Samhain - A New Year Begins  
 

Samhain - a major sabbat in pagan tradition, and one of four fire festivals for celebration.  And for many traditions, the beginning of a new year.  Its original purpose was the renewal of social ties before the beginning of winter, to celebrate the harvests that would supply the community through the coming months, and to slaughter animals to provide meat throughout the coming months.  It was also a festival of the dead when family and friends would reminisce about those who passed beyond.

Today, Samhain is still a time of celebration when we give thanks for what we have.  While we no longer need to stock the cellar, we still recognize the coming of winter which restricts many of our outdoor activities.  If we’re fortunate, we’ll gather one last time outdoors in celebration.  The world around us reflects the wheel of life through the dwindling daylight and the dying foliage.  Samhain is a celebration of the death of the God with the realization that he will be born again.

It is also the recognition of the crone aspect of the Goddess.  While it is true that she is the keeper of the gates of the dead, she also represents healing, wisdom, rebirth, and ancient knowledge.  She is known by many forms; among them are Hecate, Cerridwen, Arianhod, Persephone, the Morrigan, Edda, Lilith, Arawn, and Nefertum.  Through the Goddess as Crone, we visit past lives to gain wisdom and guidance for the life we currently have.

This is the most magical time of the year, and one of the most dangerous for the inexperienced.  During the night, the veil between planes is at its thinnest, and time and place can seem as if they do not exist. Tools for divination and prophecy are at their strongest power during this time.  Spirits and guardians can communicate more easily with the living.  Communication with the dead is used as a source of guidance and inspiration.  But caution should be exercised since this is a time of both endings as well as beginnings.

Individually, it is a time of introspection and reflection, to take stock of what we have accomplished in the past year and to reflect upon what we still need to develop.  Because Samhain is both the end and beginning of the wheel, many pagans take time to reflect upon our beliefs of life, death, and rebirth.

There are a number of ways to celebrate the sabbat.  Many pagans leave food offerings on altars or outdoors for the dead, or they set an extra place setting at the feast table.  Candles are left lit in windows to help guide to spirits of loved ones home.  Other activities: bobbing for apples, drying of winter herbs, cleansing and renewing the protective energies of your household, rites for the breaking of bad habits, honoring those who have passed on, drumming and chanting, and carving apples or pumpkins.

While our ancestors built bale fires for the protection of the land and people in the community, we use the fire in our rituals to build a shield of protection and to light the Path for the future. We seek to leave behind things no longer needed in our lives, to let those things die.  And we are reborn as we seek to better our lives and to connect with all life around us.

Magick associated with Samhain: ancient wisdom, death, dark magick, divination, ending, hidden beginnings, initiation, insight, loss, mourning, mysteries, neutralization, past-life recall, release, rebirth, rest, scrying, spirit contact, teaching, transformation, understanding, and wisdom.

Altar decorations: apples, bat, berries, besom, black mirror, candles, cat, cauldron, crystal ball, divination tools, dried flowers, gourds, grains, masks, nuts, photographs of the deceased, pine cones, pumpkins, representation of the Goddess in Crone form.

Colors: black, brown, golden yellow, orange, red, silver, and white.

Foods: ale, apples, beets, cider, corn, cornbread, cranberries, fresh meats, gingerbread, herbal teas, mulled wine, nuts, pomegranates, pumpkin pie, squash, turnips.

Herbs / Incense / Oils : acorn, allspice, almond, apple, basil, bay, broom, calendula, camphor, catnip,  chrysanthemum, cinnamon, clove, dittany of Crete, fern, flax, frankincense, fumitory, garlic, ginger, hazelnut, heather, heliotrope, hemlock, henbane, lilac, mandrake, mint, mugwort, mullein, mushrooms, nettle, nutmeg, nuts, oak, passion flower, pine, pumpkin, rosemary, rue, sage, straw, sunflower, tarragon, thistle, turnip, yarrow, and ylang-ylang.

Stones : obsidian, onyx, carnelian, jet, and any other black stone.

© 2000 Mother