Reflections from the Spiral Path
Stories, ceremonies, and pathways of remembering.
Samhain (SOW-in)
When the Circle Opens into the Sacred Spiral of Return
“From their meeting came the first breath of time --
a rhythm born of light and dark, of holding and release, of all that must end so life can begin again.”
~ Lorriiii Dragon Dream
When the Circle Opens
There is a moment — tender, unspoken — when what was once a circle becomes a spiral. When what we’ve loved can no longer stay in the same shape, and life begins to move again.
It doesn’t break;
it opens. It widens. It breathes.
This is the hidden mercy of loss — that love keeps finding ways to continue, even after everything familiar has changed its form.
The Ancestry of Grief
As I lean into the energy of the season of Samhain, I feel the many layers of loss that live within me — the visible ones and the unseen.
The people I’ve loved who are now gone from this world. The friendships that drifted away like tides. The dreams that never found their way into form. The versions of myself I thought would last forever — now softened, changed, carrying a wisdom I couldn’t have imagined. Even the tender recognition that my life isn’t exactly the story I once dreamed it would be.
Each of these carries its own quiet grief. And yet, as I sit with them, I feel something ancient stirring — the grief of generations breathing through my own.
My ancestors knew this ache. They, too, buried beloveds and hopes. They, too, carried the sorrow of leaving — leaving lands, leaving names, leaving what might have been. Loss runs in the blood as much as life does. It is the thread that teaches us tenderness.
When I grieve, I am not alone. I am part of an ancient remembering — a lineage of hearts learning how to keep loving in the presence of loss.
Perhaps this is the true invitation of Samhain: to bless not only the ancestors, but the ache they carried. To honor the legacy of loss that shaped them — and to release it, so that the spiral might turn differently through us.
When the circle breaks open, their unfinished songs move through us too — finding light through our willingness to bless them. When I bless what has been, I can almost hear their voices — ancient, tender, echoing through the bones of the world. Perhaps this is where the story truly begins.
The Story of How the Earth Began to Turn
In the beginning, nothing changed. The Earth lay still beneath an unmoving sky. The soil did not stir. The rivers did not run. The air held its breath, and time had not yet learned to walk. In that stillness, the Earth divided herself between brightness and shadow — one half bathed in endless light, the other wrapped in the hush of night. Each side was perfect in its own way, content to be as it was, untouched by change. And for a long while, this pleased her. She watched the balance between them — the glow and the quiet, the song and the silence — and she loved them both with equal wonder. Her bright half shimmered with eternal morning. Fields stood in full bloom, rivers sang their golden song, and every creature basked in the warmth of never-ending day. The bright lands adored their shining — every leaf, every wave — content to be exactly what they were, forever. Her dark half rested in perpetual night. Here the world was cool and hushed. Roots reached deep into dreaming, and silence hummed with its own wisdom. The dark lands were at peace, satisfied with their quiet knowing. But over time, something stirred — a soft ache neither side could name. The light began to long for the depth of rest, and the dark began to wonder about the taste of dawn. At first, it was only a whisper — a shimmer across the edge where day met night — but it grew until both sides reached for one another. And where they touched, the Earth trembled with wonder. Light kissed shadow, shadow embraced light, and for the first time, something moved. That movement was love learning to change. It was the birth of time, the first pulse of becoming. The Earth began to turn — slowly at first, then with a rhythm that felt like breath. The bright and the dark took turns carrying the world, each learning the beauty of surrender, each finding themselves within the other. And in that sacred motion, the fear of loss dissolved. For what vanished in one breath was born again in the next. This is how the Earth learned to transform — how endings and beginnings became one continuous prayer. 
The Great Work of Love
Maybe this is how the Earth still teaches us — to keep turning toward what changes us. To let light and shadow trade places within us without calling one loss and the other gain.
Maybe the great work of love is not to hold the circle closed, but to allow it to open — to let movement itself become the prayer.
Each time we allow what is leaving to move through us, something ancient remembers. We become part of that first turning, that holy rhythm of surrender and renewal that began when the Earth learned how to love without fear of change.
The Hill Where the Fire Remembers
Long before the word Halloween was ever spoken, fires blazed on a high hill in County Meath, Ireland — a place the ancients called Tlachtga (pronounced CLOCH-tha), the Hill of Ward. It was here that the first fires of Samhain (pronounced SOW-in) were kindled — bright beacons to mark the Celtic New Year, the still point between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice, when the old year released its final breath and the new waited, unseen, just beyond the veil. Tlachtga was a woman of flame and prophecy — a druidess, a mother, a keeper of thresholds. Daughter of the sun-seer Mug Ruith (pronounced Moog Ruh), she carried within her the power of transformation. Her story is one of both sorrow and creation: it is said she gave birth to triplets upon that hill, and with her final breath, her spirit entered the earth itself. The fires kindled in her name were lit not to banish the dark, but to welcome it — to call the ancestors home, to honor endings as sacred beginnings, and to tend the embers of what would rise again. The Hill of Tlachtga became the heart of the Samhain gatherings — a place where people came to remember, to release, to renew. From that sacred fire, torches were carried across the land to rekindle the hearths of every home — a ritual of return, a living prayer that even in darkness, the heart of the world still burns. In the Celtic imagination, there was never a sharp boundary between the living and the dead. The ancestors were not gone — they were present, woven into the stones, the trees, and the breath of wind across the hills. Their voices lived in the rivers, their wisdom in the roots of the oak. Samhain was the time when the veil grew thin enough to listen. To stand at Samhain is to stand in communion — between worlds, between breaths, between stories. It is to remember, as Tlachtga did, that nothing is ever truly lost. It only changes form. Light becomes dark. Dark becomes light. And through it all, love continues to move. 
