It happens every year. Suddenly everything has to be done before Christmas.

Sound familiar?

When I worked in a professional job, the last months of the year always went the same way. My managers set work that needed to “be completed in time for Christmas” until my diary was jam-packed.

Layered onto this were the social pressures: Christmas work dos, getting together with my friends, and planning what I would be doing during the holiday period.

Then I had Christmas day itself to think about: ideas for presents and fitting in Christmas shopping.

The list went on and on.

Christmas doesn’t feel the same anymore. The commercial push has taken hold, with shops rolling out festive displays in September and people planning months ahead.

Once it is all over, the New Year arrives with more demands. There is the expectation that we think about our goals for the coming year and throw ourselves into achieving them.

It is exhausting, isn’t it?

No wonder so many of us so easily pick up the latest bug that is doing the rounds.

Yet this frantic pace runs against our natural rhythm as human beings. Left to ourselves, we would not be driving harder through the dark months. This busyness is a modern invention.

Our ancestors didn’t live like this. And neither does nature.

A different rhythm

Take a moment to look outside. As our lives become a juggling act, nature reminds us of another way.

Nature isn’t stepping up the pace like us. In fact, it’s quite the opposite; it’s dialling right down. Trees are drawing in nutrients and shedding their leaves. Final fruits and nuts are dropping from the branches. Mammals and birds are fattening up for winter and preparing spaces to shelter in.

In a few weeks, winter will wrap her cloak around us with the first frost. It will be three months before we start to see any significant stirrings outside. The first day of spring, early February, will be heralded with the snowdrops' shiny white faces lighting up our verges. That’s a long way off.

Right now, nature is preparing to rest, not burst into action. We would be wise to do the same.

Ancient knowing

This great transition in nature is marked by an ancient festival: Samhain, a Gaelic word meaning summer’s end.

Samhain is one of eight festivals that mark specific points in the wheel of the year, a tradition that dates back thousands of years. You will know of four of them: the solstices and equinoxes. The other four, including Samhain, mark the transitional times of the seasons, from summer to winter.

Samhain is celebrated as Halloween nowadays. It has morphed into a curious display centred around ghosts, pumpkins, sweets and tricks. These customs also have ancient origins, but I won’t go into that right now.

I want to focus on the qualities of this festival being about completion and renewal. Samhain is a time of endings and beginnings.

Our Celtic ancestors, two thousand years ago, would celebrate Samhain as our equivalent of New Year’s Eve on October 31st and New Year’s Day on November 1st.

They celebrated their new year as they dropped into the darker months. How does it feel to you to think of the year beginning in darkness and not light? It feels unfamiliar to many.

Why did our distant ancestors begin their year by going into the winter? Well, the Celts didn’t see a new beginning as starting with the light, but with the darkness. Their days would begin at night and their year began with transitioning into the dark months.

Embracing this ancient idea, how would it be to align with what nature is doing right now?

To begin a new year with rest?

To allow yourself to slow down?

To step away from the cultural norm of being busy over these final few months of the year?

Nature is pausing now to regroup, and so should we.

Slow thinking

Just like New Year’s Day in the Gregorian calendar, Samhain presents a perfect opportunity to reflect on the year that has passed and set intentions for the year to come.

And this is where setting goals comes in. Remember setting those New Year’s resolutions in January, only to see the idea of them slip away within the first few weeks?

What would it be like to set a goal now, knowing you are going into a period of rest?

Winter’s a time for these seeds to go deep within, to gestate. Imagine taking several months to truly reflect on what you want to bring into your life, with no expectations to take action on it. This is what nature does. It withdraws, making plenty of space to rest in the darkness. Only at the start of spring does it begin to stir into life.

Aligning your life with the wheel of the year in this way means that the first time to take action on something is the Celtic festival of Imbolc, in the first few days of February.

That is four months away. Four months to allow an idea to gestate and take form. Wouldn’t this give you a much greater chance of success in achieving it?

Coming together

Samhain is a time of reflection, looking back on the past year and seeing what has come to fruition, and what hasn’t. These few days give us space to consider which seeds we want to nurture through the dark months, to gestate, ready to emerge at Imbolc as a stirring.

This festival is also a celebration. A coming together to mark this important transition from summer to winter and celebrate all that we have achieved.

So, with all this in mind, we are offering something special over this coming week, free of charge. Cumulating in a full moon event on Wednesday, November 5th.

If you would like to take part, and you are already on our email list, there is no need to do anything. We will be in touch with details of how to join us.

If you aren’t on our email list scroll to the bottom of this page and tell us where to send your invite.

Let’s align our lives with the Earth's natural rhythms and watch the magic unfold.