The Dark Time

On By StefanieIn Books, Food, Holidays

The title sounds so ominous!

As we in the United States once again complain about having to change the clocks, this time back an hour which is easier to adjust to than “springing forward” in March, here is a great article about time and work from an Indigenous perspective. Because changing the clocks twice a year is all about capitalism, of course.

James and I celebrate the Wheel of the Year and for the last few days we have been celebrating Samhain. Contrary to what some may think, this is not the same as Halloween, nor does it last for just one day. It is a season, from now until Winter Solstice, and the festival for celebrating is from October 31st through November 2nd. Though there is much lost to the murkiness of time and colonialism, so those who celebrate have the room to make of the holiday what they will.

For James and I, Samhain marks the beginning of the dark season. Even though the clocks were set back today, very soon I will be bike commuting to work both ways in the dark or near dark. The trees are dropping their leaves and soon will be bare bones. The color gradually leaves the world to become monochromatic. It used to be I could depend on brilliant blue skies, but increasingly with climate change, these months have become cloudier, denying relief from the monochrome.

The dark season is a time of rest and dreaming. Aside from a few more outdoor tasks I need to do like raking leaves off the sidewalk, my work in the garden is done. Now it is my turn to withdraw, bury myself as it were, in the dark like a seed. It is a time to plant intentions that I hope will sprout and grow strong when light and warmth return.

It is also a time for roots, for remembering ancestors—blood ancestors, spiritual ancestors, and more-than-human ancestors. So it was truly wonderful Thursday night at sangha that we did the Five Earth Touchings. Buddhism always honors ancestors, but Samhain is not the particular time of year for Buddhist ancestor ceremonies. So it was a happy coincidence. The prostrations that accompany the Five Earth Touchings were especially moving. I felt grounded, solid, full, and content at their completion. I will make sure this becomes part of Samhain every year.

In addition, James and I like to recall and honor family who have died by eating food in remembrance of them. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Lit Hub posted a lovely article about how food invokes memories of loved ones. Our celebration generally involves making a meal or dish that was a favorite of someone, or that reminds us of them. Last year we had cinnamon toast in remembrance of my Granny who always made it for me and my sister when she babysat us. It wasn’t quite the same since we didn’t slather it in butter, but the spirit of it was there.

This year James made a kugel. His family makes kugel with wide, flat egg noodles, a creamy custard-like “sauce,” and raisins. There has to be raisins. James had to turn out a vegan version. Sadly, there are no vegan-style “egg” noodles so we had to go with fettuccine noodles instead. For the creamy custard “sauce,” he made sunflower seed-based cream. For something like this cashews are the standard choice in vegan recipes, but we don’t buy cashews because the company our food co-op gets organic cashews from cannot confirm that all of their nuts are processed on machines and not by people who might be suffering from burns and skin rashes due to the toxic oils in cashew shells. Nor can they confirm that people were paid a fair wage. So we don’t buy cashews. We have used hazelnuts in the past as well as almonds, but the price of organic nuts these days has increased astronomically and we only buy them as a treat if they are on sale, which they were not when we went grocery shopping. So we use sunflower seeds, which are still inexpensive and do the job just fine.

a slice of sweet noodle kugel made with fettuccine noodles and raisins on a plain tan plate.
Just like Auntie used to make!

It all came out great! When James took the first bite he said it tasted just like he remembered it should. His aunt always used to make kugel for holiday gatherings. Pre-vegan days I got to enjoy her kugel at a Passover dinner. So today we remembered Auntie Margo and a few other of James’s kin who have passed. It’s good to remember.

In bookish things, Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera won the Ursula Le Guin Prize. He made a wonderful acceptance speech (skip to minute 7 to get to his speech) which made me like him even more. I have read both The Saint of Bright Doors and Rakesfall and liked them both. They are strange and different and all about power and subverting power, time, memory, and creating worlds. Rakesfall is not an easy book to read and I like that Chandrasekera makes no apologies for it. I like that he demands the reader do some work in the mutual creation that is fiction. And I like that his books are truly different from so much of what is published these days. I am so very tired of the usual sorts of fantasy and science fiction that treads the same plots with only slight shifts in things like gender.

Rakesfall is the only one of the Le Guin shortlist I have read, but I have several of them on my TBR, in particular Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson and The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy. Hopefully I will be able to at least get to these before the next prize list is up in 2026. If you are a reader, you know how it goes.

A large chunk of my day today was taken up by chores and the final Beloved Community Circle cohort training. The trainings have been great and I have learned quite a lot about creating a very specific kind of community. It’s been a joy taking what I have learned back to my own Circle and sharing it with them. We are working towards becoming more deliberate in getting to know one another well and also creating practices around decision making, communication, and conflict resolution. It is work, but it is rewarding work.

So that’s it for today. Rest, dream deeply, and plant the seeds of your aspirations.

