Another Turn of The Wheel: Samhain, the Witches’ New Year
The milky late Autumn sun delicately warms amber leaves… The dense evening fog mingles with the smoke of a wood-burning fireplace wrapping the earth in an ethereal embrace, casting an enchanting spell over its streets. The veil thins. Intuition heightens. Witches the world over hold their breath…
Ah Samhain. The witchiest of the Wheel of the Year’s sabbats*. Arguably the most delicious and potent time of year.
Circles are cast, altars prepared, candles are lit. All in dedication to loved ones who have passed or ancient ancestors unknown but watching over us. Perhaps offerings are left for the Fae or a guiding spirit (hopefully benevolent). Or an invocation is sent out to Hekate, Cerridwen, Baba Yaga - the Witches’ Goddess, the Goddess of the Cauldron, the Crone Goddess. The Goddesses who reign over the Dark season. They have their own torches.
Samhain translates to Summer’s End. Along with marking the end of Summer, the lighter half of the year and the final harvest holiday (it’s the last in a triad of harvest festivals including Lughnasadh and Mabon), it marked the Celtic New Year as it honours the end and therefore the beginning of a new cycle of The Wheel. Celtic pagans and many other nature-based practices view death as another way of life in that there is no ending without rebirth. Any ending is simply releasing, creating space to alchemise and rebirth a new beginning.
The festival honoured the shift into Winter or the ‘Darker’ half of the year. The shorter, colder days, the lack of growth in the natural world, the dominance of night invited self reflection, quiet contemplation and an opportunity to embrace stillness. As the sun dimmed and the days shortened so too naturally did the period of Light. Action. Doing. Yang. As the more darker winter season of rest and hibernation approached, bonfires would be lit to mimic the power of the weakened sun. It was a sabbat of contrast between light and dark, masculine and feminine energies.
As the final harvest before the long winter, Samhain offered a time to take stock of what’s grown - both literally and metaphorically - over the past cycle of the Wheel and to contemplate the coming year. Even in the modern day, we can still use this powerful energetic portal as an opportunity to look at if there’s anything from our previous year we may wish to leave behind or stop doing (any unhealthy habits or negative energy or connections that may be draining us) and focus on what we want to actively cultivate moving forward.
To honour Samhain you can try one of the below suggested rituals or use these as jumping off points to create your own. It doesn’t have to strictly fall on the evening of the 31st - the thin-veil energy of Samhain is still strong into the first few days of November, there is also Lunar Samhain on 12th November offering another opportunity for a more insular practice (another post to follow on this) not to mention Samhain in Irish translates to November so these would all be appropriate rituals to try throughout the month!
Create an ancestral altar to honour and connect with the ancestors who came before you. The three days beginning on All Hallows’ Eve (31st October) was recognised as a major threshold, a liminal space where you could connect more readily to ancestors, guides, the Fae or Deities. You could add photographs, or personal heirlooms you have a connection with. Or leave offerings of flowers, dried petals or food. Pumpkins, apples and hazlenuts are symbolic of this festival as they were traditionally harvested at this time. Or even just light a candle to a passed on loved one. or a particular deity you have a connection with It’s more about the intention behind it than how grand and ornate the gesture is!
Cook a Halloween feast - basically anything pumpkiny would be very apt or anything with gourds, potatoes, apples, nuts, or even a hearty meaty stew cooked in ale or cider. Light some candles, enjoy some cider and make merry! No particular criteria is required - as long as it celebrates some of the bounty of the late Autumn harvest season, is something you would actually enjoy eating and gets you in the spirit of feeling like you’ve harvested yourself a fine feast. Whilst you’re having the meal celebrate what other blessings - whether literal or metaphorical - you’ve harvested this past year.
Have a fire ceremony of some sort to honour the ending of the Lighter half of the year - a bonfire if you have the means, or you could always light a fire in a mini cauldron, in a fireplace if you’re lucky enough to have one or failing all of that a candle will certainly do the trick! Use the ritual to disconnect from your device and the digital world for a hot minute and gather around the warmth to relay ghoulish stories and honour the shifting of the season.
Reflect on and write down what you want to use this portal to let go of. Just as the lighter half of the year must come to an end, are there any habits, ways of being, draining or non-supportive connections, or just some negative energy in your life that also needs to come to an end or be banished? Write this and burn it (provided you can do so safely) to banish that energy. Now that’s opened up an energetic space, write a new list of what you want to cultivate through the new cycle of the Wheel of the Year.
Connect with, invoke, petition the Dark Goddess - Hekate, as the Goddess of Witches, Keeper of the Keys, Triple Goddess of the Crossroads, she is the most appropriate for Samhain to give thanks for the path you’ve walked up to this point, the present moment and the path of your future.. Or Welsh Goddess, Cerridwen, for alchemising any negativity, pain and loss in her magical cauldron of transformation. And many more (there’ll be a separate post to follow on the Dark Goddesses of this season).
*The Celtic or pagan Wheel of the Year comprises eight festivals or ‘sabbats’ spaced six to seven weeks apart throughout the year Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lughnasadh and Mabon. The Wheel honours nature’s natural rhythms and seasonal shifts. Acknowledging and honouring the transition from one season to the next and becoming more aware of the deeper energetic shifts with the seasonal changes of the earth can help us reconnect to nature and add balance and harmony to our lives.
Some sources suggest the Wheel of the Year concept originated with the Wiccans in the mid-20th century in fact but in fact the Wheel of the Year sabbats have been honoured and celebrated in Ireland and Celtic Britain since ancient pagan times. Today, many modern Christian festivals fall around the same dates. (Funnily enough…). Many other cultures with ancient lineages also celebrate many of the same seasonal demarcations albeit with different names.