Samhain remembered

While doing my Samhain Ritual Recap assignment I realized that I had never saved my post ritual insights in their long form. This is WAY longer than the requirement but I would like to have it in my Druid Journal anyway. 
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I represented the Demon of Suicide. This was a role I actually volunteered for because I knew it would be challenging for me. By accepting the role of representing this demon I knew I could not make an offering, so my role was my offering. This is the most powerful offering I could give, as this is a personal demon to me.
 
As a survivor of attempted suicide, I know this demon on a powerful and intimate level. I’ve felt the claws of this demon in my own heart and I know that far to many people not only have experienced suicide in one way or another but have also felt depression creeping into their lives. The demon I chose was one that resonates on some level with nearly everyone and although it’s a hard thing for me to look back on, but also a very good thing for me to grow and show my strength from.
 
Our grove leader (and all our members) stressed personal grounding for us demons because of all the hate that would be projected our way and I did my own version of grounding for this. One of my patron goddesses is the Celtic Battle Goddess the Morrigan, she is known as Mother Death and she is terrifying. She both invokes (sometimes demands) courage and strength but also offers protection for those loyal to her. All week before the ritual, I made offerings to her and asked her to give me the fierceness I needed to face this subject matter on such a raw level. Before changing into the robes during the ritual I held (and wore) black obsidian to absorb negative energy, and lit black candles for protection. These personal protection methods were very unique to my personal spirituality, and the other 2 demons had their own unique methods for bracing themselves or dealing with their role as well.  

While acting in place of the Demon, my offering was genuine. The words from my mouth were words I have thought, words I have said, words that carry and resonate inside everyone who either deals with depression or has dealt with suicide in their life somehow. My emotion was genuine, I was sobbing behind the mask. Recreating the mental state of a once broken me, was the strongest offering I could make to rid myself of this demon that still creeps back into my life unwelcome.  Several guests had personal things to say to passed loved ones through me. 
I heard personal and deeply emotional messages to the dead. 
Personal affirmations. 
Heavy, powerful, important things that I would never share with another soul.
 
While I was prepared for the hatred during banishment, as everyone shouted at us, what I got back was 100% the opposite. I was very taken back.  Standing where I stood, I saw unity. I saw POWER. I saw people crying and screaming to be RID of these things. It was as if every single person were filling the room with the emotion “I HURT, and I want you gone, I want to move on and heal” 
I felt Love. 
I felt Community
I felt every single person in there form a wave of support for each other with the same goal to banish these demons from their lives so they could heal. 
As I looked into the eyes of each person that I dared make eye contact with, I saw what Suicide leaves behind, I saw the faces and emotions that would have been each one of my own friends and family had I succeeded in my goal over a decade ago. It was something every survivor should be able to feel because, wow, if they felt what I felt up there from so many strangers, they just might think twice. 


That room was full of support and love, through the tears and through the cursing.
It was powerful and it took the breath out of me. I truly felt that while I was acting as the physical representation of this demon, that the demon had left the room far faster than I did.  

Once outside, I broke again and began to cry just being overwhelmed by the energy of everyone in that room. My heart hurt for everyone, including myself, but mostly for everyone in that room. I felt personally supported by everyone far more than overwhelmed by taking on any demon or hatred. 

Once I collected myself, I could not get those robes off of me fast enough. I wanted that demon OUT of my life and off my body as much as anyone else in that room wanted it gone by shouting and screaming. I’m surprised I didn’t tear the robe as I flung it from me. After the 3 of us disrobed, we stood outside and smudged each other with sage and collected ourselves before returning. 

I was reeling from the energy and emotion until the end of the ritual when I could give my son a tremendous hug. The entire week after the ritual, the weight of some of those messages guests gave me, saddened my heart, and I did need to process them and I finally gave a final offering to the ancestors of my own accord asking them to send those messages to their loved ones because they were messages of love and were not meant for me to hold on too anymore.

It helped. Opening up those wounds for myself ultimately was a good thing for me, hard, but genuine. In my experience, when our rituals are genuine and very personally driven, they have the biggest impact on everyone. 

This is really the only ritual of the year that takes on such dark themes and that our members are in this sort of position but I will say that preforming in ritual really does open you up to feeling things on a much deeper level and for anyone, like myself, that is constantly exploring their spirituality it provides an opportunity to really see things from many different perspectives.