Samhain Exploration & Experience

What is Samhain?

(Pronounced Sow-en, where sow rhymes with cow, is what we call Hallowe'en)

There is an extraordinary trilogy of festivals from October 31 to November 2: Samhain/Halloween (Oct. 31), followed by All Hallows/All Saints (November 1) and All Souls (November 2). It seems wrong to separate them because they are a series of the most marvelously intertwined pagan and Christian customs and beliefs. Festivals from both traditions are seasonally based.

The feeling of death and darkness creeps in and is around us for several months.

Samhain is pre-Christian, and so pre-dates the others. It is now considered Hallowe'en, meaning the eve before All Hallows or All Holy Ones/All Saints. As All Hallows is a Christian festival, Hallowe'en is a later name for Samhain and has absorbed some Christian meanings overlaid on Samhain.

Throughout this night's history, the one constant factor is that it is a night full of superstition. Deep-rooted and unfounded belief about Hallowe'en flourishes every quarter.

At Samhain in medieval Ireland, there were huge tribal assemblies at Tara. Local kings would gather for six days for games, entertainment, and feasting. This was to celebrate summer's end and the beginning of winter. Even then, there were stories of the faerie folk and evil spirits being out and about, "making mischief.” In Ireland, it was called Puca (Goblin) Night. Samhain was the most important of the three Spirit nights, the other two being Beltane and Midsummer Eve, and it was the doorway to the dark half of the year.

Initially, it was not particularly associated with the dead, but once the church initiated the feast of All Saints in the ninth century and later, around AD 998, All Souls, the customs between October 31 and November 2 became closely related. Hallowe'en took on its connotations of being a night when dead spirits were close, and ancestors remembered,

This time of year seems to lend itself to these beliefs, though, as they layer on top of each other. Samhain and later Hallowe'en fires were widespread on the hilltops to invoke the sun's power as it waned and to guard against the spirits as they entered winter darkness. People would light their new house fires from the communal fire. It is no coincidence that we continue to keep bonfire night around this time. It is a night when our fears of change and death are uncovered when we enter the realms of myth and imagination. Both death and lack of light are two of our most primitive fears. As Jung said about the shadow, "One does not become enlightened by imaginary figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.” Hallowe'en has a critical function in allowing our fears to be looked at before being flooded with the light of All Saints.

October is the last month of summer or, more specifically, autumn. Its last day is the gateway to the darkest months of winter. The spirits within the shadows of our minds and those without, in the shadows of the night, were thought to be abroad. It is a time for attending to our fears, including that of death, and for remembering loved ones. It is a time for journeying within, seeking wisdom, however hidden or feared, and seeking the paradoxical way of peace.

The above information is adapted from The Celtic Wheel of the Year, Celtic and Christian Seasonal Prayers by Tess Ward

Samhain- ancestors and thin times

The Otherworld

In the Celtic Wheel of the Year, Samhain, which we know as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, many believe marks the end of the year and the threshold to the new one.

It is believed in Celtic lore to be a time when the veil between this world and the other was very thin, and crossing between the worlds was possible.

In Celtic traditions, the otherworld, the world of the Fae or Faerie, was always dangerous. Time elapsed differently there, so one might find oneself in the otherworld for a few hours only to return to this world and find that decades had elapsed, reminiscent of Rip Van Winkle's experience.

To eat something in the otherworld meant you had to stay there forever, reminding us of Persephone and the pomegranate seeds.

These ideas are very ancient yet still present in our modern stories. The dangerous world of faerie is captured exquisitely and terrifyingly in the book and mini-series Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. In the Sleepy Hollow TV series, the main character, Abbie, is caught in limbo/the otherworld and tempted to eat something that will ensure she stays there forever.

The ideas of crossing, threshold, otherworld, and multiple realities are all present at Samhain.

Life, Death, and the Unbroken Circle

The thinning veil at Samhain allows ancestors to reappear in this world, thus Halloween's association with hauntings and ghosts.

One lesser-known Celtic custom is the Dumb Supper, in which a place is laid with the favorite foods of a deceased ancestor, everyone wears a mask, and the meal is eaten in complete silence.

