Journal

Why We Reach for Ritual When the World Shifts

At Samhain and Halloween, we reach for ritual - lighting candles, carving pumpkins, gathering in community. But understanding why our ancestors created these threshold traditions reveals something more useful than folklore accuracy: the observable reality they were responding to. From bats frantically feeding before hibernation to the neuroscience of peripheral vision in darkness, the biology and ecology of autumn shaped human ritual responses. Here’s what’s actually happening at this liminal time, and how it helps us create meaningful practices now.

This morning when I went out, the valley was completely lost in mist. Not the thin morning mist of summer, but that thick, grey autumn mist that hangs low and moves slowly. And I found myself thinking - as I always do - about what creates that particular quality of autumn mist.

It’s temperature differentials. Warm moisture-laden air from the day meeting cold ground that’s lost its heat overnight. The conditions that create it only happen at this specific turning point in the year, when the ground is cooling faster than the air, when there’s still enough warmth in the day but the nights have turned properly cold.

The paths were thick with mud where the deer have been walking. They’re changing their patterns now, coming down from higher ground, following different routes as food sources shift. And everywhere these fallen leaves already composting down - the chemical process of decomposition that only really gets going when you have moisture, cool temperatures, and the fungi that break down lignin and cellulose.

Speaking of fungi - they’re everywhere right now. Pushing up through the ground while other things are dying back. Because this is their season. They fruit when conditions are right: moisture, moderate temperatures, when there’s plenty of dead organic matter to feed on. The mycelium networks underground have been here all along, but now’s when they push up their reproductive structures.

And the bats - if you go out at dusk you can still see them, feeding frantically. They’re building up fat reserves before hibernation, eating as many insects as they can catch while the insects are still flying. Soon the temperatures will drop enough that the insects stop flying, and the bats will need to survive on what they’ve stored.

Spiders too - you see them everywhere now, bigger than they’ve been all year. Many are in their final adult stage, mating before the first frosts come. Those webs catching the low autumn light aren’t random - they’re precisely engineered structures, placed exactly where the physics of air movement will bring insects past.

This is what’s actually happening in October and November. Real, observable, measurable changes in the natural world. Biology responding to physics responding to the earth’s tilt and orbit.

And our ancestors were watching exactly the same things.

When Observation Becomes Ritual

I used to get quite pernickety about autumn traditions - Samhain versus Halloween versus All Souls Day - getting myself tied up about which came from where, whether dates were accurate, who was claiming what. But I’ve let that go. Because here’s what I’ve come to understand:

The specific traditions matter less than recognizing that people were responding to actual observable reality.

When you live without electric light, the shift into darkness isn’t poetic, it’s practical. Your workable hours are literally shrinking. The neuroscience of this is straightforward: reduced daylight means reduced serotonin production, increased melatonin, actual measurable changes in how your brain functions. Your body is responding to light frequency and duration. That’s not mystical - that’s biology.

When you depend on stored food to survive winter, the autumn cull isn’t ceremonial, it’s essential. You look at your livestock and calculate: how much hay do I have? How many animals can that support until spring? The ones that won’t make it get slaughtered now, in cool weather that preserves meat, before they lose more condition trying to survive on inadequate resources.

When you’re gathering the last food from the wild before frost kills it off, you’re not communing with nature spirits - you’re responding to plant phenology. Rose hips sweeten after frost. Sloes need frost to reduce their astringency. Nuts fall when they’re ripe. Specific plants are harvestable at specific times because of actual biological processes.

So when I look at the traditions that cluster around this time - the boundaries, the misrule, the divination, the feasting - I’m not looking for mystical wisdom. I’m looking for people who were watching the same natural processes we’re watching, and responding to them in practical ways that helped them survive.

Boundaries: Why Darkness Actually Is Threatening

There’s this recurring theme of boundaries at this time of year. Offerings left outside. Candles in windows. Fires ringed around houses. Running around your home with a flaming torch to mark the perimeter.

And yes, there are folkloric explanations about fairy folk and spirits. But there’s also physics and neuroscience.

Our peripheral vision works primarily on motion detection and works best in bright light. In low light conditions, our peripheral vision becomes less effective right when we’re most dependent on it to detect threats we can’t see directly. A candle or lantern creates a small pool of bright light that actually destroys your night vision for anything beyond it - your pupils contract for the bright flame, meaning the darkness around you becomes even more impenetrable.

Meanwhile, you’re walking through mud where you can’t see your footing, past animals that could be anything, in temperatures cold enough that exposure is dangerous. Every shadow cast by your wobbling flame looks like movement. Your nervous system is not being irrational when it screams “THREAT.”

Of course people created rituals around boundaries and safety. They were responding to actual increased danger.

