The Ferry Between Worlds

As mentioned in a previous blog, The Season Between, October is a special time of the year. The weight of October isn’t always easy. It’s a month of transitions, adjustments, tipping the scales, imbalances, and movement. It’s like being caught in a cycle in the washing machine, uncontrollably spinning and churning before coming to a dramatic conclusion.

Despite the fluctuation of emotions that come with October, including wistful gazes outside, capturing the veil between trees, seeing from one world into another, October is a beneficial time of year. It’s the appointed time for truth and integrity. A time for manifestations, spiritual clarity, and physical rest. It’s the point in the year when alignment shifts, when what was once synchronized fragments, and the impossible becomes possible. It’s the time of year for transparency—literally and figuratively—and healing and retrieval. It’s also the time for horror movies, carved pumpkins, and visiting spooky corn mazes after dark. And, if your taste buds are anything like mine, October is the time to eat as much candy corn as you can handle.

This sacred month is a ferry between worlds, between two phases of the year, and through its route of amber light and reddening trees, we discover more of ourselves than ever before. That’s the promise of autumn, Samhain, and the invisible boundaries of October. This year, however, has unfolded differently than expected, and although the thinned branches and velvet darkness have arrived, little else seems recognizable.

At first, I thought that I was the problem.

I blamed myself.

October is the season of life, death, and the beyond. With all transfigurations, there’s a certain sadness too, some residual and some new. After a chronically difficult year—one which will document America as a modern-day Nazi playlet—there hasn’t been much room to fall into the autumn leaves and weep. The psychological effects of living through a period of mass devastation, corruption, and erasure, knowing we’re only in the infancy stages of violence and desecrations, have been disturbing. Amid the heartbreak and disbelief, intimidation and persecution, there hasn’t been space to feel anything beyond survival.

So yes, I criticized myself for not being able to sink into October’s sadness. I held myself accountable for not connecting with my inner self. I reprimanded my numbness for blocking my vulnerabilities and delaying the awakening of my soul. Finally, wounded by battle lost, I accepted that breathing endings and beginnings wouldn’t be quite the same this year.

And that’s ok. Because if we can learn anything from the unpredictability of October’s chamber, it’s that life—whether easy, hard, or indifferent—is an authentic experience. It’s that authenticity that breathes life into our seasons of becoming. Even when the world feels unrecognizable and the air grows heavy with change, we’re still here: transforming, adapting, and rediscovering what it means to be whole. October, the Mistress of life lessons and mysteries, reminds us that surrendering isn’t defeat; it’s trust. It’s the small, quiet knowing that from endings come beginnings, and from darkness, light always finds its way back through the trees.

So no, this October isn’t what I expected. And no, it isn’t my fault. But whatever this season is, it’s exactly what I need. I’m beginning to understand that.