In pre-Christian Britain, Calan Gaeaf was the feast of ancestors: a time to honour our beloved dead, sit in soft darkness and make ourselves available for guidance. Over time, older practices were overlaid with folk superstitions and later with customs such as jack-o’-lanterns used to scare away spirits. Beneath those layers, however, remains a deeper invitation: to restore our relationship with death, soul, spirit and an animate, ensouled world.

As we tip into polycrisis, we will need more of our ancient, tried-and-tested human technologies to keep us sane and keep us bonded, and thankfully, many are already reinvigorating them: from the exponential rise in pilgrimage to the adoption of fire-centred circles as spaces for convening community conversations, counselling and mental health support groups, and progressive business strategy meetings. As we feel the overwhelming, natural urge to escape those self-imposed ivo

Deep is the magic of fire-tending through dark hours, of giving a night’s sleep as an offering: a sacrifice for a prayer’s flight. It effects change. Things that were ordinary are no longer so; we commune with a night and its fathomless wisdom, with all its tides, hoots and howls.