Now, in this time, we have electric lights. But we’re still heading into the darkest part of the year. And while the specific threats have changed, the biological response to reduced light hasn’t. Understanding that doesn’t diminish the need for ritual - it helps us create rituals that work for what we’re actually dealing with.

What are we afraid of now? What boundaries do we actually need to tend?

Misrule: The Biology of Pressure Valves

Then there’s this tradition of misrule - time-limited permission for mischief, for things to be topsy-turvy, for young people to roam around causing trouble.

Anthropologists call these “pressure valve” traditions. When you have a society with strict rules about behavior, and particularly when you’re heading into a season where everyone will be stuck inside together in close quarters for months, you need release mechanisms.

The psychology is straightforward: suppressed behavior doesn’t disappear, it builds pressure. Give it a controlled outlet - one night, specific boundaries, everyone knows the rules - and you reduce the risk of destructive outbursts later.

There’s also something specifically about adolescence and risk-taking. Teenagers’ brains are literally wired differently - their reward centers are highly active while their impulse control centers are still developing. Every culture that survives has some mechanism for channeling that adolescent energy in ways that don’t destroy the community.

So what does that mean for us now? Not that we should send teenagers out to overturn livestock. But maybe we do need time-limited permission for things to be different. For wildness, for unreasonableness, for being outside our normal bounds.

Divination: What’s Actually Happening When We “See”

The third theme that comes up repeatedly is divination. This idea that liminal times make it easier to see into the future.

I’m not going to make claims about whether divination “works” in any supernatural sense. But I am interested in what’s happening psychologically when someone uses oracle cards or other tools to explore their future.

It’s pattern recognition. It’s the same mechanism that lets you see faces in clouds or meaning in random events. Your brain is extraordinarily good at finding patterns and creating narratives. Give it random input (cards, tea leaves, whatever) and it will find meaning - not because the meaning was in the cards, but because the meaning is already in you, and you needed something to help you see it.

Oracle cards work not because they’re magic, but because they’re mirrors. They reflect back what you’re already thinking and feeling but haven’t quite articulated yet.

And liminal times - threshold times when things are uncertain - those are exactly when we most need tools to help us see what we actually want, what we’re actually afraid of, what we’re actually moving toward.

Feasting: The Biology of Community

The fourth element - and I think this is the oldest - is feasting. Gathering together, lighting fires, sharing food.

And the ecology of this makes complete sense. From late October through December, you’re culling livestock. You’re making decisions about what won’t survive winter. Some meat can be preserved - salted, dried, smoked. But some needs to be eaten fresh, and that becomes an opportunity for community feast.

The neuroscience of shared eating is well-documented. When we eat together, we release oxytocin - the bonding hormone. We sync our behaviors. We create and reinforce social bonds. This isn’t mystical - it’s measurable brain chemistry.

And those social bonds are survival mechanisms. Humans survive harsh conditions better in strong communities. Communities where people share resources, share knowledge, share labor, share food. The feasting isn’t frivolous - it’s investment in the social infrastructure you’ll need to get through winter.

The bonfires make sense too. Fire is warmth, safety, light. It’s a gathering point that says “here is where we come together.” It marks space in a way that’s visible from a distance.

Making Our Own Thresholds

So here’s what I keep thinking about: our ancestors weren’t doing something mystical that we’ve lost touch with. They were responding to observable reality - to real changes in light, temperature, food availability, animal behavior, plant cycles.

We’re still in that same reality. The earth still tilts on its axis. The bats are still feeding urgently before hibernation. The spiders are still in their final mating season. The fungi are still fruiting. The temperature differentials are still creating that particular autumn mist.

What’s changed is that we have electric light and central heating and supermarkets. We’ve insulated ourselves from some of the immediate physical consequences of seasonal change.

But our bodies haven’t changed. Our serotonin still drops with reduced daylight. Our nervous systems still respond to darkness with heightened alertness. Our brains still need pattern recognition and narrative. Our survival still depends on community bonds.

Understanding the why of traditional practices doesn’t diminish them. It helps us see what they were actually for. And then we can ask: what do I need now? What am I actually responding to? What rituals would serve the reality I’m actually living in?

This week in the Studio, we’re gathering on Friday to share our threshold rituals. Not to recreate something from the past, but to talk about what we’re actually noticing, what our bodies and minds are actually responding to, and what helps us mark this transition.

Because here’s the thing: we’re heading into the darkest part of the year. That’s not a metaphor. That’s astronomy. The earth is tilting away from the sun. The days are measurably shorter.

Having ways to mark that passage, having people to mark it with, having rituals that respond to actual reality - that’s not superstition. That’s practical wisdom.

Join us in The Studio where we’re exploring these threshold rituals through slow, seasonal making - creating felt beads that carry meaning, gathering what autumn offers, and sharing what we’re noticing as the light fades. Learn more about The Studio here.

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