What is a Good Life?
Samhain Tidings from Glitter Cindy. Imbas Dispatch #10
A Chairde, Friends,
Two more sleeps and Oíche Shamhna, ‘Samhain Eve’, Halloween will be upon us. Samhain, the Gaelic word for November, likely means ‘Summer’s End’. It is believed our ancestors began their year at this ending, turning inwards to the dark months of hidden gestation, as a babe does in its mother’s belly.
A liminal time, when the veil between our world and the Otherworld thinned to translucence, allowing ancestral spirits to return home and warm themselves by the hearth. They were not alone—other non-human spirits crossed over too: the sídhe—the fairies who were once the Tuatha Dé Danann, the goddesses and gods of Ireland themselves—and creatures like the púca, a kind of goblin I guess, who could assume at will the form of horse, bull, goat, or sprite, combining human intelligence with demonic mischief.
And so, people would disguise themselves by ‘dressing up’ to blend in with the inhabitants of the Otherworld so as not to be spirited away.
This photo, courtesy of my mother, captures me in the late 1980s taking precautions against being spirited away—by transforming into Glitter Cindy, no less. While I may not have blended in exactly with otherworldly beings, I doubt they’d have risked dealing with me in the Otherworld. All that tulle, glitter and plastic (I'm sure there’s a faithful black bin bag in that outfit somewhere), not to mention the crimped hair—a labour of love that took my grandmother hours of putting rags in my hair to pull off. I’m pictured here with my Nana and my brother, who chose to embody Rambo (the less said about that, the better).
With all of the mysteriousness of Samhain or Halloween and the importance of honouring the roots of this tradition, it also strikes me as a time of glorious creativity. Samhain shatters the boundary between logic and imagination, between mundane and magic. It gives us free rein to dance with the archetypal energies in who we imagine ourselves to be. Those archetypes are alive within our psyches, they touch us in unconscious ways, and dressing up can be a form of meaning-making with these energies, even Glitter Cindy has something to say.
With this in mind, here are some journal prompts to spark your Samhain memories:
What’s your most memorable Samhain/Halloween costume, and what does it reveal about your imagination at that time?
How might you channel this memory into your creativity today, at this juncture in your life?
What is a Good Life?
For this Imbas Dispatch, I wanted to share something a little different (I’ll return to the final treasure of the Tuatha Dé Danann next time). I recently had the privilege of being a guest on the illuminating, What is a Good Life podcast with Mark McCartney. Mark is an absolute legend who has interviewed over 200 people exploring the powerful question, ‘What is a Good Life?’
As Mark says himself:
‘I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you.’
The episode is called, The Story of My Soul, and you can listen on:
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Here’s a taster of what to expect with timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
03:00 What is my Dán (Soul’s gift)?
09:48 Taking up the path of the soul
15:00 Wisdom: Sous and Imbas
20:00 Balancing masculine and feminine energy
23:30 Exploring the masculine & unconscious
27:30 Mythology - exploring the story of the soul
30:30 Exploring dreams & other worlds
33:30 The land is alive with soul
35:30 Other worlds & connecting with land
39:10 Reconnecting to the divine
45:40 The Irish psyche & mythology
49:48 Connecting with the language and folklore
55:30 What is a good life for Jen?
You can also follow Mark’s work here and listen to other episodes like one with my gorgeous pal, Dee Mulrooney (episode #74).
As we enter a Celtic New Year and the wheel turns, there’s no better time to ask ourselves—what is a good life?
What do you desire it to be?
Wishing you every blessing for this threshold. ✨
Beannachtaí na Samhna,
Jen x
I also want to share that officiated a really beautiful queer Halloween wedding in Boston this month. In telling the couple’s story, I reflected with the grooms about the significance of Halloween in the queer community—a safe moment to publicly experiment with identity expression. It was really rich and we used it as an invitation for them and their community to experience the ceremony and day as a moment of true freedom and self expression.
It was all the more potent because the wedding was at the Harvard Club of Boston—the peak of intellectual, socialite spaces in this over-educated city. They transformed that place but it also felt strangely fitting. Like a classic haunted mansion story setting.
They also had 3 different outfits for different moments of the day. Not unheard of for a wedding, but it had different meaning for them. ❤️ Samhain opens and inspires so many possibilities…
Wow! This was a rich reflection. The first costume that I can remember choosing was a bride. I think it’s super messed up now 😂 and not a reflection of my soul but rather being raised in a very gendered military family on the US and all the adult women I knew were stay at home moms. Being a bride was hailed the peak of beauty and self expression—glad I got that out of my system early… But! The first costume I ever put my own effort into creating was Night. 🌒 🌟 it blew me away to remember this because I’ve never put much effort into a costumes except that one… having realized in recent years how much I’m a goddess of the hearth/night/dark half/new moon, reflecting on this is really soul stirring. Thanks Jen!! This is my time 🙌🏻