Darkness

I am going to interrupt my discussion of CDIP and Diversity to note that this is a special time of the year. This is the time of Halloween, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Day of the Dead, and, for those pagans (including witches and druids) with any sort of Celtic connections, Samhain.

I mentioned in my post on Thinking Positive (8/1/08) that I am a naturalistic pagan. That means that I don't believe in a lot of the things other pagans believe in. (I've had to explain to some of my witch friends that I am rather 'belief challenged'.) But there are certain things that I do believe in: earth, water, fire, and air, the sun, moon, and stars, and the changing of the seasons. And darkness. I believe in darkness and the value of darkness.

All the holidays around this date are about darkness, death, disorder, and decay. A lot of this can be summed up in the word 'Entropy'. (Another blogger, SoapBoxTech, and I got into a discussion of this on his blog.) The point of holidays like Samhain is that that entropy--darkness, death, disorder, and decay--is part of the life cycle and we need to celebrate these things as well as life's sunny, creative, organizing properties. We need chaos and disorder to create new things out of. We need death and decay to make room for new life. And we need darkness to nurture new growing things and to allow us to appreciate life.

If you want to fully join in the dance of life, you've got to acknowledge all the participants--and that includes darkness and decay.



Quote of the day: "The dark: all that we are afraid of, all that we don't want to see--fear, anger, sex, grief, death, the unknown. The turning dark: change. The velvet dark: skin soft in the night, the stroke of flesh on flesh, touch, joy, mortality. Hecate's birth-giving dark: seeds are planted underground, the womb is dark, and life forms itself anew in hidden places." - Starhawk
Word (or phrase) of the day: Riparian Zone
Hero(es) of the day: Ernestine Rose