Happy Samhain, or Gaelic New Year. Have you dreaming of your ancestors, or of the future? Has the air felt more fraught than usual? Do you feel an instinct to lay low? All of this is common right now, when the “veil is thin.” The material earth recedes, and the tide of unseen forces swells. We can invite blessings or disaster, depending on what we do, and how much we listen.

Samhain is a Gaelic high holiday that means “summer’s end.” It’s also the end of autumn, the end of the harvest, the end of the light half of the year. In pre-Celtic neolithic Ireland and in Chinese mantic arts, Samhain marks the first day of winter. Right now we are midway between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice. This stuff rivets me.

Samhain is my ancestors’ New Year because life begins in the dark. Whether plant seed or mammal seed, we spend a good long while basking in utter blackness before joining the visible world.

People traditionally stick together for Samhain, because going out on a limb exposes us to the unsettled dead and malevolent spirits, who also thrive during this time. They look for people to possess so they can foment chaos and kindle war. Possession doesn’t mean Exorcist stuff. It’s usually just poor choices and unskilled anger.

I’ve noticed over the years that resurrecting rituals for which there is no communal infrastructure, land base, or dream precedent is one way to put ourselves out on a limb. Let me give you one embarrassing example, which happened just one Samhain ago.

My ancestors traditionally held bonfires on Samhain. A bonfire is a symbol of the sun. It protects and connects us to the life-force that enables terrestrial existence.

Late afternoon, I started a small ritual fire in my backyard. I felt confused while doing it. I’m sure that was not the first of many hints that cautioned me against proceeding. The indigenous scientific method, as taught to me by Oneida/Frank elder Dr. Apela Colorado, includes subjective experiences like feelings, “coincidences,” and symbolic occurrences. Everything is divination; this is why symbolic fluency is crucial.

As soon as I lit the fire, a Baptist preacher rolled up in my driveway. He saw me there sitting on the ground and looked at me warily like people have looked at witches since the word witch came into being. (Incidentally, I am not a witch.) He’d come to fix the well house. Soon another neighbor arrived to help him. Then a third neighbor, who does not like other two, came over and started yelling at all of us. Mind you, no one ever comes to my house. It was a disaster. In the grand scheme of things, a minor disaster, but as the outcome of a ritual, definitely not good.

(Side note: In Gaelic lore, so much fighting happens on Samhain, even though it’s supposed to be a time of peace. So, I did succeed at one authentic tradition.)

Disasters can (and usually do) happen when we try to open old ways without a supportive context. We think we’re doing something “good.” We think we’re “remembering,” but it’s really another form of aggression. I have also experienced this disaster phenomenon with group ceremonies led by traditional elders. No one is free from this wild world of forgetting. It takes a minute, or a thousand years, to work out the kinks. Ritual is the fruition of synchrony. Consensus reality is hard to achieve in the diaspora.

Real ritual—intent of any kind—is a collaborative act of revelation. It’s receptive. It emerges from our relationships, both seen and unseen. If relationships are not in order, the ritual will tell us so. We know if a ritual succeeds by whether it recalibrates the community toward health.

My solo fire really missed the mark, an ironic misunderstanding of symbolic intent. Many people held those bonfires, and the fires held many people. (They still do in some places. This still authentically happens.) People would kindle their hearth fires from the bonfire, as a way to stay connected to each other and to the sun. One main point of the ritual is to take our place in the fold so we’re safe during the ghosty times. We can definitely achieve this in other spontaneous and disciplined ways, not the least of which is cultivating good relationships all year.

I’ve learned the value of academic research, of knowing what folktale I’m in, and of understanding the ways our ancestors celebrated the rhythm of the year. These traditions describe the energetic essence of what is going on. Studying them helps us remember that we are time-beings, that what is happening in nature is happening in us. But just like in music theory, once we’ve learned enough, we are free to riff. (This is very different from making stuff up.)

Ritual emerges from our real lives, our actual friends and families, our dreams, and the lands we live on. “Does it feel contrived, or does it feel alive?” is a good litmus for a ritual’s worth. Some indigenous cosmologies had a clock, and that clock ran out. My teacher Liu Ming taught me that this is not necessarily tragic. Losing lands, origins, ceremonies, and our indigenous minds, and propagating violence based in this forgetting requires mourning and amends. But not continuously, nor perpetually. At a certain point, exhilaration kicks in: “What’s next?”

I love the liminal, and crave ceremonial space to express this capacity. I’ve been dreaming so much, coming face to face with some of my ancestors for the first time. I’m feeding the dead and the faeries. I taught my son’s class about Samhain today over shortbread cookies. I’ve been walking around my forested yard, tending different areas, seeing how they connect, and fostering those connections. I’ve been saying no to almost everything else.

Sometimes I get caught up about how to ritually observe the ancient holidays, failing to realize that I’m already doing it. It’s the little things. New ceremonies will come when they come, from a mature set of synchronized relationships. It takes time to evaluate and experience where we actually are and grow relationships over time. It’s a long game that I get to play until I die. I have definitely reached the exhilaration stage of remembrance. I love laying this groundwork for generations well beyond our own, and I think I may have finally learned how to slow down and listen long enough to take my place in the fold.