Samhain:




Ritual and Tradition in the Turning Wheel



As the wheel of the Year turns and the days of Autumn are upon us, the greatest feast of the Pagan Calander, Samhain or New Year’s draws ever closer. Once the apex of social events - the great feast that would warm in memory throughout the bitter winter, the last chance to see the family, including one’s ancestors, before the dark days fell upon the land – this solemn and spiritual event has become perhaps the trashiest modern festival around. The pollution and corruption of this feast by both Christianity and Commercialism is breathtaking in its scope. Whereas other pagan feasts were adopted and adapted, Oestara becoming Easter, Yule evolving into Christmas, “Halloween” not only hi-jacks the deepest held beliefs and practices of our Pagan ancestors, but manages to insult the very culture it has purloined. Not content with parodying elements of ancient ritual such as the Dead Feast, or divination, (monkey nuts and throwing an apple-peel over one’s shoulder in modern parlance), mainstream churches have ensured many people think the origins of Halloween lie in a form of devil worship. Rather annoying for a culture that didn’t believe in a Devil, but certainly telling us more about Christianity and other orthodoxies than about our pagan past!

So what was Halloween?


Its true name is Samhain: it is the feast of the Dead in the Celtic Calendar. On this night the veils between the worlds are lowered and not only can a dedicated person seek advice from the Other-worlds but the dead ancestors can reach out to the living.

There is more than one Other-world, remember. There is what other cultures might call the Faerie World…the magical lands of the Danaan who became known as the Sidhe, they who live in the Hollow Hills. There is the Other- world proper, whence we go when we die. Part of our spirit remains there, a trace of us, while the more integrated self is reborn. When we pray to the ancestors we access the sum of all the wisdom learned by all the people through all the long years. There is the Homeland where dwell the Gods: not only the gods but where we can access the Archetypes (such as the Warrior, or the Chief or the Bard.) All these worlds are open to you at Samhain, provided you seek them with a gentle heart and with a respectful purpose.


When is Samhain?


By and large Samhain is celebrated on the 31st of October and this means that you can have a big party to celebrate it and invite all your “normal” friends! For once you probably won’t be the strangest person there: and in comparison to the usual Halloween party tricks your rituals will look positively respectable.

There is also an old, old tradition known as Old Samhain: this is celebrated mainly on the 8th of November, although (rarely) it is also celebrated on the 7th here and there. This is closer to the original date of Samhain in the pre-Gregorian calendar, and almost all Traditional witches in Celtic areas mark this day in some way or another.


What does it celebrate?

Samhain marks several things. As with all Celtic pagan feasts it marks a point on the wheel of the year, in this case the end of the year, and beginning of the New Year. This date, obviously, was a great occasion in Celtic society. In this sense alone, one would the progress of the year; the death of the world which will (they all devoutly hoped) be reborn in Spring. This view of the world was enshrined in sagas and in folktales, in stories about the mother god giving birth to the son, who dies and then is reborn (concept carried on in many cultures and for many generations! ) or in the two lovers who are separated by foul means, by death or magic.

Samhain was the period of the year when the livestock which would not make it through the winter was marked out and slaughtered, to be feasted on and to be dried out as provision for the long dark months ahead. This, coupled with the sense of the world going underground for the winter, led to this feast being a feast uniquely concerned with death and the spirit world. At this time, the veils between the world of living and dead were felt to be very flimsy and our ancestors instinctively realized that the spirits, and ancestors, were close at hand.

Because Celtic culture was not secular in the sense that modern society is secular, they had no problem mingling the mundane and profane with the sacred and spiritual: it is difficult to imagine today a world so unselfconscious about its philosophy of life and death, so natural in its approach, that alongside the great feasts of New Year, were held the ritual feasts of the Dead. This dumb feast or dead feast is a very important part of celebrating Samhain: it is part invitation to the universe and to the Ancestors to commune and advise, part soul journey, part act of remembrance and part act of acceptance. The Celtic belief in an other world was very complex and very strong. As you died in this you were reborn in that world. Death here was celebrated for the birth in the Otherworld and birth here was marked with mourning for the death in the Otherworld. There was a constant exchange of souls between the two. With such a belief one can see how a celebration of death at the moment of the New Year is very appropriate and how there was not the fear and morbidity associated with death that has become so much a part of modern life and which as much as anything contributes to the misunderstanding and misinterpretation by the Christian community of the sacred rite of death in pagan life, known as Samhain and subsequently as Halloween.


