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Samhain Rituals
"This is the night when the veil
is thin that divides the worlds. It is
the New Year in the time of the year's
death, when the harvest is gathered and
the fields lie fallow. For tonight the
King of the Waning Year has sailed over
the sunless sea that is the womb of the
Mother, and steps ashore on the Shining
Isle, the luminous world egg, becoming
the seed of his own rebirth. The gates
of life and death are opened; the Sun
Child is conceived; the dead walk, and
to the living is revealed the Mystery:
that every ending is but a new
beginning. We meet in time out of time,
everywhere and nowhere, here and there,
to greet the Lord of Death who is Lord
of Life, and the Triple Goddess who is
the circle of rebirth." (Samhaim
Invocation, Simos [Starhawk] 1989, 193)
Although the Wheel of the Year has eight
holidays, (the four astronomical
holidays, the equinoxes and solstices
and the four cross-quarter days,
Samhaim/Halloween, Candlemas, Beltane
and Lughnasad), the cross-quarter days
are considered by many of the
"high-holy" days with Samhaim the most
solemn. It is on this day that death, on
various levels, is honored and
celebrated. It is the time of the New
Year, a festival of endings and
beginnings, when rituals focus on
letting go of the old and looking ahead
to the new. It is on this night that
Pagans pay respects to their departed
loved ones, ancestors and guides in the
Spirit World. (Fox, 8) These rituals
provide the most public expressions of
Pagan beliefs and provide on a yearly
basis the opportunity for the living to
remember and mourn their dead.
Pagan mythology proclaims that the veil
between the world of the living and that
of the dead is thinnest on the night of
Samhaim. On this night it is easiest for
the dead to cross-over and visit
surviving family and friends. This
is why before leaving for the group
ritual celebrants are advised to leave
food and drink as an offering to their
own beloved dead who may visit in their
absence. (Fox, 8, Simos 1989, 193)
Leaving such an offering begins the
psychological process of reconnecting
with one's own beloved dead, while the
rituals themselves might focus on
remembering the dead, particularly
immediate family and friends (Fox, 8;
Simos 1989, 248; rs_nusslebr, lecuyer)
and memorials for those who died during
the Inquisition (Carol, 13) and
other historical massacres; awareness of
one's own death and hopes for rebirth
(Simos 1989, 195-6); reflections on the
past year and plans for the new year
(Fox 8; Weinstein, 18; onca, 10/15/93);
banishing of old fears and other
negative traits (JMICALE; lecuyer) and
divination (Fox, 8; Simos 1989, 195,
onca, 10/15/93; milmoe, 10/25/93).
Honoring the dead, both personal and
communal, is an important part of many
Samhaim, rituals. By looking at a large
public ritual described by Simos
[Starhawk] in her book Truth or Dare we
can see how most of the elements listed
above are woven together. After ritually
establishing sacred space, the group
begins by memorializing their ancestors,
those without names who are remembered
by the ways they died, "those who died
of hunger, who died in slave ships, who
were burned...the dead of Auschwitz,
Hiroshima, ...El Savador, ...South
Africa, ...AIDS victims, war victims,
suicides, burned Witches" As each group
is named the participants "keen, tear
cloth, rub ashes on our faces and chant
the response to the call 'What is
remembered lives.'" The voices of the
three hundred people crying together
binds the group together before the
naming of personal losses: "'my
grandfather'... 'my aunt'... 'my
mother'...the tragic deaths, the
suicides, the car crashes and the
peaceful deaths." The names and stories
weave these people together so that they
become one community "so that [these
ancestors] become our common ancestors,
different races and religions and
viewpoints not erased but linked. For in
the public naming of our dead, we assert
their value which has not been destroyed
by death. And in valuing them we value
each other, the true histories of our
lives, where we come from, who we are."
Having grieved together the group dances
into being their vision for the new
year: "A year of beauty, Let it begin
now. A year of plenty, Let it begin now.
..." Energy spent on grief now raises
into a wild frenzy of clapping,
stomping, ecstasyÑuntil the power peaks
and the participants return to the
earth. Finally the ritual is brought to
a close by the naming of those babies
born during the year. "The wheel of the
year has turned....and now the lament
for the dead gives way again to the song
of life." (Simos 1987, 307-9)
Participation in a ritual such as this
provides at least a temporary release
from Aries' fear of death. Not only is
death acknowledged but public,
emotional, kinesthetic grieving is
encouraged. For at least the time of the
ritual death is not an "ordinary event
...mentioned with feigned indifference,"
(Aries, 614) instead, within the safety
of sacred space, death is acknowledged,
celebrated and lamented. Both the tame,
peaceful death and the violent, evil
death are honored; both the personal and
ancestral death are acknowledged; mass
death is recognized and it victims
lamented. In a technological world
separated, untamed nature is welcomed
and released both in the wild grieving
and the ecstatic dance of the new year.
Finally a sense of immortality is
proposed in the form of those new
births, the children who continue on the
community.
Although not all Pagans
participate in this type of large,
public ritual, their private rituals may
contain many of the same elements
including reflections on the past year
and plans of the new year By inviting
death into their ritual space, Pagans
provide themselves an opportunity to
overcome their fear and shame at death.
Through ritual and meditation they might
look into the face of their own deaths,
both those small daily deaths
precipitated by changing
circumstances, and the final termination
of their current existence.
Conclusions
In reviewing Aries' four
psychological themes (self-awareness,
defense against untamed nature, belief
in an afterlife and belief in the
existence of evil) we seem to find that
the contemporary Pagan community's
beliefs and practices around death focus
on a belief in the cyclic nature of
existence that includes not only birth,
life and death but also some type of
continued or renewed existence,
rebirth. Although self-awareness and a
belief in an afterlife characterize
Pagan beliefs we find little evidence of
a belief in the existence of evil or a
need for defense against untamed nature.
As with many of their fellow Americans,
Pagans seem to have a strong sense of
self. This is especially evident in the
remembrances of the named and unnamed
dead in Samhaim rituals where not only
family and friends are memorialized but
also "ancestors" of various types are
included. An overwhelming belief in some
type of continued existence is expressed
not only in the "orthodox" explication
of the beliefs published in various
sourcesbut in the attempts of the
various Internet correspondent to
articulate their personal, eclectic
beliefs. These beliefs show not only
that there is a basic set of shared
ideas but also highlight the attempts of
the various individuals to formulate a
consistent personal belief in the
absence of any type of common accepted
creed. Those whoexpress a belief in some
sort of afterlife seem to be divided
between those who favor a continued
existence ofthe coherent self and those
who believe that the self is somehow
absorbed into a larger cosmic force.
Concerns about the complete dissolution
of the self are not evidenced by either
the published sources or our Internet
correspondents. Whether this is an
example of a true disinterest in
continued existence or merely the result
of the demographics younger people seem
less concerned about their continued
existence because they often have not
completely assimilated the concept of
their own death unknown. However we see
little evidence of a belief in the
complete dissolution of the self in the
various rituals surrounding death and
dying. Although several variations were
expressed, many seemed to accept some
type of continued existence and possible
re-birth either in whole or as part of a
greater whole. We see, then, in the
contemporary Pagan community a unique
response to Aries' concerns about death
in the post-modern world. By ritualizing
death and dying Pagans seem to be moving
beyond the indifference to death
documented by Aries; through the use of
alternative religious expressions they
appear to be mastering their personal
and communal fears about death and dying
and perhaps are beginning to overcome
the alienationfrom death felt by many in
this post-modern age.
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