Patheos Pagan Writers on Samhain

Patheos Pagan Writers on Samhain October 24, 2016

It’s Samhain season, a time of year I’ve heard referred to more than once as “Pagan Christmas.” With so many different spiritualities present at Patheos Pagan I reached out to our writers and asked them what they were doing to celebrate the season. Not surprisingly, the answer was “all sorts of things!”

From all of us here, to all of you out there, thanks for reading and have a magickal Samhain and a spooky Halloween!

Image from Pxhere. Public Domain Image

RACHEL PATTERSON-BENEATH THE MOON

Ah now…the thing about Samhain…31st October is my birthday. Yep, true enough. The whole witchcraft pathway was possibly fated for me at birth.
In the parts of England that I lived in during my childhood and teens, the trick or treat event didn’t really happen. It only seems to have taken off locally in the last twenty years.

My first Samhain’s were fairly quiet, as I was a solitary Witch. I would spend a lot of time and effort decorating my altar and my house. Then I became a parent and Samhain began to change. People would arrive specifically at our front door to see “the witchy house”.

As the children grew and wanted to go out trick or treating my husband and I were left to deal with the visitors. Spending my birthday/Samhain getting up and down to the door to give sweets to snotty kids does become a bit wearing. Does that make me sound like a Halloween Grinch?

Several years ago we decided that my birthday celebrations would happen the day before Halloween, then at least I got to celebrate!

I actually switched my own Samhain celebrations to the day after Halloween. I do my own small ritual on 1st November. Nothing too fancy. I put out photos of my departed family members and I spend some time honouring their memory. I also do a tarot draw for the coming months.

This year I am going to be making a spirit doll on Samhain as well.

My matron goddess is The Cailleach and it is at this time that I welcome her back fully. Whilst she is always with me, she fades a little during the summer months. So, I will also perform a small ceremony for her and redress her altar.

My coven will be holding an online Samhain ritual via facebook so that anyone and everyone can be a part of it.

I love this time of year, it really is the Season of the Witch!

MEGAN MANSON-PAGAN TAMA

In Japan, the feast of the dead happens in the summer, at the Buddhist festival of Bon (Shinto doesn’t have a feast of the death, so Japanese people will turn to Buddhism for this role). As a Shinto-Pagan, I prefer to celebrate Samhain as my principal feast of the dead rather than Bon. Last year it rained at Samhain, so I I held my solo ritual in the cellar. I lit a large number of candles and turned off the lights, so the room was entirely candle-lit.

I intoned the names of various deities of death, and thanked them for being a companion to my departed friends and family when they pass over to the other side.

I then focused on the spirits of my departed friends and family, starting with our two family dogs whose deaths were recent quite close to each other (the second died in January this year). I thanked them for the many years of love and affection they gave us, and left an offering of water and dog treats at my main altar.

Next, I focused on my relatives who had died long ago, but within my lifetime. I remembered each one in turn, and offered a chalice of sherry in their honour (I think most of the relatives I remembered enjoyed a tipple of sherry).

Finally, I gave my thoughts to my ancestors whom I have never met, but whose blood runs in my veins and whose life my own came from. I asked them to guide me to help me bring pride to their name.

I then had a brief period of meditation in which I invited these friends and relatives into my memories. I remembered what it was like to play with my dogs, and I could imagine them coming up to me and poking their noses under my arm like they often did when I sat on the floor. I remembered the way my maternal grandfather would give usually me a kiss while forcing a pound coin or five pound note into my hand when we said goodbye after visiting. I remembered how my paternal grandfather would smile and joke exactly the way my Dad does, and I remembered how grandmother would make incredible knitted toys for my sister and I (she was really skilled with her hands). I also had a “vision” of my grandfather and grandmother as a young couple, dancing together. It was really nice and I even teared up a little.

I was surprised at how emotional this ritual turned out to be. I consider that the mark of a successful and meaningful ritual, so I will try to do the same thing this year.

ASTREA-STARLIGHT WITCH

I put photos of my beloved dead on a Samhain altar with some food and drink. After lighting a candle, I meditate and enter a trance state.