Making Shrines for Samhain and All Soul's

Old books, boxes, file folders, etc., make sturdy structures to create a shrine.

Your shrine can honor ancestors, both recent and ancient.

In this shrine, I commemorate the mystical aspects of the Christian tradition through the use of two little-known mystical paintings honoring my spiritual ancestors, a photo of my mom to remember and honor her, a JourneyCircles™ card honoring my ancient ancestral lineage mostly unknown to my conscious awareness but very deeply known in other ways, coyote, and fox skulls and deer antler to honor my non-human kin, a corn doll to honor my plant-world kin.

This kind of embodied remembering can be a powerful part of your Samhain practice, a potent way to honor the ancestors and close out the wheel of the year.

Marking and Mapping with Shrines

Creating personal shrines is a way to expand how you are working with your stories. You may set up a shrine as a remembrance or a way to honor a person or event in your life. This may be a celebration or a way to work with grief and loss.

As a living practice, you can also tell or retell a story through a series of shrines. Set up small shrines to tell each part of the story over several days or weeks. This allows you to combine your art, photos, objects, food, candles, natural elements like flowers, branches, stones, and anything else that helps tell the story. Consider fabrics, clothes, personal items like jewelry, and even perfume. Scent is one of the most potent memory triggers we know of.

Your shrines can contain any type of symbolic element you want to include.

Shrines are not just for remembering and marking the past. Consider creating a shrine or a succession of shrines that map out a new story of who you are becoming and where you want to go.

You may also consider creating a shrine to honor all you have become through the light half of the year and the growing seasons. This can be a way to mark the threshold for the darker half of the year with a ceremony.

Art Invitation: Time Travel

Working with ancestral stories, whether recent or ancient, allows you to time travel.

You can do healing work on behalf of ancestors or work around healing destructive family patterns that go back generations. Set your intention to heal this pattern and clear the energetic space for a new, healthier pattern to emerge.

You can use copies of recent family photos to retell your stories or older ones to work with generational healing.

Intuitive collages created on large cake rounds or in your art journal make a perfect container for this type of work. They will help you tell potent, painful, or complex stories in a non-linear way. Working with a story's energies, ripple effect, and twisting roots and branches is very different from retelling a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. Working in a non-linear way allows you to tell parallel truths and enter into multiple perspectives simultaneously.

Parts Work - Remembering and Honoring Your Inner Child

Halloween has an interesting way of bringing us back to our childhoods and child parts of ourselves while stirring up some of our more basic and long-held fears.

A few years ago, I was doing some child archetype work and revisited Halloween 1964.

If this time of year finds you reminiscing, filled with nostalgia, or even confronting old fears or childhood wounds, our pop culture Halloween imagery may be a way in for you.

Working with Halloween imagery may also be a fun and playful way to enter the season. You may also find Trickster energy or the ability to shapeshift through costumes or masks intriguing.

Follow what calls to you, and don't fear Halloween's more playful aspects.

The Opportunities of Darkness

Samhain invites you to travel inner roads to darker places in your soul. When broken places emerge and dark emotions surface, look for ways to heal and become whole. The onset of winter brings with it challenges to mood and emotional states.

But darkness also offers comfort, a place to rest and hide while the winter storms rage around you. Kindle the fires of hope at Samhain. Healing is possible; you don’t need to be haunted by the past forever. A renewal of childlike wonder and playfulness can emerge in the dark of winter, called forth by the promise of spring.

During the season of Samhain, October 31st until the Midwinter festival of Yule on the winter solstice, when the light returns, look for guides and helpers to point the way as you navigate the darkness.

Divination is Best Done in Darkness

Tarot is an excellent way to engage with symbolic content that can lend guidance, give insight, and stir wisdom from your unconscious and the spirit realms.

Use any Tarot or oracle deck to delve into the messages this season has for you.

An All Soul’s Visual Meditation

Samhain is the season that calls on us to remember those who have come before, loosen our grip, and release all that must be set free.

With music and captions but no spoken word, this visual meditation allows you to remember and release silently and with great reverence.

I offer you great blessings for the season and the peace that comes when we embrace the lessons of this potent season.