ENTERING WINTER

Today marks the end of autumn and the beginning of winter according to the old calendar and the hokku/daoku calendar. It is the ancient holiday of Samhain, pronounced Sah-win. It is the traditional beginning of the most yin time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere — the beginning of the dark of the year, a time of turning inward and conserving our energy.

In hokku and daoku it is also the time of contrasts, when we become very aware of the opposites of light and dark, heat and cold, movement and stillness, sound and silence.

This verse by Taigi acts for us as a kind of transition verse as we cross from autumn to winter:

Sweeping them up,
And then not sweeping them up;
The fallen leaves.

When the colored leaves of autumn first begin to fall, we sweep them up. But as the season progresses and we enter winter, we are overwhelmed with them, and just accept the inevitable and let them fall and lie where they fall. And in that there is a sense of release and peace.

A very Happy Halloween/Samhain to you all.

David