October – the season of change, of decay and dying; not dead yet, but on its way.

October, the season of wind and darkness, of shifting time.

Literal time shifts – the night gets darker, morning too, and the clocks will eventually change. And the other kind of time begins to shift as well – the otherworld gets closer, the darkness and the veil begin to surround us. Whispers through the worlds find our hearts, letting us know we are not alone.

The otherworld tells me of its presence: I am here. You are not alone. There are so many of us, known and unknown to you, here as close as the dark, as close as the fall breeze, as close as the falling leaves underfoot. We are here, lean back into our holding, let us catch you.

Ancestors. 

Back and back and back again.

Those I have names for and those I do not. They can reach forward from the other side, through the veil with their wishes and their wisdom – have this, hold this to your heart. It may feel at times that the circle right around you is all you have, but there are ripples of us, rings of love going back through time, ready to fill in empty spaces, answer questions that plague your heart, listen to deep longings that are still yet wordless, and give the yearnings of your soul a place at the table.

Even if the details of us are gone, hard to find and track down, lost in archives or burnt in churches hundreds of years ago, we are still here. Right here, in this shifting season, in this walk into deep time. The fire is lit, and we are waiting.

I tell myself to remember that the hearth is the place of gathering, the place of cooking and story-telling, of sleeping and mending, of healing and silence. It is the flame we gather around to hold us in connection. It is the fire within us that has been lit from the hearth that keeps us connected into ourselves. The flame passed down through centuries, across oceans, in births and in deaths. In this shifting time, as the veil is reachable and the darkness holds us, each fire, each flame, is a signal of our ancestors’ presence, like a hand on the heart. We are here.