* indicates footnotes for curious geeks
In my coaching practice, I work with a lot of folks who are looking to dismantle racism and to liberate and decolonize our communities. This is all part of community care coaching: we can’t care for each other fully when we’re living in systems that depend upon us harming and exploiting each other and the land.
As I write this, witnessing the horrors of settler colonialism here on Turtle Island and in Palestine (DONATE HERE), as well as the catastrophic legacy of imperialism in the Congo, Sudan, Pakistan, the Ukraine, and elsewhere, there is no doubt. We must continue to build and move to the possible worlds that we do want.
Many of my clients find it helpful to research and connect to the historic practices of their heritage. This could be biological family heritage, or it might be a chosen heritage, such as Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+ folks. They are looking for the stories, practices, and traditions that existed before the global domination of European ruling class colonization.*** They want to know how their people originally connected to the land and community before privatization and the enforcement of capitalism. In this vein, I know of people exploring several different traditions: Yoruba, Anishinaabe, Santeria, Saami, Greek, Roman, Slavic, or Irish, to name a few.
This is a tricky business, because we always want to practice right relationship with indigenous peoples in these traditions (including non-human peoples, such as trees, animals, and supernatural entities), and not act out of entitlement. Some practices are closed to outsiders as a protection against further colonization. We want to be careful not to appropriate, but instead to be respectful whenever a practitioner is gracious enough to share knowledge with us, and to honor the parameters and boundaries around that sharing.
Since I am currently studying both the Irish language and Irish pagan practices, I’ll share what I’ve been learning recently.*** I have noticed that being more grounded in Irish traditions means I can hold a calm, generative, healthy space for clients who are exploring their own traditions and setting up ancestral altars, sometimes for the first time in their lives.
It is healing for many to know that our spirits have a place to be fed and to express themselves outside of religions that enforce "one right way." It helps us to imagine possible paths of being. It helps us to connect with the land, even as capitalism is trying to kill it and us. It helps us to grieve and also to resist, to be able to connect with each other in different, imaginative patterns.
ID: a photo of a carved turnip, which was the traditional vegetable to be carved (and sometimes lit by a candle) and set by the door on the Irish fire festival of Samhain, to discourage the Aos Sidhe, or fairy folk, from coming in. Pumpkins are not native to Ireland. Creative Commons license.
November: Irish Samhain
This is the season of Samhain (pronounced “sah-wen).* Though many know Samhain as a kind of Wiccan or Pagan Halloween, or as an Irish Fire Festival, it’s also the name of the month of November in Gaeilge (the Irish language, pronounced “guel-ga”). "Samhain Shona Duit," means "Happy November to you."
According to scholar and practitioner Lora O'Brien ***, the word “Samhain” most likely means “summer’s end,” or "summer's rest". It marked that time in Ireland when the nearly wild herds of grazing animals, such as sheep and cattle, would return to land near the coastal towns, since the coastal areas were warmer in the winter. Accompanying the migration would be the town herders - often young people whose absence could be afforded for the summer months.
This means that Samhain was, at its core, a reunion - the whole community was together again, and that was worth a celebration and some high spirits. It was a liminal time between summer and winter ... and the young ones who were at the liminal state between childhood and adulthood - both those who went away and those who stayed home - may have grown and matured over the summer. They might now be interested in some mischief and matchmaking. We’ll see how that played out in a bit.
The Culling
There were also decisions to be made at Samhain. Of the herd animals, which should be kept? Some were worth the effort and resources to feed over the winter - they would provide milk, young, labor, wool … or, as they grew, they would provide more meat after the winter.
But some might not survive the winter. What they could provide now though, was meat, both for a reunion feast, and to be preserved to feed the community during the winter.
Samhain, then, was a time for culling.
Some say that the word bonfire comes from bone-fire.** A bonfire was a large part of the Samhain tradition, because the bones from the culling were added to the fire, where they produced a bone meal that would fertilize next year’s fields in the spring.
