One half of the stone circle was bounded by 33 huge, flat stones standing up on end and embedded into the dirt. The stones stood higher than the people, and at the base of each sat a flickering candle in a paper bag. The other half of the circle was bounded by bagged candles, but no stones. The space had not been completely cleared of trees, which grew from the dirt at random intervals. In the middle of the space sat a waist-high stone table crowded with objects: papers, candles, a chalice, trays with small paper cups.
I made my way into the space in single file with the others, curving around to form a circle around the crowded table. Also within our circle sat a low metal drum with logs burning inside, and a second, much lower and wider stone table where a few more dripping candles sat embedded in their own wax. Off to the side sat an altar with a sculpture of a man's head on it, its mouth and eyes opened wide in shapes that mirrored the curls of his hair and beard.
Four figures, two men and two women, stood waiting in the space when we arrived, each representing one of the four directions.
The woman with the cauldron entered the center of the circle we had formed, and urged us to pull in tighter.
She and the woman with the skull joined a third woman in a black dress and no hat around the central stone table, though only the cauldron woman spoke. She began the ceremony with a prayer to the crone goddess and the horned god. She invoked the ancestors and then as a group we began to call the corners.
The four people who were waiting in the space when we arrived led this part of the service. We started with East/Air, then South/Fire, West/Water, and North/Earth, and each invocation somehow acknowledged the ancestors. East asked for the air to bear our ancestors' messages on the wind, for example, and North acknowledged that the Earth holds the bones of our ancestors and will one day hold our bones as well. We called the ancestors into our space from each direction with a hearty “Hail, and welcome,” spoken by the entire congregation.
Then the cauldron woman began to talk about the new year. (Yes, Samhain is the new year too. This is the third new year since the beginning of September.)
She walked around the circle, encouraging us all to learn from the past and to do better in the future. She told us to think about the message on our papers, and about what we need to leave behind in order to move forward and to grow. She listed the various messages from the cauldron, the printed suggestions of abstractions we might wish to leave behind: judgments, addictions, regret, expectations, and the need to control others.
She spoke about each of these things in turn, giving a sermon not all that different from some of the new year messages I heard from the stage at Diwali between the dancers' segments, or at Yom Kippur, when the congregants named the sins they wanted to leave behind them. At two points, the cauldron woman summoned the attendants representing the four corners into the circle to help her.
The attendants divided the circle into quarters. First, they handed out stones, each of them approaching one quarter of the people in the circle. North managed my portion of the circle. He was a young man a little shorter than I am, wearing gold-colored robes, a long blond wig, and horns.
The cauldron woman told us to place our fears into the stones.
Next the attendants made their way around the circle with chalices of water. They dribbled water over our outstretched hands as we held the stones, washing away the fears we might have about letting go. The cauldron woman was still talking about judgments, regrets, and all the rest.
"You should be more afraid of holding onto these things than of letting them go," said the cauldron woman, walking again around the circle.
She began to repeat herself, walking faster with her step and with more determination in her voice. "You should be afraid of holding on."
"You should be afraid of holding on."
"You should be AFRAID of holding on."
Then someone else spoke:
"Enough!"
A woman in a white blouse and white skirt, with a white net over her hair, stepped out from the circle and addressed the cauldron woman.
"They know what they have to do," said the white-clothed woman, gesturing theatrically around the circle. "You have your own work to do; back to the outer circle with you!"
The cauldron woman joined the circle, and the white-clothed woman offered words of hope for growth, change, and the future. When the white-clothed woman allowed the cauldron woman to rejoin the center of the circle, together they walked the circuit past each worshiper with a large, round basket. We placed our papers and our rocks in the basket, and just when I thought the cauldron woman would turn over the basket and empty the papers into the fire, she dropped the entire basket onto the logs and it was consumed.
As the flames licked up the sides, and the basket sunk inward, losing its shape, the group began to sing:
The blood of the ancients
Runs in our veins
The forms change
But the circle of life remains.
We repeated this chorus maybe 25 times, so it was easy for me to pick up the melody and sing boldly.
At the end of the song, it was time to toast the new year, so the attendants returned, each picking up one tray covered with paper cups from the stone table. The horned and bewigged attendant served me, and I held the cup until the cauldron woman spoke the toast. I sipped cautiously, not sure what was in the cup, and found it to be apple juice.
Next, all of those who had lost relatives within the past year were invited to step forward and leave a talisman on the altar with the sculpture of the man's head.
Finally, we were all invited to pull a rune from a basket to learn what's coming next in the new year. My rune looks like an X, with the top and bottom closed, and I do not know what it means.
We closed by uncasting the circle, meaning we moved backward from north to east and said our goodbyes to the spirits we had conjured earlier.
"Go if you must,” we said to them. “Stay if you will… hail and farewell."
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