When I’m in a loosened mental state, I call upon them and ask them to be with me. I talk to each one, telling them about the things I know they’d like to hear about. The one-on-one time is really special. After I talk, I listen to what they have to say to me. I write it down in my book of shadows to preserve what they said, which

I usually don’t remember due to the trance state. I like to use divination too, usually tarot, to gain additional insights.

Sometimes, they tell me they love me. Sometimes, they tell me the future or warn me about things. It’s always interesting, and I love that it’s an annual ritual.

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CHRIS GODWIN-FROM A COMMON WELL

My group, HearthStone Grove, ADF meets in Austin’s oldest graveyard and has dinner with the dead. We tell stories of our loved ones and do more of a low liturgy, less spectacular rite. We allow the stories of our ancestors to take the stage.

We also meet at the local Witches Market hosted by Austin Witches Circle for Samhain. We kindle a group fire there and bring coals back to our individual hearth fires. We take care not to lend or borrow on Samhain eve, and we will leave food our for the Slua dead, or the host of traveling souls which visits home to home, depositing and reclaiming ancestors from their relatives’ homes.

For the Dark moon prior to Samhain, the Boar moon, we perform the boar stance from European martial arts, and we say a charm of luck over our fire while the group members shout outward from the circle, each armed with tusks of sticks, swords, spears, and knives.

IAN CHAMBERS-BY THE PALE MOONLIGHT

In the calendar of the Traditional Witch, cunning folk and country people, the festival of All Hallows represents an important seasonal marker in the mythos of the turning year. Often associated with the Celtic Irish feast of Samhain, and with hints of an older Roman festival of Lemuria (in which the ancestral and familial spirits were encouraged to return to the Land of the Dead), themes of death and the acknowledgement of the darker energies of the year predominate.

In terms of the myths used by many modern traditions of witchcraft, All Hallows marks the point of the year in which the spirit that brough t fecundity and life turns inward, toward the maw of the Mound, that telluric barrow which is both tomb and womb. Working through the journey of the tribal father, hero, and tutelary deity, we observe the supremacy of night over day and the Sun’s now diminished potency. A symbol of the season, apple bobbing remains an enjoyable past time. In halving the fruit horizontally, it reveals that ancient and sacred symbol of the Goddess. Upon this theme, Marian Green observes:

“As well as imparting knowledge… [the apple] was considered in Welsh mythology to be the key to the Otherworld, and with a branch of apple blossom Bran the Sun God ventured into the land of the Everliving, and the branch guaranteed his return to his own place.” (Marian Green, A Harvest of Festivals p.136).

As the Spirit of the Year moves to the Grave, so too all that must pass may be ritually and symbolically consigned to the cold earth. This is a time when we may cast off those poisonous fruits of the year, the harvest which spoiled, and determine now to sacrifice those things that we don’t wish to carry into the new year. The turning inward of the season also makes this time ideal for communication with discarnate spirits and is traditionally the time of casting lots, foretelling the fortunes of the coming year from the bones of the now departed old year.

As with Lemuria, it is also considered apt at this time of year to work with those spirits recently deceased, as well as those struggling or trapped in the corporeal world, to move on and continue the cycle. The leader of the Wild Hunt, therefore, rides out at this time to gather up the lost souls and add to his train of the dead. Similarly, it is traditional for families to take the opportunity to gather together all of their clan, both corporeal and spirit, to feast together.

In a more mundane way, it is also the time when attention turned to food stores and harvested produce, ensuring that sufficient was prepared to endure the long bare months of winter. Once again, apples were an important food stock to take through the winter and rotten ones must be hunted out and removed lest they spoil the lot. This introspective tide, unsurprisingly, entices us to do the same with our lives and weed out the bad apples – a custom we could well do with today.

“…remember, it was with the Silver Branch that Bran, the Sun God (who became Michael in the Christian era), gained entry and safe return from the Otherworld.” (Marian Green, A Harvest of Festivals p61).

CHRISTOPHER DRYSDALE-THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HEDGE

Christopher Dyrsdale (The Other Side of the Hedge) Samhain is a time to meditate on Death and our inevitable relationship with it. Some might say that death is a great spiritual adventure; I think that’s hogwash. Death might be one of the most powerful experiences we’ll ever take part in. At the same time, there is something common and everyday about it.

