October...Samhain

The first nip of winter is in the air, and the boreal forest round about my cottage crackles with the flaming red of blueberry and the sunny crimson and yellow of the drying lichen. In the delicate boughs of silvery birches, squirrels have laid out summer mushrooms to dry. Just beyond the trees, waves from the great lake roll out an easy rhythem of sky and water.

The cottage is set against a rising hill, and from its cantered pipe chiminey a curling trail of gray-blue smoke rises. It bears the fragrance of spruce, and the promice of hearth and home. I sit out here on the deck, set in the wilds that are my home, and soak in this perfect autumn day.

My clarsach, a Celtic harp that is my old friend, rests comfortable upon my legs. From time to time my fingers skip accross her strings, weaving a skein of notes, but no music I conjure can encompass the moment. For the season is that of Samhain, the moment between, the most enchanted time. In the Celtic calandar, Samhain was not a time at all,but rather a time between times.It was three lost days that marked the end of the old and the start of the new.

For the Celts, day began with night and the year started with winter. From darkness springs forth light, and from the end arises the beginning. This is a great mysteryof the spiraling cycles of Celtic thought. But in the moment between--therin lies the mist of potential, the nexis wherein the great enchantment lies. This is the enigma of Samhain, for it whispers the promise that the dream is the paragon, and the real and the unreal are but a reflection.

So I sit here, breath almost misting the air, pondering the mystery, trying to embody it in music and summon the magick. The sky is a bright sapphire, full of warmth, but autumn bites in the shadows. Soon the arctic night will decend and cold blue stars and ethreal curtains of flame will by my only night. My simple cottage promises domestic comfort, yet I am engulfed by the striking wild. The time is between, my world is between, ans as if to punctuate it, even the name of my clarsach is between, for her name is Domhan Eile, "Otherworld". She is my link to enchantment, bearing in her wooden breat and sparkling strings of bronze the very essence of the otherworld, for her music is a between force, too. It derives from the most mundane sources: a little wood, a little wire, a little pluck of the fingers. But those simple elements can sing with the voice of wind and water, can tap out the staccato of rain, can chill the marrow or spark the spirit.

And I realize as I hold her in this sparkling time, in this wondorous place, that I am enveloped in the between: it runs throughout me and the land and my home.

If...I...could...just...touch...it.

I run an arpeggio across the strings, search for a chord that might capture the texture of the moment. But I fall short.

Toward sunset, it begins to grow chill. I go inside to put on a sweater, and make myself a cup of tea. A little warmth, a dash of honey and cream. With my mug to warm my hand and my sweater to warm my breat, I return outside, almost, but not quite, content. Where is the music of Samhain ?

But the air has freshened. A breeze flows and I feel the earth upon it--rich and dark, but tinged cold by the shadowy forest. I sit with my clarsach again, to sip the tea and make do with the silence.

And it is then that nature herself makesher own music. I do not realize it at first. My mind is distant. I vaguely hear only the hum of something indescribably delicate, like the fluttering of fairy wings. My mind draws near and the hum takes on shape and form, chiming bells tumbling over themselves.

I look Down.

Domhan Eile is set just so the wind can sheer through her strings and the breath of the Earth has set them to trembling. The sounds is more full of mystery than any I could have summoned with my clumsey, harper's fingers. The inspiration I sought has come at last, come of its own.

I am tranfixed. This is something between. A harp that plays herself, a wind that sings with the voice of bronze.

I can only watch as a ruby sun falls into the western horizon. Soon the aurora will dance to the music. This is the season of the utherworld, and the magick of the between is rich and real. I did not need to call it. It was always here, awaiting its moment.