Samhain History

What is Samhain?:

Samhain is known by most folks as Halloween, but for many modern Pagans it's considered a Sabbat to honor the ancestors who came before us, marking the dark time of the year. It's a good time to contact the spirit world with a seance, because it's the time when the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest.

Myths and Misconceptions:

Contrary to a popular Internet-based (and Chick Tract-encouraged) rumor, Samhain was not the name of some ancient Celtic god of death, or of anything else, for that matter. Religious scholars agree that the word Samhain (pronounced "sow-en") comes from the Gaelic “Samhuin,” but they’re divided on whether it means the end or beginning of summer. After all, when summer is ending here on earth, it’s just beginning in the Underworld. Samhain actually refers to the daylight portion of the holiday, on November 1st.

 

All Hallow Mass:

Around the eighth century or so, the Catholic Church decided to use November 1st as All Saints Day. This was actually a pretty smart move on their part – the local pagans were already celebrating that day anyway, so it made sense to use it as a church holiday. All Saints’ became the festival to honor any saint who didn’t already have a day of his or her own. The mass which was said on All Saints’ was called Allhallowmas – the mass of all those who are hallowed. The night before naturally became known as All Hallows Eve, and eventually morphed into what we call Halloween.

The Witches' New Year:

Sunset on Samhain is the beginning of the Celtic New Year. The old year has passed, the harvest has been gathered, cattle and sheep have been brought in from the fields, and the leaves have fallen from the trees. The earth slowly begins to die around us.
This is a good time for us to look at wrapping up the old and preparing for the new in our lives. Think about the things you did in the last twelve months. Have you left anything unresolved? If so, now is the time to wrap things up. Once you’ve gotten all that unfinished stuff cleared away, and out of your life, then you can begin looking towards the next year.

 

Honoring the Ancestors:

For some of us, Samhain is when we honor our ancestors who came before us. If you’ve ever done genealogy research, or if you’ve had a loved one die in the past year, this is the perfect night to celebrate their memory. If we’re fortunate, they will return to communicate with us from beyond the veil, and offer advice, protection and guidance for the upcoming year.
If you want to celebrate Samhain in the Celtic tradition, spread the festivities out over three consecutive days. You can hold a ritual and feast each night. Be flexible, though, so you can work around trick-or-treating schedules!

Celtic Tree Month of Ivy begins

As the year comes to a close and Samhain approaches, the Ivy moon rolls in at the end of the harvest season. Ivy often lives on after its host plant has died -- a reminder to us that life goes on, in the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth. The Celts called this month Gort, pronounced go-ert. This is a time to banish the negative from your life. Do workings related to improving yourself, and placing a barricade between you and the things that are toxic to you. Ivy can be used in magic performed for healing, protection, cooperation, and to bind lovers together.

The Inner Realm – The Physical or Terrestrial Realm

The inner realm is the physical realm, composed of the four Platonic elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. These are the basest realms, comprised primarily of matter with very little spiritual essence. However, these realms are still important to occultists because they are the realms we can most easily comprehend and with which we can most easily rate. One must understand their physical nature before he can hope to elevate himself beyond it.

Nature of The Realm

The Physical realms are considered both material and perishable. Material things do not last forever, and they are frequently subject to compositing and/or mutation into new forms.

Rarified Elements vs. Composite Physical Material

Furthermore, even these base realms function at a higher level than what we generally consider physical reality. Rainwater is not the same as the element of Water, and a match flame is not pure elemental Fire. Everything that we can physically interact with is a composite of elements, comprised of elemental combinations.

Hence, even the realm of earth, the basest of the Terrestrial realms, is still more pure, more rarefied than the physical soil beneath our feet or the flesh from which we are made.

Earth, Water, Air and Fire

The Terrestrial realms are ordered in a scientific fashion: through the application of heat (Fire), solids (Earth) can transform into liquids (Water), which can in turn evaporate into the air (Air). Fire, being the catalyst and strongly associated with the divine light, is then naturally placed at the top of this hierarchy.

Spirit: The Fifth Element

Between the Terrestrial and Spiritual realms lies a fifth element known by a number of names, including Spirit, Quintessence (Latin for “fifth element”), and Aether. While numbered as an element, Spirit was generally accepted to be something more rarified than any of the four physical elements. Also, while all physical matter is comprised of combinations of the four elements, Spirit was beyond matter, and it served such purposes as connecting body to soul and, in a cosmological sense, the Terrestrial realm to the Celestial one.

Vilokan: Vodou Spirit Realm

Vilokan is the home of the lwa in Vodou. It is synonymous with the spirit realm, as opposed to the physical realm in which mortals live. It is depicted as a submerged island.
Legba is the gatekeeper of Vilokan and thus he is always approached first in Vodou ceremonies in order for participants to be granted access to the other lwa. The traditional chant is:

Atibo Legba, open the gates for me, Papa Legba, open the gates for me Open the gates that I might enter When I will return, I will salute the laws Vodou Legba, open the gates for me WI will return, I will thank the laws

Ties Between Physical World and Vilokan

Vilokan in many ways mirrors the physical realm, and this is frequently represented in ritual through such things as double handshakes, pairs of people mirroring each other's gestures, and a variety of gestures in ritual being the opposite of how it is commonly done in the mundane world.

The two worlds are connected, and it is represented in Vodou temples by a central pole, the potomitan, around which ceremonies are performed. This pole is often touched at the beginning of ritual to reinforce the connection between priest and spirit world.

