Probing the Veil
In this entry I wanted to write and think about the legendary “veil” between the worlds. At Samhain we experience this veil as a thin membrane between the world of the living and the dead. I had an intuition that, instead of being an inert membrane between worlds, the veil was the place where the two worlds meet and entwine. It is this entwining, this “weaving” that “CREATES” the veil.
As I began to peruse this idea however, I encountered a “philosophical” problem. In order to talk “about” something, we usually try to keep a certain “distance” between the object we attempt to describe and our self. When we are speaking of the veil, however, we are confronted with the reality that talking and thinking is precisely “HOW” the veil is woven. Talking about the veil simply creates more of it.
While wrestling with this problem, I noted that the text I was attempting to create had an agenda of its own – it wanted to be poetry, I wanted it to be prose. In the end, I had to yield to its’ demands in order to complete the work. So to make up for the spaces that were left when I trimmed away explanatory sentences, I included hyperlinks to articles on the internet that further explain concepts which receive only a passing mention.
One more thing. As a condition of my devotion to Hekate, I promised that I would always give her credit in the magik I create. Among her many aspects, she is both a patroness of midwives and a guide who leads the dead to the underworld. She is a Goddess of thresholds who assists in bringing things across. As such, as I worked on this entry, I petitioned her for guidance and assistance. So I am taking this opportunity to acknowledge and thank her.
OK, disclaimer out of the way.
About the Veil Between the Worlds
Scorpio Season is once again upon us,
bringing Samhain and the “thinning” of the veil
between the spirit world and ours.
I used to imagine the veil simply hung between these worlds.
But lately I have seen that we are active in its weaving.
I am a devote of Hekate.
We who love her, know her many names.
Astrodia (Star Walker),
Enodia (Of Crossroads),
Chthonia (of earth and every thing beneath).
Astrodia brings visions
Of everything that may or may not be.
Chthonia reveals to us the shadows of the dead.
Our childhood an ancestral trauma.
All that's lost to time.
Enodia shows us crossroads.
The paths that we choose weave the threads that connect
The starry way and underworld.
The heavens and the Earth,
the Dead and those Yet to Be Born
And every one of us to every other.
The veil that thins at Samhain
Is the warp and woof of both.
Between Heaven and Earth
At this time of year we like to tell
the story of Persephone.
Six pomegranate seeds she eats in Hades.
By which the binding laws of Gods
Shall bind her to the underworld forever.
Of Demeter’s love and grief
which spreads a blight upon the land.
And the panic of Olympians
Who live upon our prayers.
For most of human history,
Offerings to Gods and the Spirits
Kept the fragile balance of the world.
This is magik.
Prayers and labor wove the veil
Between the heavens and the earth.
Without the spirit world to guide our hands,
The Earth beneath our feet begins to perish.
Let us share Demeter’s grief in Autumn
And celebrate Persephone returning in the spring.
Between the Dead
and Those Yet to Be Born
I was born with Great Grandparents
still among the living.
One day I’ll tell a story of them to my great grand children.
This story will have traveled seven generations.
Before and beyond theses are people lost to time.
Some time in the 19th century,
In the farm lands of Pennsylvania,
My Great Great GREAT Grandmother
Contracted German Measles during pregnancy.
Her daughter was born blind cast a shadow
Over seven generations of our eyes.
If I knew her name I could tell her about her decedents.
How some of us have learned to make music
and found joy.
How medical treatment
Has each generation
See better than the last.
I’d ask her if she feared for her child
And all of us who followed in her line.
I’d tell her that all is well and I am grateful
For this life and all the gifts I have received..
But alas her name is lost to the underworld shadows.
In other times and cultures,
To know the names of ancestors,
Was basic to the nature of the self.
To be a “people” meant to be enclosed
Within a web of story.
Do we wonder at the crisis of identity upon us.
Between You and I
Think of the person that you know best,
A lover or a mother or a friend.
The two of you weave threads together
And are born within the meshing of this veil.
If there is something like a soul
In only becomes known within this weaving
The Veil of Maya
Maya is a word with many meanings.
When we weave the veil of Maya we practice magik.
If there were ghosts that walked with us
Invisible to eyes,
We would need to weave them garments just to see them.
We would weave our filaments together.
Ours with theirs that we could feel
The contours of our mutual exclusion.
We would weave it close and fine
That we might minimize the distance.
And this is how it is with all we touch.
With everything we see and do and think about.
In ancient times astrologer drew lines among the stars.
The pictures they drew inscribed their Gods and Spirits.
In turn these gods and Spirits drew their lives.
When to sow and when to reap,
When the sun and when the flood,
When to feast and when to fast
And many things beside.
We have not surpassed their craft and should remember
That the shapes we give to chaos shapes our lives.
As in the ancient Dream Time
Songs and stories weave the world.
Remember this and tell your tales with care.
For we become the filaments of story
That descendants one day weave
Into their veil