Urban Pagan: Liminal Days in the City

 

The Threshold of Winter

In my class on Urban Paganism, for the Irish Pagan School*, I talk about how the city - all cities, all villages and communities - have their own liminal days. Just as we see the passing of the seasons in the countryside, mark the advent of Spring by the unfurling of buds or the onset of winter by the cascading leaves, we can see the "seasons" of the city as we travel through the year.

Right now, over the last few weeks, we see one of the most powerful liminal times in city life. As the first blush of russet and orange spreads across the parks and hedges, in the city centre and the leafy suburbs alike, the billboards change from "Summer fun," to "Back to School." As August ticks past, we cling to the precious moments of freedom. Kids live in the moment, the Summer holidays are endless when you are young and the threat of classrooms and uniforms seems unreal. But parents know, oh we know! Part of us welcomes the structure of the school year and - if you are like me, and hate routine, perhaps you dread it as much as any child. 

We live in a kind of bubble over the whole of June, July and August. The length and timing of your school break may vary, but the emotions remain universal. The great promise of the holidays yields inevitably to the reality of juggling work and kids and weather and costs and time online versus time outside, until lack of structure becomes routine. But all the while, lurking behind these sometimes halcyon and sometimes fraught, long days and endless Irish twilights, September lies in wait. It will get us all, no matter how far we travel or how many poolside, sunscreen filled, ham and crisp sandwiches on picnics we provide.

The traditional first day of Autumn in Ireland has always been August 1st. The Irish for September is Mean Fomhair, Mid Autumn. But ah, the real moment we cross from Summer to Autumn is the day we go shopping for school shoes, grey trousers, navy tracksuits and A4 sized, hardback copies. This, more than any ripening of blackberries or fading of flowers, marks the moment we admit that the year is turning, the cold and dark are approaching and there will come a morning when we lay out the prescribed garments of the student, the sturdy and boring shoes of knowledge and the constricting tie of education. The endless quest for school lunch ideas brings us back, inexorably, into the clutches of the coming term.

But like any liminal moment, there is light as well as dark. They stand on the threshold of new experiences, of worlds opening up, of teams and matches and projects and the swings and roundabouts of friend groups and drama. They will emerge from this school year transformed, as they do every year, butterflies opening wings to the cheerful sun, eyes bright with new understanding, one step closer to adulthood. There are mid-term breaks, Halloween parties, Christmas and Easter and sports and art to break the year. 

And the whole city feels it, the old and young, the childfree and the child-rearing alike. The opening of the schools changes everything around us. Traffic patterns change as parents turn chauffeurs and bike lanes are filled with giddy wheelies and the lethal whirr of e-scooters. The pulse of the city quickens again between seven and nine in the morning, and those who live near schools steel themselves against the daily battle for parking in the afternoon. The shopping centres are emptier, the gangly teenaged giggle-fest moving to the weekends. Cinemas are once again the privileged ground of the retiree for matinees and coffee shops find half the tables available now that six teens no longer huddle over one diet coke and a packet of Tayto crisps for the morning.

As the shopkeepers put out "Treats" and spooky decor, and there is talk of wrapping paper and stocking fillers, we cross the border into Winter, into the magic at the heart of Samhain and the hopeful renewal of the solstice. We put on a different attitude, with the warm jacket and scarf. The first hint of all this comes with the packing of the schoolbag, the search for lunchboxes and pencil cases. Over the next few weeks we become citizens of a different place, haunting the playing fields of the GAA or the waiting rooms of dance and music classes, walking through a city that replaces the bright sunshine with twinkling lights and gaudy baubles, and where the sweep of headlights reflects our passing in puddles and shopwindows. 

Step now across the line, while the city stirs itself. Mark the signs of this great movement, make altars to the passing gods of School and Work and rejoice, for the city knows how to shelter us in Winter, as well as in Summer.

* Irish Pagan School, All Courses 

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