Wild Woman Cafe

According to the Celts, October 31st marks the end of the calendar year. The harvest is reaped and stored, and the cycle of death descends on us as we make the transition into the cold dark clutches of winter. The transition between the old and new on the eve of the 31st is, as the Celts believed, when the boundaries between the living and the dead are blurred, and communication between the two worlds is possible. The Celts celebrated this time as 'Samhain', translated from Gaelic as "end of summer". * Though the veil between the worlds is said to be thin during this time, allowing for easy cross-over, I have never personally seen any ghosts or received any messages from them. Not on Samhain. * But I have indeed received my fair share of visitations. * One day in the early autumn of 1999 I was treeplanting on an old cutblock on Vancouver Island. The long, tiring season had left me bruised and listless, and I plodded along amidst the last remaining heat of the season i...

I was blessed today to spend a few hours with a good friend over chai lattes, sitting behind the glass of the coffee shop window watching the first snow of autumn. We watched hooded people come and go along the sidewalk while the wind twisted and twirled in jackets of white flakes like a thousand invisible dancers. I don't know what it is about snow that I love so much, but it feels so final and concilatory, like nature tucking you in under the blanket, lulling everything into a peaceful white silence. Soft and forgiving as feathers. Good memories from my childhood are blanketed in snow. Many of them involve visiting my grandparents in their home on Vancouver Island at Christmas, amidst the farms and forests. Excitement would mount as we pulled up the steep wooded driveway of their property under the thick canopy of cedar and fir, the view of chimney smoke puffing away on a whispy wind while warm lights shone like beacons from within. As we climbed the wooden steps to the house,...