Honoring Something Different This Samhain

It was with a heavy heart that I sat before my altar last night, with images of my beloved New Jersey torn asunder sitting firmly in my mind. While my loved ones are all safe and accounted for (thank the gods), places where so many memories were made were washed out to sea, never to be the same. The places where I spent summers in shore towns, my only family vacation to my beloved beautiful asbury park, the weekends spent in shitty motels right out of high school, birthday weekends, my first fledgling attempts at photography, that damned belly button piercing, trips to Atlanic City with my mom when I was younger, the place I threw a bottle into the ocean with a note to the man I love, with a note of sentiment for the sea to carry to him while he was in another country sorting himself out. Heartbroken, I remembered the places that had cleansed my soul, healed my heart and brought calm and joy to my life numerous times. I felt torn, useless for not being there and not being able to do anything from so far away but donate blood and money.

I very nearly walked away from my altar, candles unlit and nothing said. But I didn't, I couldn't. I turned and lit my candles despite the heaviness in my heart, welcomed the elements and praised Hecate and Hermes. As I did, I felt more energized than I had in days - prickles of pins and needles traveled from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I lit another candle for my homeland, for the memories that are now gone, for the people who lost so much and I let some of it go; left some of it at the end of the Wheel's last cycle and took a step, a little lighter in to the new one. What I have to offer, right now, all that I can do to help - is enough.

Being one who celebrates the people who have passed on in my life on Dia de Los Muertos, I chose to honor the history, dreams, memories and lives lost to that hateful storm. I thanked the far off crippled shoreline for all it had done for me with the last remnants of the water I gathered there under the full moon on my third anniversary. My usual Samhain workings came after. Though tired, I lit a black candle and burned away the things I wish to leave behind in the old year and a white candle to attract the things I wish to call to me in the new one. Finally, I sat with my faerie oracle deck for a while, pulling three cards. I didn't pull a full wheel of the year reading as I normally do; I was too drained to focus well.

Seems I need to be wary of what I hear this coming year; of gossip and messages mangled and mixed. Or is this wee Fae simply bearing my messenger god's greetings to me? Either way, the beginning of this new turn will be heralding in a shift in several of my perspectives, a lot of introspection and deep work and hopefully - an arrival to a place of true renewal and healing.

Blessed Samhain, lovelies.