As an Afterlife

Vilokan is also the realm of the dead. Ancestor worship is an important aspect of Vodou and are honored in ways similar to the honoring of lwa.

Fall Equinox or Mabon Tomorrow

Mabon or fall equinox is tomorrow, its a day of reflection and thanks

Have a Happy Mabon

-The Crafty Witch!

How To Honor the Dark Mother at Mabon

Demeter and Persephone are strongly connected to the time of the Autumn Equinox. When Hades abducted Persephone, it set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to the earth falling into darkness each winter. This is the time of the Dark Mother, the Crone aspect of the triple goddess. The goddess is bearing this time not a basket of flowers, but a sickle and scythe. She is prepared to reap what has been sown.

The earth dies a little each day, and we must embrace this slow descent into dark before we can truly appreciate the light that will return in a few months.

This ritual welcomes the archetype of the Dark Mother, and celebrates that aspect of the Goddess which we may not always find comforting or appealing, but which we must always be willing to acknowledge. Decorate your altar with symbols of Demeter and her daughter -- flowers in red and yellow for Demeter, purple or black for Persephone, stalks of wheat, Indian corn, sickles, baskets. Have a candle on hand to represent each of them -- harvest colors for Demeter, black for Persephone. You'll also need a chalice of wine, or grape juice if you prefer, and a pomegranate.
If you normally cast a circle, or call the quarters, do so now. Turn to the altar, and light the Persephone candle. Say:

The land is beginning to die, and the soil grows cold.
The fertile womb of the earth has gone barren.
As Persephone descended into the Underworld,
So the earth continues its descent into night.
As Demeter mourns the loss of her daughter,
So we mourn the days drawing shorter.
The winter will soon be here.

Light the Demeter candle, and say:

In her anger and sorrow, Demeter roamed the earth,
And the crops died, and life withered and the soil went dormant.
In grief, she traveled looking for her lost child,
Leaving darkness behind in her wake.
We feel the mother's pain, and our hearts break for her,
As she searches for the child she gave birth to.
We welcome the darkness, in her honor.

Break open the pomegranate (it's a good idea to have a bowl to catch the drippings), and take out six seeds. Place them on the altar. Say:

Six months of light, and six months of dark.
The earth goes to sleep, and later wakes again.
O dark mother, we honor you this night,
And dance in your shadows.
We embrace that which is the darkness,
And celebrate the life of the Crone. Blessings to the dark goddess on this night, and every other.

As the wine is replaced upon the altar, hold your arms out in the Goddess position, and take a moment to reflect on the darker aspects of the human experience. Think of all the goddesses who evoke the night, and call out:

Demeter, Inanna, Kali, Tiamet, Hecate, Nemesis, Morrighan.
Bringers of destruction and darkness,
I embrace you tonight.
Without rage, we cannot feel love,
Without pain, we cannot feel happiness,
Without the night, there is no day,
Without death, there is no life.
Great goddesses of the night, I thank you.

Take a few moments to meditate on the darker aspects of your own soul. Is there a pain you've been longing to get rid of? Is there anger and frustration that you've been unable to move past? Is there someone who's hurt you, but you haven't told them how you feel? Now is the time to take this energy and turn it to your own purposes. Take any pain inside you, and reverse it so that it becomes a positive experience. If you're not suffering from anything hurtful, count your blessings, and reflect on a time in your life when you weren't so fortunate.

When you are ready, end the ritual.

 

Celebrate the darker aspects of the Goddess at the autumn equinox.

Image by paul kline/Vetta/Getty Images

Mabon Balance Meditation

A Time of Positive and Negative Energy

Mabon is one of those times of year that affect people in different ways. For some, it's a season to honor the darker aspects of the goddess, calling upon that which is devoid of light. For others, it's a time of thankfulness, of gratitude for the abundance we have at the season of harvest. No matter how you see it, Mabon is traditionally a time of balance. After all, it's one of the two times each year that has equal amounts of darkness and daytime.

Because this is, for many people, a time of high energy, there is sometimes a feeling of restlessness in the air, a sense that something is just a bit "off". If you're feeling a bit spiritually lopsided, with this simple meditation you can restore a little balance into your life.

Setting the Mood

Now that fall is here, why not do an autumn version of Spring Cleaning? Get rid of any emotional baggage you're dragging around with you. Accept that there are darker aspects to life, and embrace them, but don't let them rule you. Understand that a healthy life finds balance in all things.
You can perform this ritual anywhere, but the best place to do it is outside, in the evening as the sun goes down. Decorate your altar (or if you're outside, use a flat stone or tree stump) with colorful autumn leaves, acorns, small pumpkins, and other symbols of the season. You'll need a black candle and a white one of any size, although tealights probably work best. Make sure you have something safe to put them in, either a candle holder or a bowl of sand.
Light both candles, and say the following:

A balance of night and day, a balance of light and dark
Tonight I seek balance in my life
as it is found in the Universe.
A black candle for darkness and pain
and things I can eliminate from my life.
A white candle for the light, and for joy
and all the abundance I wish to bring forth.
At Mabon, the time of the equinox,
there is harmony and balance in the Universe,
and so there shall be in my life.
 
Meditate on the things you wish to change. Focus on eliminating the bad, and strengthening the good around you. Put toxic relationships into the past, where they belong, and welcome new positive relationships into your life. Let your baggage go, and take heart in knowing that for every dark night of the soul, there will be a sunrise the next morning.