Rev. Lori Offers a Samhain Ritual
This reflection was originally published in the previous week’s Friday Flyer.
Hello Good People,
We are celebrating in word and ritual this week, the pagan holiday of Samhain. Samhain is the ancient Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, a time to honor ancestors, reflect on cycles of life and death, and embrace the mystery of transformation as the veil between worlds grows thin.
As a community we will honor loss with sadness and gratitude. I share a poem with you called This Sacred Thread:
This Sacred Thread
They who once dwelled among us, the people of memory.
They who knew us, they who taught us,
They who hurt us, they who loved us.
They touch our lives time and again,
Through their presence and their absence.
Through familiar scents and favorite songs,
Through old stories and renewed sorrow.
As the earth turns and leaves fall,
We reach back to renew the bonds between us.
With hearts and hands open
We hold on to love,
Ever stronger than death.
We reach back in gratitude and understanding,
without out time together,
The pain and the Joy,
We would never be who we are today:
We would have little to pass on ourselves.
Without fear, with thanksgiving
and with hope for all that awaits,
We remember those who have gone before,
We honor the circle of life and death,
And our place within this sacred thread.
I invite you to read through this out loud and then again in your head. Notice what word or image feels alive for you. Ask what that word or image has to say to you today. Take your word with you today and through to Samhain!
Rev Lori Whittemore
(she, her, hers)
Unitarian Universalist Church of Saco Biddeford