Celebrating Samhain

Samhain, finally!! I don’t know about you, but this is my favorite holiday. Day of the Dead Celebrations, Halloween costumes and parties, and the feel in the air make me happy. I have a sugar skull clock hanging on my wall. Ritual was last night, and we didn’t make it, but we’ll have a small celebration here to honor those who have passed and letting go of the past, so we can welcome the New Year.

Samhain, or summers end, originated with the ancient Celtic celebration of the end of the “light” part of the year represented by the harvest, and the beginning of the dark portion of the year as daylight hours become shorter and the weather grows colder. It’s one of only two times a year, people extinguished hearth fires and relit them the next day to celebrate the new beginning. This happens at Beltane and Samhain, and at no other time. Celebrations start at sundown on October 31 and continue through the day on November 1.

At Samhain, the veil between this world and the spirit world is thinnest, and departed spirits can return to mingle with the living. Samhain celebrations take many forms. People often clean house to clear the way for the coming year. It is also a time for reflection on the past year and on goals for the future. Samhain is one of the best times of the year for divination and looking to the future.

Just as the ancients inventoried their stock and the last of the harvest, it is time for us to take stock of our accomplishments and goals, our beliefs and rituals. What is working for you? What is not working for you? What changes can you make, and keep, that will make your beliefs, rituals, and life work better for you?

I’m not talking about making “New Year’s” type resolutions. We all know how well those usually work.  What I’m talking about is more subtle.  Review your grimoire or book of shadows, or start a new one.  Revisit the teachings you have been living by, and look at new teachings and ideas. Expand your outlook.  Are there other ideas that would fit with your belief system? If your focus has been on stones, read about herbs.  If you’ve been studying the tarot, learn something about runes.

Every skill and idea we add to our knowledge becomes a part of our philosophy. This gives us a much larger spiritual harvest to carry us through the winter months. Just as the ancients harvested crops and herds to feed themselves through the winter months, so can we seek a spiritual harvest of knowledge to feed our souls. We can approach this from many directions; personally, I prefer to spend time in study, meditation, and ritual, and truthfully, I make the decision based on how my heart leads me at the time.

Sometimes, I will spend an entire evening reading and explore new ideas to find out what I want to study over the winter. I think this year, I'm going to read Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft by Christopher Penczack, Celtic Mythology by Ward Rutherford, and Handfasting & Wedding Rituals by Kaldera/ Schwartzstein. It doesn’t really matter what path or paths you explore, as long as you expand your knowledge and look for something new to learn.

Other times, I will conduct a divination ritual or, depending on the position of the moon, a moon ritual outdoors. For divination, I know I’ve mentioned that I use the Motherpeace Tarot deck because I like the more feminine and peaceful images, but whether you use a tarot deck, angel cards, spell cards, or runes, any divination ritual will let you look within yourself. Then you can reassess what has passed, what is to come, and how you can manifest in your life the things you want and need. Only then can you start to create what you want for the future.

Strength

Sometimes when I sit down to write a blog, I get Aeslin to draw a card to give me inspiration. She uses the Magickal Spell Cards by Lucy Cavendish, so that gives me something extra to draw on.  I use the Motherpeace deck personally, so sometimes it's nice to get a little extra perspective on a concept. This week the card is Strength.

The Strength card represents strength, determination, power, and a higher level of consciousness. This card also represents responsibility and compassion. Just as the woman in the picture on the card offers patience and compassion to the lion in order to tame him, we offer patience and compassion to others to develop our energies around this card.

If you're like me, that's easier said than done. Sometimes I find it more difficult than at others to exercise that patience and compassion toward other people. This usually happens to me when I forget to take into consideration that the other person almost certainly doesn’t think the same way I do. Nor do they have the same values. I am constantly amazed at the varied approaches people take to situations, and to life in general. One of the hardest things in the world to do is to watch someone make a mistake, especially someone you care about.

Part of having patience and compassion is having the ability to let others have their own space, strengths, and weaknesses, and to realize that you can’t impose your expectations on other people. If you don’t base those expectations on what the person is capable of doing, you’re sure to be disappointed. Part of gaining the Strength of the Tarot is acceptance of people as they are. With this acceptance, you can gently influence others rather than criticizing them.

As an example, I tend to work a lot, simply because I love what I do. I love writing and research and working on the store. I love finding new merchandise and information that we can share with you, so that’s what I’m doing most of the time. However, sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s okay that not everyone is that focused on something. Actually, it’s most definitely a good thing. Most of us have this tendency, so that's an area where our control of our reactions and our treatment of others comes into play. 

The lion in the picture, on most decks, represents the animalistic nature that we must overcome at times. We all have baggage, and at times, all the stuff, we have sublimated, comes out. Anyone who tells you different is lying. Many times the way this comes out is simply in intolerance and impatience. We base our reactions to what happens to us on experiences we’ve had in the past, and the strength of the tarot is the strength that allows us to overcome our baggage, and allow others their own path, even if you’re convinced you know better. I usually am, but you can only master your own feelings and actions. Knowing and allowing that is part of the strength seen in the card.   

Strength also relates to responsibility for yourself and your world. Learning to work properly with that passionate, instinctual core inside all of us, gives us the strength to create our world as we wish. We all put on masks at some point, maybe when we go to work, or when we’re with certain people, we feel the need to hide our true selves. When we can appropriately control and work with both sides of our nature, we gain the ability to create our world as we wish while being truly ourselves. This is truly a gift.

Fall

It actually felt like fall for the first time this year. I live in Texas, so it will warm up again, but it’s here! I love most seasons except summer, so I’m relieved that part of the year is over. Like most pagans, I’m also looking forward to Samhain, and while I don’t know about anyone else, I’m looking forward to winter. That said, I’ll admit we don’t get much snow, or really have what most people would call a winter, but I like it because it’s just cold enough that you feel like getting out and doing things, but not so bad you can’t go anywhere.

Along with fall comes Samhain, which is my favorite holiday. The veil thins and magical energy intensifies. You can feel the extra energy in the air, and everything seems a little sharper and clearer. I generally use the time between Mabon and Samhain to prepare for Samhain. I reflect back on the past year and determine what I want to let go of, and what I want to begin or change in the New Year.

If you keep a journal, all you have to do is look back over the past year to see what you want to let go of to close out the old year and prepare for the new one. If you don’t have a journal, spend some time in reflection to see what has served you and what hasn’t over the past year. Sometimes it’s easy because you had a bad relationship, or you have lost a friend or family member, and sometimes, that makes it that much harder to let go. I have seen it take years for someone to be ready to let go of the grief and pain and move on.

Sometimes it’s much harder to find those things that no longer serve you, so you will need to meditate, journal, sit outside in nature, or even just sleep on it to find the things you want to leave behind. The end of the year at Samhain takes us into the New Year and the fall holiday season, and you always want to start the New Year on a positive note. It will give you a head start to carry that positivity into the New Year.

In my case, I’m usually letting go of bad habits, but I don’t approach it like a New Year’s resolution. I try to incorporate keeping those habits out of my life when I set my intentions for the New Year. Taking a different approach to something than you have in the past can be all it takes to achieve your dreams. You create your own universe through your thoughts and actions. What will you become next year?

Our spell this week was about cleansing and charging your tools, and that is one excellent way to prepare to cut ties with the old year. However, whether you do that, spend time looking back over the past year, or decorate your space, you want to get rid of the old and set intentions for the new. What do you want to accomplish in the New Year? Let us know in the comments.