As an adult I’ve liked the queerness of Halloween, the flamboyance and the facepaints, but there’s always been a shallowness to the occasion. It wasn’t that different than just about any weekend night in the Castro.
But this year I was invited to perform in a ritual for the pagan holiday Samhain, which takes place at this time, midway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, at the end of the harvest season. Many people consider it the Celtic New Year; it launches the dark half of the year, which ends with the feast of Beltane on May 1.
The ancient Celts—and today’s pagans—believe(d) that beginnings happen in darkness, just as we’re carried in the darkness of the womb before being born. All things have their origins in the dark, fertile and irrational underworld; seeds lie buried underground in what seems to be death but is in fact a precursor to springing to life and ultimately bearing fruit.
On Samhain, the veil between this chaotic primordial Underworld and the world of the living is at its thinnest, so we can reach out and connect with the spirits. Renewing social ties with the dead ensures a safe, fruitful future. The structures of the old year/life are ritually dissolved—just as death dissolves our identity in this world—through bonfires and acts of social disorder, especially related to social rank or gender-appropriate behavior. Cross-dressing was traditionally one of the most widespread and popular ways of expressing the snubbing of social categories.
In the Bay Area some pagans celebrate the occasion with a huge ritual called the Spiral Dance. Despite my utter unfamiliarity with it, they invited me to take a small role—to invoke South, the direction of fire and eros, with a solo hoopdance performance. I happened to have just finished a red and orange costume, layers of glittery material, ornate brocades and silks, and bootcovers of red fur. If you believe in coincidence or destiny or Intendedness, it was that; as far as I’m concerned, the hours I spent pinning and sewing brought the dance upon me. These days I avidly believe in my powers to manifest opportunities for myself.
It was only afterwards that I realized I’ve never really done a solo performance before, under spotlights and the riveted gaze of half a thousand people, with no other hoopers to share the attention. The cheering, whistling crowd reached out their arms to me as I whirled and leapt with Christabel’s small psi hoop (no real flames were allowed in the venue). I was fire, people told me after my dance. Towards the end of the ritual, after the long guided meditation that led us all to the Otherworld to commune with those who are no longer in the human world (I dedicated the night to my father) and then back again, everyone in the hall linked hands and danced together as one entity. The long long line of us spiraled and curved back on itself, chanting one verse over and over and over again, our intention to renew the earth:
And let it begin with each change we make
And let it begin with each chain we break
And let it begin every time we awake.
Dropping into the glowing eyes of hundreds of dancers who swirled past me and spoke these words, I felt hope coursing through us, me. Maybe we can transform the earth yet.