Shamanic & Mystic Teaching
In the shamanic way of seeing, everything that lives is in constant conversation with what has been. Nothing is separate. Nothing is wasted. Every ending feeds another beginning, and every loss opens the heart wider to what is still becoming. Samhain is not only a threshold in time — it is a mirror of the soul. The land begins its descent into stillness, and we are asked to follow — to lay down what can no longer walk with us, to listen for what remains. Grief, in this way, is not an enemy. It is a teacher — a holy companion that shows us where love still lives. In the old traditions, the Celts understood this instinctively. They wept when it was time to weep. They sang to the departed. They told stories that kept memory alive. They made space for sorrow, knowing it was a form of praise. In the animistic understanding, all grief belongs to the Earth. The soil knows how to hold it. The waters know how to cleanse it. The wind knows how to carry it onward. When we allow our grief to move — through tears, through song, through prayer — we offer it back to the world that can transform it. Letting go, then, is not a dismissal. It is a devotion. It is the soul’s way of saying: I trust that what has been loved will find its way home. The mystic path teaches that loss is the other face of love — the same current flowing in two directions. To love fully is to risk breaking open; to grieve deeply is to discover how wide love can become. At Samhain, we are invited to stand in that open space — to let what has ended bless us, and to let that blessing become the spark that lights the way ahead. In this way, we participate in the oldest magic there is: the transformation of sorrow into offering, and of ending into return. 
Spiral Way Teaching
The spiral is the oldest teacher I know. It shows us that the path of the soul is not a straight line, but a continual movement of remembering and release. It carries us outward into experience and inward into wisdom — over and over again. At Samhain, we stand in that turning. We feel the pull of descent — the invitation to loosen our grasp and follow what is dying back toward the source. This is not a failure or a fall; it is the rhythm of life itself. When we resist the spiral, we tighten into the circle — repeating the same stories, holding on to what has already changed. But when we allow the circle to open, we step into motion. We begin to trust that letting go is not the end of belonging, but the beginning of transformation. Each grief, each goodbye, each shedding becomes part of the spiral of return. The ancestors move through it. The seasons turn through it. Even the Earth breathes by this same pattern — expanding, contracting, beginning again. To walk the Spiral Way is to remember that everything we release finds its way back to us in a new form. It may return as understanding, as courage, as a song we didn’t know we were singing. It may return as light in the dark, or as the steady pulse of love that keeps the world turning. This is the deeper rhythm of Samhain — the wisdom that Tlachtga (pronounced CLOCH-tha) carried into the land, and the fire she left burning in every heart willing to begin again. 
Practices for the Spiral Return
(Ways to Tend the Fire of Remembering) There are many ways to honour Samhain — each a doorway between worlds. These practices are simple gestures of remembrance, gratitude, and release. They invite you to tend both the ancestral flame and the inner one — to bless what has been, to let go with reverence, and to listen for what is returning in a new form.
1. Light a Candle for the Unseen
As you light a flame, whisper the names — or the feelings — of those who have crossed the threshold. Let the flame be both remembrance and release. If words come, speak them softly. If not, let the silence do the speaking. The ancestors hear through the language of presence.
2. Feed the Fire of Gratitude
Offer something tangible — a handful of grain, a breath of incense, a word of thanks. Each act of gratitude becomes food for the unseen world. The old ones taught that what we bless in this world ripples through the next.
3. Walk Between Worlds
Take a slow twilight walk. Notice what is fading, what is returning. Listen for the quiet ways the land remembers its own ancestors — the fallen leaf becoming soil, the dusk deepening into night. Let your steps echo that rhythm.
4. Write a Blessing of Release
On a small piece of paper, write the names, stories, or moments you are ready to release. Bless each one. You may burn it, bury it, or set it afloat in water — but let your last gesture be one of thanks. What is released with gratitude becomes light.
5. Tend Your Inner Flame
Sit in stillness with your hands over your heart. Feel the steady warmth that remains — the ember of life that never leaves. This is the same fire that once burned at Tlachtga’s hill. It lives on in every heart that chooses to begin again.
Samhain reminds us that endings are not departures — they are passages. Each loss, each letting go, each breath that empties into stillness becomes part of the great rhythm that carries life forward. We are not meant to cling to what has been, but to bless it — to trust that love knows how to reshape itself through us. When we stand at the threshold with open hands, we become the bridge between what was and what is yet to be. This, too, is the work of the Spiral Way: to keep turning toward what transforms us, and to remember that every descent is also a return.
A Blessing for the Threshold
May you walk gently through the turning of the year. With love and reverence, 
© 2025 Lorriiii Dragon Dream | SpiritDrumming.com
Words and images are living offerings — please share with credit and care.
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The Living Exchange — When Giving Becomes Receiving
on the sacred reciprocity at the heart of devotion, harvest, and belonging.
When the Wind Was the First Word — and Every Word Was Prayer
a remembrance of breath as offering, and the living prayer carried on the air between worlds.
May the circle widen.
May the spiral deepen. May you walk gently between endings and beginnings.
As the spiral continues turning, may these pathways meet you where you are:
Or wander further into
Whispers from the Spiral Way — where poems, stories, allies, and teachings keep weaving.
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Lorriiii Dragon Dreama ceremonialist, writer, and poet whose path is shaped by Celtic and animistic traditions. Guided by the rhythms of the Earth and the unseen, her work invites healing, belonging, and remembrance through ceremony, drum, and story. 
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