Death is no more an adventure than any other uncertain future. It is something to be aware of and prepared for. Sure, we’re all going to die one day. But like taxes, Death isn’t our friend. We can talk about how it’s a natural transition – and it is. But that doesn’t mean we should run to it. The best I can manage is cautious acceptance of the inevitable.

There’s no need to panic when facing death. Unless you might find the forceful ripping apart of the self disturbing. Each time I face death, I sigh, relax, and fight with all my might not to go.

Perhaps it’s silly, but as far as I can tell the experience of Death is best described by a quote from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in a discussion about teleportation (an apt metaphor if ever I saw one):

“It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.”
“What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?”
“You ask a glass of water.”

Death is ever-present. Once we’ve seen our own death approaching, it’s always easy to remember it’s there. We come to know that death is not some distant destination we’re safe from (for now), but something that we forever hold away from ourselves by the very act of living.

“Snap-Apple Night” by Daniel Maclise. From WikiMedia.
“Snap-Apple Night” by Daniel Maclise. From WikiMedia.

GWYN-3 PAGANS & A CAT

As a Witch, Samhain is very important to me and there are traditions which I keep with my family every year. This year, my morning will begin by honoring Hekate as Dark Mother of Witches and Goddess of the Crossroads.

For the mid-day meal, my family and I observe a Silent Supper, inviting our beloved dead to join us. We write a blessing to them at the end of the meal and burn those papers in the cauldron to release them into the universe. We then venture outside to share an offering to the land spirits and leave food at the crossroads for wandering and lost souls.

Then, because we love to celebrate the season of the Witch, we will watch our favorite film (Hocus Pocus) while carving a Jack-o-Lantern, which will protect our home through the night. Later in the evening, we will come together for divination and I will use my black mirror to scry.

BRANDY WILLIAMS-STAR & SNAKE

Brandy Williams (Star and Snake) My coven, Coven of the Mystical Merkabah, is a mixed Witchcraft – Ceremonial Magic group. At Samhain we focus on the Witch side with a ritual we call “What Witches Do At Samhain”. We make an ancestor altar and remember our dead, now become mighty ancestors – there’s a new picture on the altar this year.

We also do something we call shapeshifting. We have a tape we made decades ago (thus tape) in which we beat drums at a given speed. We all drop into trance and project ourselves in the spirit world as the animal we’ve chosen that year. When the tape ends (it’s 10 minutes) we come to consciousness and share what we’ve experienced. We’ve done deer, bear, horses, snakes, bats, cougars, elephants, pigs, wolves, hawks, dolphins, dragons, and I’m sure I’m missing some. Dolphins were hardest, they are *smarter* than us!

DAVID POLLARD-NATURE’S SACRED JOURNEY

David Pollard (Nature’s Path) It’s easy to venerate long passed, semi-anonymous “ancestors”. Instead (or in addition), call your oldest living relatives with intact memories and ask them what it was like when they were growing up and who in the family they looked up to and how *they* spoke of their childhoods and older relatives. Odds are they are lonely, and will be glad to talk to someone, even if you aren’t their favorite…

MISHA MAGDALENE-OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE

I’m not much of a one for the Wheel of the Year, but — like so many other witches — I make something of an exception for Samhain.

On the western wall of our home temple, my partner and I have an altar devoted to the dead, both the Mighty Dead of our lineages and the Beloved Dead of our families of birth and choice. I make offerings to them year-round, generally incense and whiskey, and ask for their protection and guidance. At Samhain I do the same, but I also make a point of spending time in sacred space, either in formal ritual or impromptu observance, speaking their names and honoring their place in my life and practice. If they were people I knew personally, I make a point of remembering them as I truly knew them, both the good and the bad. Where appropriate, I thank them for their continued presence in my life, and for passing the traditions we share down to me, magical and otherwise.

And then, if I’m observing Samhain coincident with Halloween (and why wouldn’t I?), I put on some spooky music or a scary movie and pass out candy to anyone who comes to our door. This, too, is an offering… and it’s fun!


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