samhain
Monday, November 2nd, 2009I’m still trying to figure out what holidays I celebrate. For that matter, I’m still trying to figure out the shape of my understanding of divinity, but that’s a much bigger and less concrete problem. The holidays are easy: just have to discover and honor my own responses to days that are special to some large number of people.
Samhain is like entering a lucid dream. It’s deep sleep—winter is coming—and also reflection, contemplation, rediscovery of still awareness. I’ve imagined that it might be conceptually similar to the state vipassana yogis achieve when they rest without sleeping. If that hubristic notion turns out to be true, that’ll be cool.
Yesterday I baked an impressive number of cheesecakes: four small eight-inch ones and 14 ramekins of varying sizes. Yesterday I went to a Halloween party, where the cheesecakes got an enthusiastic reception and I got to bask in dear friends’ tenth wedding anniversary. Yesterday ended with a puppy pile of fascinating, half-drunk conversation about socially important topics. The conversation was defeated only by sleep.
Today I was thrilled to acquire two new housemates, who will likely be moving in gradually, and who are excellent, and oh yay. Today a friend who lives in Oregon came to visit with his six-month old and his toddler, both of whom he carted over to this coast all by himself. That was some impressive kid-wrangling fu, all love and concern. Today I had bonding time with my housemates and a scary, ultimately affirming and warm conversation with a beloved.
I also thought of my dad, because today we think about big cycles, and his is over, but mine with him is not really. I thought of the grandparents I’d known (my mom’s side) and ones I hadn’t (my dad’s side), of war and peace, of the pricelessness of time, of equilibrium.