How to celebrate?

Rites:

The Dead Feast, mentioned above, is the most important and solemn part of the rites of Samhain. It is also the most open to misuse: it is not a séance. The Dead feast is a solemn rite, performed alone or only with very close family members (or friends) and performed in profound silence. No music, no speaking. The table is covered in a black cloth, black plates are set one for each specific soul you wish to invite and one unspecified for the general Ancestral spirit. If you have something to sacrifice, e.g. a vase or small ceramic bowl or similar, start the feast by filling it with mead, and smashing it ceremoniously. Each place on the table MUST be laid before you start, as you must not leave the table for the duration of the feast. Use simple food like nuts and fruit, take some time over the presentation, after all these are your guests – honour them! Start with the simple invocation :
“Dia is Beandia, failte romhat.
Tarbh mo chroi, failt romhat.
Beannaiche oraibh, is do bheanaiche orm.”


Trans

“God and goddess, welcome
ghost of my heart, welcome
you are blessed and your blessings on me”


Then in silence, welcome each of the spirits you envisage to your feast. If you mourn no-one in particular, think about and welcome your ancestors. How do you imagine them? What will they look like? Try to actively engage with them, even on this level as it will open your spirit to messages from beyond.

Think of the dying year, the dying God and celebrate the birth of the dark God, just as your ancestors celebrated the death in this life with joy at the birth in the Otherworld. Welcome the winter and what that season brings.

Eat the feast, and meditate, thus allowing the spirits and the gods to give you messages …these can be feelings, visions, daydreams, impressions…there is no set rule about how they might communicate. Do not be disappointed if you strongly feel you have not received a message…the act of opening your soul will allow the ancestors to bridge the abyss between their realm and ours. The “magic” of Samhain lies in the closeness of the many realms to one another and the ease with which one can move from one sphere to another: whether or not you receive a message on the night, does not affect the beneficial effect on your life in the year ahead that accrues from respect for, and inclusion of the ancestors.

When you feel the feast is over, thank your guests, tell them your plans (if you have any) for further celebrating that night and bid them to make merry, and rejoice. Stand and say:

“Slan go Foill
Cara na Mhuintir
Buiochas diobh go leir.
Is e sin oiche na taibhse;
Failte roimhe i mo ti an oiche seo.”


Trans


Fare thee well
Friend or kin
This is the night of ghosts
Ye are welcome in my home this night”



Take the food and immediately cast out of doors, also the wine or water in any glass including your own.

The feast is now over.


Divination:

After the feast it is the best time of the year to do divination. Tarot cards, pendulums, runes..all are more than usually potent tonight. As a diversion try some of the old lore:

Eat an apple watching in the mirror at midnight by the light of a black and red candle, to see your true love.

Peel an apple in one long peel, swing gently three times deosil over ones head and cast over the left shoulder, behind one. The initial of your lover will be visable. (ok so I slagged this off in the opening paragraph but what the hell, it’s traditional!)

Take a silver bowl and two candles, white, and after passing the candle over the water three times deosil, pour the wax into the bowl..one can scry all kinds of future events using this method….the first thing the wax suggests is usually the most accurate interpretation.

At one second past midnight open your window and listen…very faintly on the wind you should hear your future lover’s voice.

A variation of that last one, is that you should hear the Danaan celebrating, just the faintest trace of their revelry on the wind.


I hope this short article will help you all to access both the sacred and mundane spirit of Samhain: whatever way you mark it, just do mark it; you’ll be surprised at the effect it can have on the year ahead.


ÓLiossa October 16, 2001…..for The Mysteries Website
(Please ask before copying, in part or in full, for any reason.)


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