Samhain blessings...

To all in the northern hemisphere (and to those in the southern, beltaine blessings). The wheel turns and we are entering the darkest time of the year. It is a time for calling on our dead and remembering them. Here, in Hungary, it is a time when families come together and go to the cemeteries to visit those who have died. If tomorrow had fallen on a weekday, it would have been a holiday and people would have gone into work on the nearest Saturday. This tradition was one the first big differences I noticed from the UK. There are many more that I noticed later - and many more, I am sure, to discover.

Samhain is also the time for descent into the underworld of our own souls - to discover the jewels that lie hidden in the dark and repressed areas that we have been taught to hide from others and from ourselves. Tomorrow, we will again be enacting Inanna's descent into the Underworld as part of our ceremony. It is now a year since I began a journey which led to the edge of despair. There were times when I did not know if I would survive but as a result have discovered my own strength and power and a very real feeling of the presence of Inanna in my life. I do not believe I could have found this without taking the risk of non-return.

In a post a few days ago, Andy wrote of the labyrinth of initiation.

The journey of the labyrinth isn’t easy, because as one spirals in, so one spirals into death. At the centre of the labyrinth resides Cerridwen’s cauldron, and this is the cauldron of transformation, knowledge and rebirth, but before rebirth and knowledge can be bestowed, there has to be a death. There’s no shortcut, this process cannot be avoided, and although it may happen over many stages and on many levels, happen it must.

This description cannot be improved upon. Neither does it need expansion. I have been trying to do both but deleted each attempt. I only suggest that you go to Andy's site and read it for yourself. And I will close by repeating:
a very wonderful and magical Samhain to you all!.

Who benefits from "innocence?"

My post on sex-ed reminded me of the US presidential campaign in which, if I remember aright, it was alleged that Obama was in favour of sex education for 6 year olds and that this made him somehow dangerous to the moral fabric of the nation. Apparently, the aim of this subversive activity was to help children understand the concepts of "good touch" and "bad touch".

What is so wrong about that? The only people who can conceivably benefit from forbidding this are child molesters. If, in some sort of sentimental attachment to the notion of the innocence of childhood we prevent them from learning how to protect themselves from the sexual attentions of predators, how does this serve children?

I experienced some molestation at around the age of 5. It was not, as these things unfortunately go, serious but it was bad enough for me. The thing was, I felt at the time that this was "bad touch" - I did not like it- and yet was not given the power to name it as such. I thought it was just one of those things that adults did and I had simply to allow it to happen.

We do not protect children by keeping them ignorant and calling it innocence. We protect them by giving them to tools to define their own boundaries. I did not have them and consequently was not "innocent" because the shame and guilt - not to mention great anger - that I felt then lasted well into late adulthood.

The only people who lose if children are empowered with the information they need are those who seek to abuse them. I would hate to think that this underlies any of the resistance to sex education but....

Monty Python sex-ed

After my last post, I could not resist posting this. Do not view if you are offended by the naming of body parts. :-)