Old Ways
At Samhain the circle of the year has come to its final spoke in the Wheel. At this time harvest has finished, the dying god interred, and the goddess has descended to the underworld with her beloved. Above, her people prepare for the veil between the worlds to thin; dead ancestors will be visiting, and with the harvest tools put away, there's a new year to think about, resources to manage, goodbyes to say, and plans to make. Meanwhile, the now barren land gives way to the rulership of the Crone
The Fire Festival
To the ancient Celts, Samhain marked the most important of four Celtic fire festivals. Located halfway between an equinox and a solstice, it is one of four cross-quarter festivals. Every year on the first frost after the full moon in October, families allowed their hearth fires to burn out. At this time, they brought back herd animals from grazing and completed gathering the harvest.
After the fires died, they gathered with the rest of their tribe to observe the Druid priests relighting the community sacred fire using friction. The priests induced friction with wheel and spindle: The wheel representing the sun turned from east to west and lit sparks. At this time, they made prayers and offerings or sacrifices related to their needs.
The Christians
When Christianity spread throughout Europe, the church officials went about converting the area heathens by converting their holidays. In the fifth century, Pope Boniface attempted to re-purpose the ritual, identifying it as a day to honor saints and martyrs, moving it to May 13. When the late October/November fire festivals continued anyway, in the 19th century Pope Gregory decided to move the saints and martyrs day back to the same day as the secular festival of the dead. The church resorted to declaring Nov 1 All Saint's Day and added All Souls' day on Nov 2.
Eventually, both All Saint's and All Souls' became distinct holidays unto themselves, with All Saint's an observance for souls believed already ascended and All Souls' as a day to honor souls possibly still working out issues in purgatory. In Ireland, These days marked a time for family reunions after cow-milking season finished. Over time the night before Nov 1 called among many names Hallowe'en, Allhallows Eve, or Hallowmas, became the repository for most of the original Pagan practices.
Lighting the Way for the Ancestors
The torches of the Welsh and the Jack-o'-lanterns left at the edge of walks "kept witches away," but they also lit a path for ancestors wandering across the veil.
The fearsome things
While the early Celtic Christians invented Old Jack, the British Isles had other monsters to fear tracing back to their Pagan days. Yet others reflected the evolving political history of the Isles. Early on, People carried lanterns on Samhain night and went out in groups lest they run into any of a host of wicked characters. They might run afoul of a Pucah, a shape-shifting faery prone to both seduction and outright kidnapping. This was far from the only lurking shadow.
The Lady Gwen was a woman who appeared dressed in white, sometimes headless and evil, sometimes playing the role of a benign lost soul. She chased travelers she caught wandering at night.
Skipping tooooo
New Ways
Many modern Pagans celebrate Samhain, either on the full moon closest to October 31 or on that date itself. At Samhain season, it is appropriate to invoke Morrighan, Dagda, Hades, Persephone, Hecate, and many other death and Witchcraft deities across many pantheons.
Wiccans consider Samhain the end of the old year and the beginning of the new. Celtic Reconstructionists are Pagans who are trying to rebuild ancient Celtic Paganism is exactly as possible. They call Samhain Oiche Shamnhna, and try to make their observations as close tot he first frost as possible. Often Morrighan is venerated at this time. In Irish myth, Samhain marks the day that she and the Tuatha de Danaan god Dagda mated at the River Unis. Druids, October 31 is Samhain-a festival to honor the dead. Traditional Witches of Britain see Samhain as one of the great four fire festivals. Eclectic Witchcraft borrow from different traditions in a manner that spiritually resonates with them.
Moving on- Other Holidays at this time are
All Soul's Day
All Saint's Day
Dia de los Muertos
Autumn Dziady
Hop-tu-Naa
Mischeif Night/Guy Fawkes Day
Trick or Treating
The witches way!
Treats instead of candy
Small story scrolls: tiny (four line stories) rolled up tied with a ribbon
Origami fortune cookies: Make origami paper or out of square cut magazine paper and insert fun fortunes or silly facts inserted inside the "cookie"
how to cookie
Miniature cootie-catchers: paper fortune tellers, you can write down numbers and symbols, or names on the inside.
how to cootie
Other celebrations
Adopt an Ancestor - take care of a neglected grave. Clean off leaves and debri, offer water to the soil, call in vandilism
Have a Divination Party.
A Candle Chain
Story Telling
Hold a Magical Movies: Dead like me, Wonderfalls, Practical Magick, Mirror Mask, What Dreams May Come, Haven, Midnight in Paris (Hocus Pocus, Harry Potter, The Craft LMAO)
Spells and Divinations
A spell to settle debt
heat proof container, copies of bills you've paid, sturdy banishing herb (Solomon's seal, margoram, lilac twigs)
Put the bill in the container and light it, chanting:
as these bills burn, chains melt, debts be fed, debts be dead. The money I earn I keep for myself!
As each bill burns, add a few pieces of your chosen herb.
Other spells to cast during this time.
Spells against sorrow
To heal grief
To break bad Luck
Assist in creative flow
The divination of Three Plates
Scottish Origin
Blind fold, 3 plates- one with grain, one with soil, one with net
Blindfold a person turn them around three times, then let their hand fall on a plate.
Fortells for the next year
Grain= prosperity
Soil= death
Net= tangled fortune
Recipes and Craft
Baked Apple
One cored apple per person
(per apple)
1 Tbs maple syrup
1 Tbs raisins
1 teaspoon allspice, cinnamon, or ground clove
Set cored apples in a glass dish, mix ingredients until evenly distributed. fill the apple, microwave on high 2 minutes per apple or preheat oven to 375 for 10-13 minutes
Pumpkin Seeds
1-2 cups of pumpkin seeds
1-2 tsps olive or sunflower oil
salt to tast
preheat oven 300
toss seeds with oil and salt spread evenly on cookie sheet bake about 45 minutes
Make a mask
A blank template
Hot glue
feathers, beads, ribbon
or
grocery sized PAPER bag
scissors
Crayons, paint, or markers
A stapler
elastic
Spin your fears
Paper plate, construction paper
scissors, crayons & markers
fastener
cut a small isosceles (2 long 1 short side) triangle out of the construction paper to make a pointer, set aside. Take a marker and divide the plate into 4 pie shaped sections. in each section write a fear. Fasten the triangle to the plate. Spin the triangle. focus on the theme
