Reframing the thining veil
“There never was a veil in the old tales…the magic was everywhere.” What if the veil is not something between the worlds, but between us and our true selves?
I have recently been so inspired by the idea suggested by pagan history writer Adrian Bott, that the concept of the thining veil at Samhain is a modern one, designed to further separate us from the magical, spiritual world…and that, in truth, the Celts saw the world very differently.
Bott writes: “The less magical the world was believed to be, the more it became necessary to posit a division between us and the realms of wonder. In summary, Samhain is not a time when the ‘veil grows thin’, because there never was a veil in the old tales, and magic was everywhere.”
As it became more and more important to separate humans from the earth, from what we instinctively knew, our connection to things unseen but deeply felt became separated too. We have seen this patriarchal need for division - driven by fear and a desire for control - so often. As society sought to push away what it didn’t understand, the natural wisdom of women, our innate conenction with the earth, with healing, with our ancestors, became something to persecute and prevent.
Of course, this was played out most appallingly during the witch trials, and in so many other ways both before and after, that have torn us away from what we not only need, but know and feel.
So much so, that even now, a sacred, ancient festival in the wheel of the year has become a token moment to allow a stage-managed thinning of the veil between worlds, a tiny chance to reconnect with our ancestors and those who have died, before it snaps shut again in early November.
When I write it like that, it sounds mad. Part of my journey into myself has been about how to reconnect with all that was severed from us as women. To lean into a deeper connection with nature and Mother Earth, to acknowledge the knowing that was there, all the time, often bellowing at me, even when I couldn’t hear it. And to drop into stillness enough to feel into the things beyond, the things known but unseen, the things felt, but elusive. To trust in the heritage, the ancestry of sisterhood in a way that isn’t about proof or facts or figures. But is about connection, consciousness, prescence, and faith.
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In circle this week, we considered how the veil is therefore not an invisible division between worlds, but an invisible division between ourselves and the authentic being who lies within. That the veil is actually made up of all the things that separate us from our intuition and our wisdom, from stepping into who we are meant to be. These veils, we imagined, were the patriarchal, oppressive contructs of wealth, consumerism, posessions, aesthetics, progress - the things designed to keep us chasing them so hard that we stayed down, stayed disconnected, ever thrusting towards some impossible goal of ‘success’.
And so we looked on this time - which Martin Maudsley describes so brilliantly in his book Telling the Seasons - as both ‘pregnant with possibility and fraught with fear’ - as being one that offers us the stillness and the space to drop the veil, to reconnect with ourselves, with who we are. Perhaps it is a combination of the oncoming rush of the darkness, the sheer magical beauty of autumn, the sense of endings, the instinct to go within, and the ancient origins of this seasonal festival that makes this time so potent for allowing both the fear of going deeper, of dropping those veils, and also the possibility of who it is that emerges from within. Perhaps we feel closer to our ancestors in this time because when we drop our own veils, we see more, and are more deeply connected with our history and our heritage.
I don’t have all the answers - who does? - but in my own practice, this understanding of this time of year and the reframing of the veils has been deeply enlightening and inspiring. I feel more able to lean into the Samhain energy of loss and darkness and reconnection in a more intentional way, and to honour and welcome this wintering moment for all that it has to teach me.
Rebecca Beattie, whose book The Wheel of the Year has been a huge influence on my daily rituals and connection to the seasons and the circling year, says that she too welcomes the depths and the descent at this time of year. “The focus at Samhain is no bed of roses; there are no unicorns - but in my own practice I find this far more resonant and uplifing than any number of ‘bright blessings’ you might care to wish me, for there is much to learn.’
Back in circle, in our meditation, we took this idea of the veils still further, and, using a beautiful visualisation from Amy Brammel Wilding’s book Wild and Wise, connected with the Goddess Maya - the goddesss of illusion. Maya asks repeated questions about how we discover our true selves, each time lifting away that things that were not who we were, until finally the veils had all fallen away and our inner light and true self was revealed.
“If I wanted to know the true you, should I look at your house?” asks Maya.
You respond. “No, where I live is not who I am.”
Maya removes the first veil from your body, and lets it float down and down, disappearing below you.
“If I wanted to know the true you, would I look at the things you own? she asks.
You respond, “No, my things are not who I am.”
And on, until…
“And now, after all the veils have been removed, Maya sees a beautiful glow emanating from you. You are shining from the inside, a bright beautiful light.”
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In the darkness, we find a space to see our own light. In the dropping of the veil, we feel our intuition rise, the inner wisdom of our voice calling out to us. As the veil falls away we can see again our inner magic and our inner power. And these metaphorical veils remind us that we are not meant to be divided, separate. We are connected, with all the living and departed things.
Truly, there never was a veil…the magic was everywhere.