I Know What You Did Last Samhain, redux (or, what to do when security busts you doing witchy shit in the cemetery)

First published May 5th, 2016.

Last Sunday my coven observed Samhain, timed appropriately with the Full Moon in Scorpio as we usually do. This year in the lead up to the ritual, some of us have been doing a little bit of ancestor work, and this would culminate in a ceremony at one of the local cemeteries.

It did seem a little ‘back to the 90s’ when I thought of all of the times when I was a teenager and my friends and I used to go for a walk to the cemetery at night just to spook ourselves out a little bit, and maybe even see a ghost. We didn’t intentionally time our ritual to be at night, in fact we were hoping to avoid it so that we could still see what we were doing, and maybe we could end it just as the moon rose. Alas, a couple of things foiled this plan; firstly, a couple of other people were at the cemetery as well and they seemed to linger for a super long amount of time (at one point I thought we would end up with some new members of the Sacred Circle of the Inner Flame), and secondly it got dark rather quick due to the cloud cover and the intermittent rain. So we paused to reflect on some of my relatives who were buried there, and also some of the more neglected gravestones and the much older graves of the pioneers. Some nice sherry for Gran, a stubby of VB for Grandpa and my cousin. And some more sherry for anyone else who wanted some. To encounter a grave marked prior to 1900 is quite the rare thing particularly in Western Australia so we had come to make a point of tending to and remembering some of the older or more neglected memorials in the most respectful way possible.

Soon enough we had a chance to set up circle at the far end of the park, under a gazebo near a beautiful big tree. After grounding, cleansing, protecting and erecting our space in the usual manner we performed a simple ceremony calling to and honouring the forgotten dead.

During the proceedings we heard the telltale sound of tires on gravel as a pair of headlights shone down the parkway that ran through the centre of the cemetery. We were right in the middle of a solemn speech, and I thought maybe some cleaners had come to check on the toilets but then they drove right through the graveyard and turned the various corners of the parkways until there we were, blinking in the headlights of a security vehicle, parked about 1 metre from our circle boundary. Um. This is new?

Faerie Sarah saved the evening and stated quietly to us as we paused briefly wandering what to do, “we’re allowed to be here”. She gently approached the car and explained we were doing a ceremony to remember family, and that we wouldn’t be too long. The driver just said he wanted to check that we weren’t up to any mischief. He encountered the grace and force of Faerie up close quietly and politely telling him the truth, plus the perhaps baffling diorama of witches with their altar set up, standing in the circle with bits of paper in their hands, blinking in the headlights as the rain water dripped quietly from the tree branches. Who knows what he was thinking! But then…

…he left without warnings or cautions and we were at peace again to finish our circle, close things up – and then the moon broke out from behind the clouds and drenched us all in beautiful silvery light that reflected off the grave markers. Don’t you love it when that happens? All was well.

(I also must mention quietly invoking Hekate to myself prior to the ritual as I would do it ‘for real’ in circle, and my eyes landed on a pair of rusted little copper keys, hanging from the filigree wrought iron of the gazebo. Intake of breath. Snap them up. Okay.)

So back to home base for feast and dumb supper, and lighting candles at the altars, glasses of wine, copious cups of tea and talking into the night as the wind howled on the blustery and very exciting night. Gosh, I love Samhain! You can check out my post for last year’s circle here.

This post is for the Pagans Down Under blog project – keeping me accountable with Southern Hemisphere oriented topics for the year.