Preparing for Winter - the Samhain threshold

Samhain is a threshold - a liminal space when the veil is thinnest between our world and the other or spirit world. To me it’s also the bridge between Autumn and Winter. The final fronteer before the darkness. I am not a lover of Winter, I dread the darker, colder and wetter weather, my world feels smaller and more restricted. I used to think of this time of year as a descent into Winter, but now I try to reframe it as a cycle.

The moon sits low above the trees, above the world; a reminder that there is light in darkness and darkness in light, and that everything that was will be again. SR. Hardy

In nature, as ever, changes are afoot. October’s inexorably shortening day length – biologists call it the photoperiod – is what triggers the deer rut. Pumped with testosterone, mature stags strike out in search of groups of receptive hinds. At dawn and dusk, they bellow and grunt to stake their claim. Though the rut is mostly bluster, battles between well-matched stags can be bloody. It’s a sight to behold if there is a local deer herd near you. In Ireland we are so fortunate to have very well known herds in Phoenix Park in Dublin and also in Killarney National Park where the rut can be seen in its full natural glory through October. Well worth a visit!

Photo by Diana Parkhouse on Unsplash

It’s apple, mushroom and sloe berry season too and the perfect time to try your hand at making sloe gin! Many nut trees drop their bounty - hazels, beech and chestnut trees for example. And Badgers spend autumns gorging on everything from earthworms to acorns and beech mast to prepare for the lack of food available during winter. By winter, healthy badgers should weigh a third to a half more than in summer. But milder winters mean they are less dependent on fattening up than they once were, as most nights they can still leave the sett and find food.

Samhain aka Halloween, invariably turns public attention to bats, lesser horseshoes are a speciality of south-west England, Wales and Ireland, and this month they enter their hibernation roosts. They favour cellars, tunnels and caves with consistently cool air. Keep an eye out for them swooping low at dusk before they tuck in.

All these are changes, adaptations and rituals of our native wildlife in preparation for autumn and winter yet to come. And so we too are being called to prepare and feather our nests for the season. We too are animals, we are nature. There is no real separation, only imagined.

Saving apples, hanging garlic and onions, storing potatoes in cool, dark places, making jams and jellies, preserving and fermenting foods into stacked glass jars for the pantry, chopping wood, stocking up on animal feed - all tasks synonymous with Autumn and preparation. With all these gentle, natural urges to complete, prepare, store and rest, I feel the call too, do you? Yet I used to often wonder as I race from class to class, toggling between online and inperson, working weekends and late nights, ‘what the heck was I thinking when I said I’d do all this stuff?’

It’s like me in the past who agreed to all this extra work and busy-ness, thought my future self was superhuman, with limitless energy and motivation. As though present me doesnt actually care about future me at all, doesn’t even consider her - why else would present me keep saying yes and taking on more and more work? This is a known epidemic amongst business owners - we are afraid to say no in case there’s a dry, quiet spell ahead or they don’t come asking again or will give the work to others.

When agreeing to future obligations and work loads, I’ve learned the hard way that it’s critical to connect my Future Self with my Present Self, so that I can consider what future me will need and want. I’m quite time blind, it’s a common symptom and issue for people with ADHD brains. We underestimate how long everything takes and pack too much, into too little time. For example, in August I always plan for the period of September to December. Sitting on a beach in August it feels like time is endless and meandering, I’m full of energy and business is slow in late summer, so funds are dry. My mind conjures up all these lovely events and classes to create, market, sell and host. I do my usual underestimating how long it will take me to design, organise, advertise and fill these, so when the time rolls around I find myself mired in working every weekend, running between classes, with a pile of unopened emails and a social media content calendar I can’t keep up with. This was my pattern for many years.

When I booked in all this stuff and said yes to corporate events as well, I had total confidence that my Future Self would be fine, she has this! It seemed as though Present and Future me were strangers and as a result Present Self, put Future Self under alot of pressure and stress.

According to Aoife McElwaine’s book Slow at Work, “The benefits to connecting to Future Self are obvious - studies have shown that people more connected to future selves make better financial decisions and feel more in control of their lives”. We can learn to change through experience and awareness. For what’s in your awareness can’t control you. And for me, it’s also important to slow down my decision making. Not jumping to say yes, not actually advertising every workshop in one go and by asking myself quite literally, “how will future me feel about this? will she thank me?”. Make it a regular practice, part of your preparation in work and with your decisions in life, to consult with your Future Self to help you make better, kinder, more realistic choices.

If like me, you find winter a time of tiredness and you struggle with the darker days and less light, start your preparation now. For example, do you need to plan in a break, a holiday, some time off? Do you have extra expenses due to be paid, so do you need to save or take on extra work during the year when you have more energy to cover that, and therefore reduce that stress down the road? I work alot in Autumn, so that I can save up and take a few weeks off in December and early January. I also have much less energy in February and March that I do now, so I take on some extra workshops so that I don’t have to work as much in early spring when it’s my least favourite time of the year and I’m tired and cold!

Ways to take care of your Future Self:

  1. Batch cook - fill your freezer with curries, soups and hearty meals for those weeks you are floored or can’t be arsed cooking

  2. Samhain is nature’s composting time. Let go of what you don’t need — physically and emotionally. Declutter your space, finish up lingering projects or release old habits.

  3. Plan out the next three months using either the moon cycles, your own personal cycle (eg) menstrual as guidance. During full moon or ovulation we often have the most energy. New moon or menstruation plan to do less if possible

  4. Create a Samhain alter and tend to it as it evolves into Winter alter to help you stay rooted in the current season

  5. If you struggle in Winter - plan in things that will help you thrive (eg) get a SAD lamp, book a trip, plan a self-care or self-date date, book a week off (I call these my fire breaks)

  6. Build a slow rhythm now. Start a gentle weekly ritual that will carry you through the season — Sunday beach walk with the dogs, Monday night candlelit yoga, Thursday soup night. Future-you will thank you for the anchor

  7. Plant a symbolic seed. Even if just bulbs in a pot or garlic in the garden, daffodils at the garden gate, something to remind you that life continues quietly below the surface. Future-you will smile when green shoots appear.

  8. Make checking in with your future self a part of your morning and evening rituals, try out the journaling prompts below to help you connect

  9. Pause - before agreeing to anything, ask yourself “what will future me think about this decision? Will they be pissed off or happy when they realise how much I’ve taken on for them?

  10. Say no - practice it, try it, don’t explain or justify it. No is a complete sentence

Over the years, I’ve written many blogs and gathered resources for Samhain, I present them to you now as a little gift from past me to present you: