The Thin Space Between Worlds
Donn, as the ancient Celtic stories go, was a military leader, the oldest of seven sons. He lead his brothers and a fleet of 65 ships to Ireland prepared for invasion and occupation, propelled by revenge for their kinsmen who were killed on site. When they landed, they started heading for Tara, but met three queens along the way. One of the queens – also a goddess in Celtic lore – foretold great success for their invasion, which, apparently, annoyed Donn no end. I suppose he didn’t want a woman taking credit for his victory, so he responded something like, “We owe our success not to her, but to our own power.”
Let’s say that the Queen/Goddess was none too happy with that response, and let him know that, thanks to his arrogance, victory was no longer on the table for him. He would not be celebrating a win any time soon. When they arrived in Tara the forces realized they weren’t actually ready to fight and decided to head back out to sea to regroup. Legend has it they went as far as nine waves breadth from Irish shores. I suppose so as not to look ridiculous, they told the people they were giving them time to mount a defense, and that if they could prevent them from landing again, they’d turn tail and return home.
The people, delighted by this turn of events, sought the help of their goddesses, particularly the one who was already done with Donn, and they raised a great storm, demolishing most of the enemy ships. Four of the brothers died and were buried on the ragged islands known as the Skelligs. The others did return to the mainland, but Donn, the leader and instigator of the massive loss, died at sea, never setting foot on Ireland again.
After his death, Donn used his power in the Otherworld to rise to the position of Lord of the Dead. He made his home in a place now called Tech Duinn on one of those islands, completely visible from the Irish coast. On stormy nights, it was believed he rode on a white horse across the sky and the people would say. “Donn is galloping in the clouds tonight.”
The legend grew. Donn’s story mirrored that of Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. The story of this invasion is mythological and is sort of dated about 3000 years ago, and could have, over time, blended with some of the Greek stories. Like Hades ferrying people across the River Styx, Donn ferries people over the sea to the Otherworld.
Unlike Hades, Donn is said to have a home – or several homes – in Ireland. This is because the Celts didn’t separate worlds the way we do today. There was one world, one eternal soul, that lived here and moved on to another existence once life in this world ended. Donn, the god of death, is present, as seen riding across the sky, and has homes where there are doorways into the Otherworld where souls move through or sometimes hover, as do a host of creatures we rarely see like the fairies and the little people who were sometimes around to offer help and blessings, and sometimes to cause mischief or even great pain.
The boundary between these worlds usually holds firm, but there is a time of year when it gets thin and beings move back and forth between them.
Samhain (SOW-in), the Celtic festival celebrated at this time of year, marks the mid-point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. It is the most important festival in Celtic tradition, and while Westerners like to say it marks the new year, I haven’t found evidence that the Celts actually understood time in quite that way.
Samhain (SOW-in) is the juncture between two halves of the year, marking a suspension of time. It’s in these hours that the veil between worlds thins and the world of the living becomes entangled with the world of the dead, or more accurately, the Otherworld, where we’ll find those who have passed between worlds, and a host of creatures otherwise unseen here.
To mark these critical hours, all the fires of the land were put out, bringing deep darkness. They could only be relit from the Great Flames of a single ritual fire. In reality this relighting from one fire was more symbolic, but the extinguishing of all flames was real, giving people a lived experience of the dark, and the feeling of the power of that dark, ascending. When the fire was lit, there was a public celebration and feast, and it was understood that the spirits of the dead could be welcomed into your homes safely, posing no threat. The spirits of the ancestors were thought to gather around the fire, bringing health and hope to the family who in turn offered them light and warmth.
The spirits of the ancestors were friendly, but not everyone who made their way through the gates was benign, so it was good to head to bed early to stay out of their way. Food was left out to appease them, even those considered friendly, because, frankly, you don’t want to piss off a ghost, even one who theoretically loves you.
As time stands still, as the land goes dark, people went to bed for another reason. Boundaries everywhere became soft. The line between your land and your neighbor’s was a place to encounter the shenanigans of the little people. Ghosts hovered in the doorways. Bridges were sites of dangerous encounters with entities felt but not seen. Burial places were popular hangouts for the spirits of the dead.
During this time of the thin veil when the dead and other creatures slip between worlds, it’s also possible for humans to slide across the line, or to be tricked into entering a space from which it is not easy to return. And if you do return, you’ll find that time moves differently, so three days there becomes 300 years here, and everyone you know is gone. Leaving out treats and going to bed or finding way to hide on this night, is the safest acknowledgment of the time, and a critical part of Samhain.
When Christianity came to Ireland, some of these traditions lived on in one way or another, and when the Irish arrived in the US, they brought the lore and practices to us in the form of Halloween. This coming Friday night, people will dress in costume to hide themselves from roaming ghosts. Standing in border spaces of front doors and porches, strangers will offer treats to ward away the tricks they are otherwise promised. Teenagers will hover outside cemeteries daring each other to enter, telling haunting stories, and everywhere people will light up pumpkins with fire to bring light back, and frighten off wandering spirits looking to make mischief. Three thousand years later, we continue to talk about the doorway between worlds, as many countries and cultures around the globe also note what they experience as a thinning veil. We talk about all of this as fun, as ancient, as legend, as entertainment. But, last year I told a story of my grandmother’s death and more than half of you later relayed similar experiences.
For those who weren’t here, the abbreviated version is that one night, I woke unable to breath. It was terrifying. No air in or out for maybe 45 seconds. I panicked, but then air came back. I learned a few hours later that my grandmother died, apparently at that same moment.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell that story. I thought many of you would dismiss me as being foolish or dramatic or silly. You didn’t. Or, maybe some of you did, but you didn’t tell me that. Instead, what I heard was how often people have had supernatural experiences at the moment of a loved one’s death or have seen, heard, or smelled someone in undeniable ways. You also told me you don’t talk about those things because you have the same fear I did of dismissal.
In the 16th century, human evolution shifted and reason was introduced in a very different way to our toolbox. The superstitions of the Medieval period were melting away and in their place was a new rational framework for how we understand the world. In the 18th century we experience such a universal change in how we understand everything, we call it the Enlightenment and founded a country – this country – on the principles of reason and human rights. Valuing the human experience above religious law, imagining new ways to organize ourselves starting with what we know to be true, this country was formed outside of the religious structure of past societies.
Unitarianism was birthed very specifically in that context, and so mirrored Enlightenment principles that founding father Thomas Jefferson predicted every American would soon be Unitarian. Reason was the precursor to religious belief, and the filter for every theology. The Universalists weren’t quite so strict in their approach to the world, but that Unitarian spirit of rationalism continues to inform much of who we are.
Which is why I didn’t want to tell you that story. It was not rational.
And we don’t live in a world where we see the god of death riding across the sky during a storm or expect leprechauns to create havoc in October. Or, if you do, you probably don’t tell too many people that. We think our way out of acknowledging things that don’t seem reasonable. We might acknowledge mystery of some kind, but it’s more likely to be things we think we will one day understand like if there’s life on other planets. Experiences we define as supernatural are more likely to break into our lives, but less likely to find their way into polite conversation.
I’m not going to change that, certainly for our culture, and likely not for you. What I can do is tell you that for millennia humans have had these experiences, and even in our hyper rational world, we can sometimes hear the voice of someone who is not there or feel the spirit of the ancestors in the ground beneath us when we lay prostrate on the grass. Feeling spooked in a graveyard is common and seeing a ghost is not uncommon.
So, as October 31 approaches, as the veil between worlds becomes thin, we can put on costumes and hand out candy and light up our jack-o-lanterns all in good fun. But, we can also stand still and feel the spirit world pass through us, listen for the voices of those who have gone before, and allow the mystery of this wild and complicated world to inspire and awe us, setting our minds, on these dark and cold nights, ablaze.