ID: a colorized restored 1920s photo of two Straw Boys, that is, two youth wearing straw conical masks and dresses, knocking on the door of an Irish cottage by the sea,. They were known as Mummers (or Guisers) at Halloween and would blow a cow's horn and perhaps perform songs or skits for the family in return for treats. Wearing the same or similar masks, these same boys might be Biddy Boys (Brigid boys) at Imbolc/St. Brigid's Day in February, Wren Boys in late December, and May Boys at Beltane. They might also make mischief at a wedding or a wake. Photo from Old Ireland in Colour 3 from Merrion Press, shared on social media and their website. See this video for a deep dive into the history and some footage of these straw masks in use.
With a bonfire comes a festival, including, as the Irish did for the four fire festivals**, dressing up in different clothes, visiting each other’s houses, and blowing off steam by getting up to mischief. It wasn’t just the humans that were brought out by the Samhain fire and feasting though - the fair folk came out as well. Children specifically were dressed up in costumes so the Aos Sidhe wouldn’t recognize them and steal them away. Safety first, as they say.
With the culling and the coming darkness, this was also a time that the community liked to practice prophecy and divination; would they and their loves survive the cold dark months?
In “The Saucer Game,” people would lay out three saucer dishes on a table or surface. One contained clay; the second, water; the third, a ring. The person playing was blindfolded, and while they weren’t looking the saucers were mixed up into random order. They would then put their finger into one of the saucers, naming their fate.
If they selected the saucer that held clay, it prophesied death.
If they selected the saucer that held water, it prophesied travel across the water, or emigration.
If they selected the saucer that held the ring, it prophesied a partner relationship.
From the photos and documentation I saw, it seemed clear that this was done in a jovial communal setting, so you would never face the results alone or without support.
Perhaps this sounds morbid, until you realize that it was meant as guidance. If you selected the saucer full of clay, it was time to reflect on what practices might be leading to your early demise, and to change them if you could. Or if a beloved elder selected death, it was a reminder to honor and value the time you had left with them. Death was much more a part of life at the time (and the Irish are known for the boisterous wake for funerals), and it might have seemed helpful to at least feel like you could see it coming with your community around you.
Emigration was also a pretty constant fact of life in nearly all Irish communities, especially under Catholic and then English colonialism. When many of your resources and products are being exported for the wider colonial market, sometimes you must help your family by moving to a place where you can earn your own money - a still familiar story today thanks to continued imperialism.
In the days long before WhatsApp, emigration was like a form of death; you may never see that family member again. Perhaps it helped to have a way to name that, face it, and prepare for it.
Love Magic
Sometimes we can look down on spells that involve love and marriage, but for many young people, there was no model for having their own life without being partnered or called to spiritual service. Seeing the young herders stroll back into town at summer’s end might open a window into making a life of one’s own.
Some of the love spells would show the first letter of your beloved’s name, or offer an image of what they might look like. Imagine: if at Samhain you learned that your beloved’s name starts with the letter D, when your parent started hiring help for all the work in the spring, you might influence them to hire Darby over Finlay.
Or perhaps you deeply dislike Darby, you would take your chances and influence the decision toward Finlay, because you’ve been warned, in this case, of the importance of names that start with the letter D. This is the rest of your life we’re talking about - best to use a combination of the wisdom you can glean by magical means as well as your own likes and dislikes.
The reunion at Samhain was also a good time to invite the ancestors back home for a visit: families would leave them a plate during their meal, and they would leave the door unlatched.
Some families would let the hearth fire burn down, rake the ashes smooth, and look the next morning for a footprint. This could, depending on the family’s belief, indicate the visit of an ancestor. It could also mean something for the household: if the footprint was moving toward the door, it could mean a family member would be leaving; if the footprint was in the direction of coming into the house, it could mean a new family member would be arriving.
All of this reminds us of the power and mystery that are often inherent in change, in times of transition, and in liminality. If Samhain is a time for culling, we may reflect on what needs to be culled from our lives. What colonial beliefs are no longer serving us? On a more personal level, what relationships need a break so we can reset our boundaries? As we near the holidays, November is a good time to reflect on these questions.
