Everyone's favorite image at Halloween, right? The "witch" flying through the air on her broom, the mist over the full moon, the gouls and goblins, the little people dressed up in masks and face paint (and no, I don't mean the little Irish men either). This is what Halloween has become in the past 100 years. It's very sad if you know it's beginings.
Samhain, also known as Halloween, Hallowmas, All Hallows' Eve, All Saints' Eve, Festival of the Dead, and the Third Festival of Harvest, is celebrated every year on October 31. It's origins were not to scare but to show respect for your ancestors. Hallows'Eve, when we have traditionally celebrated with treats and tricks, was the night that the spirits of the children would come and walk the earth. It was traditional to leave an offering of sweats on the front step of your home so they wouldn't play tricks on you. This is where trick-or-treating comes from. Then, on November 1, your adult ancestors would come and a feast would be lain out for them as well or they too, would be unhappy.
In the middle ages when the Catholic Chruch became very powerful it was upset, to say the least, of the common people still celebrating the "old holidays". Some were changed slightly so they wouldn't be so "pagan", they became saints birthdays and such. Halloween, instead of being a rememberance of your ancestors, became a time to be frightened. All Hallows' Eve became a night when deamons walked the earth. People locked their doors and wouldn't leave their houses after sunset.
As time past this tradtion evolved slightly. It was still very unlucky to leave the home for fear you would be stolen by a deamon but if you yourself looked like a deamon they wouldn't attack you. Thus, the start of masks and costuming.
Now that you know where todays traditions come from let me tell you a little about the religious aspect of the day. Being a nature based religion we follow the seasons in our worship. Spring is the time for planting, summer for growing, fall for harvesting, and winter for death. In order to live you must die so you can be reborn; the circle of life, as stated so well by Disney. Samhain is a celebration of death.
Yes, you read that right, a celebration of death. Death is not a bad thing, on the contrary it's rather a good thing. Plants and animals die so that others may live; a simple equation as old as time. Most pagans believe that when you die your soul is rencarnated so in order to live, you must die.
Samhain is the last of three harvest festivals. The sun god, who since early spring has been warming the cold lifeless earth, has died. The moon goddess has entered into her crone form; the wise old woman, cranky at times and set in her ways. I always picture one of my great aunts as the crone, a wrinkled old woman, stubborn, refuses to be told what to do, and looks to be at deaths door but won't even give him the pleasure of dying. But, at the same time, she's the caring grandmother making all the kids warm blankets for the cold nights ahead, cooking the large dinner so there is sure to be enough leftovers for the neighborhood children who drop in to visit.
The end has come so we must start a new. We look back on our past, thankful for the goodness, remembering our past. Now is the time that we say goodbye to the things that have hurt us whether it be a relationship or the loss of a loved one. We begin to think about the future. In the darkening time between now and Yule when the evenings are too cold for the long hours we used to spend sitting under our favorite tree, beside our favorite brook we, instead, are using our talents indoors. Finally using those herbs we dried during the summer, carving or sewing toys for the childrens Yuletide gifts, catching up on our reading or writing, but mostly thinking, thinking of what the next year will bring, of what we would like to do, to see, and to have.
Tradtional colors: black, orange
Traditional herbs: acorns, apples, broom, deadly nightshade, dittany, ferns, flax, fumitory, heather, mandrake, mullein, oak leaves, sage, and straw
Traditional incense: apple, heliotrope, mint, nutmeg, and sage
Traditional gemstones: jet, obsidian, onyx
Traditional foods: apples, pupkin pie, hazelnuts, Cakes for the Dead, corn, cranberry muffins and breads, ale, cider, mugwort teas
View the Pagan Teaching Circle's Ritual for Samhain 2000! Click here!
