Oidche Shamhna - 1. Oidche Shamhna

Tomorrow is All Hallow's Eve -- my last day to live. I'm not really sure why I'm writing this down, except that I want someone to know me for me, not for what I am to become, not for what I am to do, but for the life I have lived to get here.

Some would say my story began nearly a year ago, when, by virtue of a simple metamorphic flaw in a chunk of randomly chosen fieldstone I became Devoted. Any of my friends could have chosen that stone, but they had not, and I had. Although I think they were more shocked than I was when we discovered the stone had cracked from the heat of the All Hallow's Eve bonfire. That bonfire had blazed hot and high that night to frighten away the boogies and other creatures of the night, hot enough to crack stone.

I believe my story began long before the inferno vaporized the trapped water causing it to expand and end my life… for I am Winterborn. My natal day is the Winter Solstice, an auspicious day indeed to be born. Souls enshrouded in flesh that day hang in the balance between light and dark. While the gods fight to determine if the sun will rise in the east, parents are unknowing if the wildlings have touched the soul of the newly born, even if wardings have been placed and prayers prayed there is still suspicion to be found in the Winterborn.

According to long held family tradition, my mother called me Sacrifice when my father refused me his name. He blessed me instead with the name Winter, in hopes that my ill-fortune would not also be theirs. As a small child I knew hardships, but no more or no less than my peers. At least that is the way it seemed to me, and since this is my story, that is how I choose to have it remembered. As I grew, I learned that my name was not the only thing different about me. I could see things. Things no one else saw. When I mentioned this to my best friend, Bran, he told the priest who dunked me in holy water, prayed over me, blessed me, and finally cursed me when I would not refute the things I saw. How could I deny the grass was green or the sky blue? It would have been the same, although they did not agree.

I entered my pubescent years cursed. While my friends were taking communion, I was forbidden. Forbidden to taste the flesh of the Christ. Forbidden to drink of his blood. Forbidden to enter the realm beyond death where He shall reign. Cast out. I could sympathize with the Angels who Fell with Lucifer on that fateful day and wondered if they were Winterborn, like me.

While my friends attended Mass, I walked the hills and discovered things they will never experience. Simple things such as the reflection of dawn in a single drop of dew on the brink of falling, the pre-dawn caroling of the avian host heralding in a new day, the wobbly first steps of a newborn fawn still wet from its birthing waters. In these things, I saw god. In these things, I placed my faith: faith everlasting, faith ever-enduring. For these things, I would cease to exist. Yet, because of them, I would live on.

As I grew, I felt the call of the seasons in my loins.

On Beltane, my consecrated friends frolicked like the heathens they had been born, and I stood over them as their green-man. Except by this time I knew I did not want to chase the Lady-fair. My eyes wandered to the sweaty torsos of the men dancing wild in the night and to the lithe bodies of the others who came from the forest to join in our celebration. Ah, the others, those that I never saw in the blue grass with the green sky behind them, with their long manes and slanted eyes and alabaster skin. The others who took girls into the forest and lay with them ensuring there would be babes on the teat by Imbolic. Children of light and wonder, with forest-green eyes and spun-sunshine for hair. How I lusted after the others as I chased the Lady-fair. How I wanted them to take me into the forest and impale me upon their thick shafts causing me to bless my cursed nature. These were the images that danced across my mind as I seeded the earth in honor of the Lord and Lady of May. These are the images I will carry with me to my pyre of bone and wood.

This last season -- the summer of my youth -- passed as a thief in the night and now, on the eve of my death, I smile, content in the knowledge that I will pass from this world and not leave it unchanged. Perversely I sat and watched as the innocent gathered wood for my pyre, and I saw them watching me. The more pious of those participating in this pagan festival crossed themselves as I looked on. Those more in tune with the world around them made wardings similar to those to keep evil away and frowned when I laughed. Evil. Me? Cursed, yes, but evil? I am no more evil than the hollowed out turnips the goodwives carve to carry home their ember from the bonfire. No more evil than the costumes the children will wear to keep the boogies from seeing them as they frolic in the dark. No more evil than the tricks my peers will pull on the grown-ups between dusk and dawn. No more evil… than life itself, which I have lived to its fullest in the summer of my youth. But now it is gone with the dawn and I face the knowledge that I have seen my last star rise, my last harvest moon, my last dawn -- as the creeping fingers of the morning star creep along the edge of the earth. The gods have prevailed again over the evil creatures of the night and a new day begins.

This past year I have lived in a home of my own. The home each Devoted lives in until the day of their passing. When I took possession of it a year ago tomorrow, the small stone and split log structure had not been occupied for a generation. When I leave it tonight, another generation shall pass before it will be occupied again. I hope those of my generation remember me well as my sacrifice is my gift to them. I go willingly, with my eyes open, and my head held high. Some will say this is my darkest hour, but I see it differently. This is the moment for which I was born in the still of the night on the darkest of days; this moment -- where I hold my faith in a god who does not know me and I live up to the name with which my mother blessed me. I do it not for me, but for those who will follow.

I stand in the sunlight and feel its warmth on my flesh knowing I will never grow cold again. The ice Winter placed in my veins will soon boil and I, like my stone, will burst open, cracked, flawed. I lean my head back and listen as the angels call my name… Sacrifice, Winterborn.

© 2006 Lugh

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