Reckoning and Reimagining
Studying and practicing traditions like these help us feel connected to a past in which we understood our place in the world and with our kin: our link to the seasons, the earth, magic, and the Otherworld. Because there’s such a beautiful logic once we understand the real purpose of Summer’s End, it informs a sense of right relationship rather than ungrounded practices that might feel co-opted or overly capitalistic.
Knowing our own ancestral practices doesn’t let us off the hook. Some of our ancestors were harmful and oppressive people. As a person of Irish descent, I have to reckon with the fact that my ancestors were driven out of Ireland by early practices of settler colonialism by the English. They then came to the U.S. to practice settler colonialism and white-centered trade unionism, participating in the harm against Black and Indigenous folks even as their relatives back in Ireland begged them not to do so in their letters. Many of us must dismantle centuries of colonial being. We must heal from generations worth of trauma - the trauma we have received from others, but also the trauma which we have incurred upon ourselves as we harmed others as if it didn’t matter. Much of this history is not simple or easy to categorize and resolve, but action is possible and necessary. ***
Learning about our own ancestral practices does allow us to make sense of another world, one in which capitalism did not have such a stranglehold on life and the land. This gives us a place to imagine, heal, and grow into. And that’s not nothing.
ID: a photo of a fire display in the shape of a Celtic-stylized fish with a person orchestrating below. There seems to be a stone wall or mound in the background. The setting is the modern Fire Festival for Samhain in Ireland. Creative Commons License.
Footnotes:
* Samhain pronounced like "sah-wen." Now that I’ve been studying the Irish language, Gaeilge, the spelling and pronunciation of Samhain finally make sense to me! Here’s the breakdown:
1. Why is there no “m” sound in Samhain?
Because it is a rule in Gaeilge that whenever the letter “h” appears after a consonant, it softens or silences the letter before it, like a hush. Your lips start to make the “m” sound but the “h” hushes them and they stop before they can come together.
2. What are you supposed to do with all those vowels?
a. There is no English short “a” sound in Irish, so the word could never be pronounced “Sam Hane.”
b. For the second half of the word, Irish Gaeilge often puts several vowels together. The most important thing to watch for is the accent marks (called fadhas) to mark the pronunciation. Without fadhas none of the vowel sounds are strongly formed sounds (like “eee” or “oh” or “ooo”) but more like relaxed, open mouth sounds ("uh" or "eh" or like the "i" in "wit"). If there were a fadha over the second “a,” like “Samháin,” it would be pronounced “sah-wane.” But there’s not, so it’s “sah-wen.”
** Bonfire: perhaps this was a translation of the Irish tine chnámh (pronounced "tin-nay hawh" with a throaty “h”) or perhaps the name came from similar English practices. There is argument around this explanation and this may not actually be the root of the word.
The 4 Irish Fire Festivals: Imbolc is February 1, Bealtaine is May 1, Lughnasa is August 1, and Samhain is October 31/November 1. The year is further quartered by the two equinoxes and the two solstices. More basics about the holidays here.
*** Resources
The Irish Pagan School has free and paid classes available on Irish traditional and current pagan practices, drawing from the pre-Christian era. The instructors do rigorous research and each identify as practicing Draoí - practitioners and priests of indigenous Irish magic and spirituality. Each class states very clearly what is from the lore and where it’s written down, and what is from the instructor's own personal experience of worship and interactions with the Otherworld. Nearly everything I've stated here about Samhain practices comes from their course on Samhain - any errors in reporting are solely my own.
The Indigenous People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz talks about how the English practiced settler colonialism in Northern Ireland first.
Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat by J. Sakai talks about the Irish migration and how relatives back home begged their American kin not to be like the English.
“Decolonization is not a Metaphor” by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang helps clarify the wrestling that must happen if we are to truly decolonize and re-indigenize.
The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon talks about decolonization in terms of action and uprising. Fanon first noticed how miserable both colonizers and the colonized were as he provided psychiatric care to each side. He understood the action of decolonization to be the real and only cure.
The Book on Fire Podcast, Season 2, on Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici. I recommend coming at this foundational book through the podcast first if the heavy reading intimidates you. For those of European descent, this book traces patriarchy and white supremacy back to the origins of capitalism and the Enlightenment - plus it's just a very interesting read or listen.