Where There is Love, Playing for Change

16 thoughts on “The Dark Time”

  3. I totally know what you mean about foods making us think of certain people. My Great-Grandma Murz used to have this plastic tree on which she would stick spicy gum drops for Christmas. I loved it so much that when she passed away, I asked if her kids would be willing to give me the plastic tree and her rock collection. My Grandma Mavelyn used to make sugar cookies with icing, which I had never seen before, only frosting. And one year, she made hamburger cookies. They were two Nilla Wafers for buns, a Thin Mint for the patty, coconut died green for lettuce, and then red, white, and yellow frosting for condiments. It was just one year, and I still remember it! (Grandma Mavelyn is still alive though).

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  4. I love moments of remembrance around food and books and other everyday details that hold the memory of those we’ve lost. I hope you’ll appreciate that I mean no disrespect by saying that, when I read your sentence that introduces this idea, I understood what you wrote-that you “like to recall and honor family who have died by eating food in remembrance of them”-as “like to recall and honor family who have died WHILE eating food” and all I could think was, just how OFTEN did that happen in your families?!?! I mean, once Mr. BIP had to yank one of the kids upside-down by her ankles and jostle her until she coughed up a pea pod she’d shoved in too fast…that COULD have ended very badly, but… surely it’s not all THAT common. It made me laugh when I realised what I’d done (and hopefully you think it’s funny too).

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    1. Sorry I missed replying to this Marcie! Hahaha! I do indeed think it’s funny! Fortunately none of my family members died while eating food. Your story about Mr BIP reminds me though of when I was about 5 I got a lifesaver stuck in my throat and was choking and my mom turned me upside down and shook me until it came out. I was in the kitchen and was more concerned that my mom was going to whack my head against the table I was next to than I as about the lifesaver stuck in my throat!

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  5. This is a lovely post, Stefanie. I’m not a fan of winter, especially the months of oppressive gloom we tend to get here, but at the same time I welcome the dark time for all the reasons you discuss. I’ve long felt we should be slowing down, resting and reflecting at this time of year in a sort of semi-hibernation way; the impending madness that is the British rush towards the Christmas consumerfest drives me nuts ~ thank goodness I can hide away from it all! Remembering and honouring ancestors through food is a wonderful idea, thank you for sharing. 💕

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  6. So much to respond to as usual, but like Jeanne, I don’t like dark time. I love light, bright, sun – though unlike most Aussies that doesn’t mean I like the beach and sitting out on the sand in the heat!

    But, the other thing is the way food reminds us of people. I don’t remember my father’s mother for being a great cook, but I do remember her gem scones, which were made on a special cast iron gem scone pan. My other grandmother was a great cook so I remember her for too many things, but especially for all the Christmas food including plum pudding.

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    1. Since food brings such memories of people, I wonder what foods people will associate with us when are gone WG?

      I have never heard of gem scones before and had to look them up. Wow! They look delicious. And plum pudding, was it loaded with alcohol? And why are there not actually plums in plum pudding? One of the things I love about grandmother cooking is that they generally never worried about using real butter and full-fat milk and all the sugar so everything had such full flavor. My mom used margarine and low-fat milk and never actual cream, though she had no reservations with any kind of sugar 😀

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      1. I wondered that too, Stefanie. I don’t cook much in Melbourne because we don’t have all our stuff here, so my grandkids really don’t a memory of food with me yet (expect that we take them out for ice cream.)

        Plum pudding would often have brandy or some other spirit in it, and to do it right you would flame it at the table at the end. And serve with custard or something very buttery and sugary called hard sauce. As for plums, apparently the pudding originally had dried plums (or prunes) and when raisins, sultanas, currants took over the name changed. I don’t like dried fruit in white cake or bread but I do love these dense plum puddings.

        And haha yes, re those ingredients. My kids loved Mr Gums’ mum’s pikelets (perhaps another new one for you!) because she used more sugar (that my mum did) and topped them with more proper butter too. She was a sweet tooth. I love that your mum cut down on the fat but not the sugar!

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        1. Perhaps your grandkids will remember you for the ice cream, which wouldn’t be a bad thing!

          Fascinating about the plum pudding. I love learning how things like that change over time and why.

          Wikipedia says spikelets are also called crumpets which I have heard of, though I have never eaten. I do have a vegan recipe for crumpets so perhaps I will make them sometime! I will use no butter, less sugar, deploy the homemade jam and maybe some coconut whipped cream. Mmm, that is making me a little hungry 😀

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  7. No, no, no, our Pikelets are NOT crumpets – do not go there! I looked at the Wikipedia search page, and it said:

    “Pikelet may refer to:

    a regional name for a crumpet

    a small pancake in Australia and New Zealand”

    Ours are the small pancake type! They are usually served cold, with butter and jam, or butter, sugar and lemon. A common afternoon tea treat. They can be whipped up faster than a slice!!

    And yes to ice-cream. My father is remembered by our kids for a particular type of ice cream, so I can live with that.

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