Culling Time, by Fearn Lickfield
By Fearn Lickfield
The Culling Time.
I am writing to the sound of a chain saw and trees dropping to the ground. They are cutting a few trees along the perimeter of the forest that abuts my home.
Like most Druids, I have a deep kinship with the standing ones. They are my kin, my teachers, my friends and neighbors. They remind me how to breathe, to align, to connect, to give and to let go. As each one drops, my heart jumps in my chest. I pause, look, and give my thanks and blessings, again. They will not go to waste. The hard woods will become firewood for my stove. The cleared land will let me have a well.
Here in central Vermont the frosts have come many times over. Garden veggies are harvested and put away. Most of the leaves are now off the trees. The bare dark bones of Nature are exposed. The veil has pulled back and dropped to the ground.
We approach the third harvest festival of the year, Samhain; “Summers end”. Traditionally this is the time of culling the flocks. A time to sacrifice some of the herd animals, to gather their meat, their pelt and other parts for eating and use thru the winter. Those who are least vibrant and strong are selected to cull-tivate a resilient flock that will over-winter and breed anew come spring.
This intimacy with death used to be a familiar part of life for our ancestors. Some of us who are homesteaders, farmers or hunters still know what it means to cull.
Even as a lifelong vegetarian, I recognize the importance of direct relationship to death in the larger world around us. I may not butcher my own chickens or hunt for deer, but I respect those who do this work consciously and humanely.
I understand Death to be a doorway, not an end. We simply move from one state of being to another; a home-coming for our spirit and a time to reunite with our beloved ancestors. Ultimately, it is a great mystery and It should really stay that way until it is our time.
Closeness to death brings us to be more present to the preciousness of life and all we love. We don’t need to wait until our last breath in this body to experience this mystery. Why wait when we can learn and gain so much while we still have a pulse and purpose?
There are many ‘little deaths’ that can help us deepen our experience of life. These deaths take place both inside and outside us. Direct participation and spiritual connection to this inevitable process brings us closer to our hearts, our roots, to the soil, and to our ancestors of blood and those in the land. In many earth centered traditions we don’t look up but down when we want to contact our beloved dead. We find them in deep places of the underworld, not on a cloud in the sky.
Life in 2020 is giving us many opportunities to practice letting go of what was. This process can bring us into the rawness of grief. We humans, we get very attached to things, to people, to ways of being, to life. This attachment is part of the human condition. The process of letting go is part of our soul’s path.
When we meet with little deaths and big deaths inside and around us, we can find peace and comfort by learning from the trees and animals who do not fear death.
Who do not hold on.
Who let go.
