. I have watched it happen, and felt helpless to make the changes that I know will make life better for me. The coming of November and the impending holiday/cold season has my scarcity alarm bells pealing like mad: too little money, too little time, too little rest, too little social connection due to illness-related cancellations, too little sunlight to alleviate the darkness. Maybe next year, I had said, maybe I won’t feel the anxiety at all. Ha. I was definitely feeling it.
Maybe I was just tired, maybe I had too many expectations of these days, Samhain and the Day of the Dead, and the spiritual reset that they have been for me in the past. I mentally muttered a half-hearted thank you to the plants as I pulled them from their soil, trying to find the flood of gratitude that I had felt last year, reaching for the connection I had experienced when growing, planting, and tending these lives that had nourished ours all summer. All I felt was a mix of relief and anxiety; relief because I was ready for a break from gardening, anxiety because I would now be dependent on bought foods for the next several months, with their soulless flavors and prices still rising more often than not. Where was the happy and contented Earth Child who had nurtured this garden and taken such delight in watching it grow and produce? Was she a fraud after all? Why can I easily put out a fairy feast on Samhain with my daughter, but am too self-conscious to dance in a fairy garden at twilight with my oldest friend? Why did the first snow bring a shock of dread instead of delight, because I had failed to keep my promise to Grandmother Maple that I would put up a new clothesline that she did not have to hold “before the first snowfall”? How had I managed to attach my old fear of Divine Authority to a goddamn tree (albeit a very old one with a lot of presence)? What kind of a witch am I, anyway?
The spirit guides flicker on as I write, two turnips and one rutabaga (don’t you just love that word? Say it: rutabaga. Smile.), completely oblivious to my apparent crisis of faith. The fierce little figure holding two swords, a protective ward for the house that Rena had drawn on her rutabaga (I just love that word!) is scowling so adorably I can’t stand it. These three carved vegetables with the fragrant candles inside are a glimmer, a pleasant derailing of my runaway thoughts. Like the smell of the lemongrass that I chopped for Thai soup, and the heavenly creaminess of the soup when it was done and served for our dinner. Like the nubby green seed pods that dropped in cascades from the nasturtium plants I pulled out of the garden, and their hope for more bright, peppery flowers next year. Like the sight of our stolid, gray outdoor cat rolling in the catnip that even the first snow hasn’t managed to kill and making tiny, delirious noises. Like the thought of the seed catalogs that will begin coming in January, and how I will make myself wait until all the Yuletide decorations are put away and the pine needles swept up before cracking them open with a cup of tea, a notebook, and dreams of spring planting dancing in my head. Like my decision, amid the struggle of ungardening, to meet the new year with a new challenge: to record my glimmers every day so I can relate them over dinner each evening.
I can’t retrain decades of anxiety responses in a single year, and I can’t move forward in healing without seasons that feel like backwards progress—like this—but I can choose a next healthy step. Like spirit guides, glimmers are beacons that shine in the dark; little pockets of safety, rest, joy, and peace, when life feels the opposite. Training myself to look for and find those haven moments within my own life, instead of outside it, can only decrease my anxiety, increase my feelings of connection and well-being, and bring happiness and contentment into even the hardest days. This is my hope, my belief, my promise to myself.
May it be.