Autumn. The evenings have grown dark, frost creeps in during the night, and the world is dark, wet, and cold. Yet the darkening, ragged, pale leaves covering the ground beneath the trees do not speak to us of death and impermanence, but of the sleep ahead—the long, deep sleep of winter.
Unenkulkija has always been a child of autumn. Those darkening nights, the silence, and the dark nature of the night, where the only sound is the roar of the dead rapids, have filled my life for so many years. Yet not once have they made me sad—at most, they have left me with a feeling of melancholy and longing.
Summer has been left behind. The light, the warmth, the life, the powerful song of birds, and the small, beautiful flowers among the grass have disappeared. In their place have come misty mornings, rainy weather, broken leaves upon the ground, darkness, and silence. It is time for us to prepare for winter. It is time to prepare for the darkness.
For my circle, for our pack, the beginning of winter—regardless of when the snow arrives—begins at Samhain, on 31 October, the witches’ New Year. Every year on that date, we celebrate the end of summer and the beginning of winter. We eat the traditional foods prepared by my beloved Karhuntassu, and, as we do every year, when the sun sets on Samhain evening, we light a candle and allow it to burn through the night. We extinguish it when the sun rises again.
The tradition of nature witchcraft begun by our circle, Tulipisara, continues throughout the dark season until Yule. On the morning after Yule, we allow the candle to burn to its end for the final time, as the darkness begins to pass once more.
For many people, winter is only a cold season filled with snowploughs, snowfall, and delayed buses and trains. But for us, here in nature, in the middle of the forest and far from buses and trains, the darkness of winter is all-encompassing.
It is not twilight. It is not an orange glow in the sky or the distant lights of cars. It is utter darkness: cold, frightening, powerful, and unyielding. When I stand in my yard during winter, I see no light at all. Not the smallest glimmer, not the orange glow of a city, nothing. I hear rustling and footsteps as a moose, a fox, or perhaps even a bear roused from its winter sleep walks nearby. Beyond the silence, the only sound is the wild, unrestrained roar of the rapids a hundred metres away.
This penetrating darkness, this sound, and this cold are winter to me. I am fortunate to live here in the midst of this frightening and powerful darkness, and I love it. I love every second and every minute of the dark season, fearing and living, until the time of light returns.
This is my autumn. This is my winter. This is my nature and my pack. This is everything my autumn whispers, and I answer its whisper.