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As Samhain is getting close, I gave a lot of thought about how will I celebrate the Celtic New Year. Since my knowledge in pagan or wiccan traditions is scarce, I searched for helpful ideas and I found this beautiful and simple way how to celebrate Samhain. But first I wanna say something about Samhain itself.
October 31st, or November Eve, which is also called Samhain, is the cusp of the liturgical year for Wiccans and Pagans who choose to follow the Wiccan liturgical year. It marks the time when the old religious year passes, and the new religious year begins.
Like other such "Year's end" holidays, in other faiths, it is a good time to reevaluate how far we've come in our personal goals and how far we have to go.
New Wiccans, who've just started in the religion, even ones who will begin on October 31st, often want to do some activities that make them feel connected to the day. This list contains some ideas that newcomers to Wicca, and even old hands, can try with little or no background information.
#1. Honor the dead of the year. Pick people you know of who passed on this past year, and even those who you didn't know but who you felt affected by, and light a stick of incense for each one. Say their name, then light the incense, then say "May you pass freely from this world into the next, and find happiness." Then stick the incense in a pot of dirt or other holder. This should be done outside. You could also light tea candles in their names, etc, but the idea is to have a votive sacrifice, something of at least small value you consume in their honor, so don't reuse the candles.
#2. Make a list of things you have done wrong in the year, and how they can be rectified. Those things that you can make amends for either make amends for (For example, if you broke a window, fix it or pay for it to be fixed.) Those things you cannot fix, find a way that you might still make it better or right. Maybe you need to tell someone you're sorry?
#3. Write a list of all the people who have influenced you, either in your life or just this past year, and why they have influenced you. What people should you cultivate in your life (people you should get closer to) and what people are bringing you down (people you should reduce contact with.) How can you improve your influences over the next year?
#4. Come up with three goals for the next 12 months- a hard one, a not-that-hard one, and a fairly easy one. Break the goals down into three sections-what you will do immediately to further them, when you will be half-way there, and what you'll want to be like just before you're finished. Revisit the goals you made last year, if any.
#5. Let "The Dead" become untrapped from your property. Open your front door and your back door simultaneously (You may have to lock pets in another room.) Say "Let those who need pass this space pass freely." After a few minutes, close the doors.
#6. Give something that is not good for you up. Write it on a piece of paper and burn, bury or tear the paper into shreds.
#7. Put on a costume and wander around, with your cell phone handy, and 'police' your neighborhood for injured kids, crime, etc. Become a force for good on a night that some ignorant people will use for pranks and vandalism.
#8. Call up a relative you have not spoken to in a long time and say hi. Relatives become ancestors faster than you realize.
#9. Visit a grave of a lost one and tell them what you need to tell them to move on with your life.
#10. Dedicate yourself to your future, and the future of our people and our planet. Make plans, set goals, and take steps.
All of the above tasks require no special rituals or training, and represent very real things Wiccans do on this holy night. Each can help you "get the meaning" of the holiday, even if it's your first one as a Wiccan.
This is borrowed from www.labgrrl.com/2009/10/activities-for-new-wiccans-who-are.html
Samhain marks one of the two great doorways of the Celtic year, for the Celts divided the year into two seasons: the light and the dark, at Beltane on May 1st and Samhain on November 1st. Some believe that Samhain was the more important festival, marking the beginning of a whole new cycle, just as the Celtic day began at night. For it was understood that in dark silence comes whisperings of new beginnings, the stirring of the seed below the ground. Whereas Beltane welcomes in the summer with joyous celebrations at dawn, the most magically potent time of this festival is November Eve, the night of October 31st, known today of course, as Halloween.
Samhain (Scots Gaelic: Samhuinn) literally means “summer's end.” In Scotland and Ireland, Halloween is known as O�che Shamhna, while in Wales it is Nos Calan Gaeaf, the eve of the winter's calend, or first. With the rise of Christianity, Samhain was changed to Hallowmas, or All Saints' Day, to commemorate the souls of the blessed dead who had been canonized that year, so the night before became popularly known as Halloween, All Hallows Eve, or Hollantide. November 2nd became All Souls Day, when prayers were to be offered to the souls of all who the departed and those who were waiting in Purgatory for entry into Heaven. Throughout the centuries, pagan and Christian beliefs intertwine in a gallimaufry of celebrations from Oct 31st through November 5th, all of which appear both to challenge the ascendancy of the dark and to revel in its mystery.
In the country year, Samhain marked the first day of winter, when the herders led the cattle and sheep down from their summer hillside pastures to the shelter of stable and byre. The hay that would feed them during the winter must be stored in sturdy thatched ricks, tied down securely against storms. Those destined for the table were slaughtered, after being ritually devoted to the gods in pagan times. All the harvest must be gathered in -- barley, oats, wheat, turnips, and apples -- for come November, the faeries would blast every growing plant with their breath, blighting any nuts and berries remaining on the hedgerows. Peat and wood for winter fires were stacked high by the hearth. It was a joyous time of family reunion, when all members of the household worked together baking, salting meat, and making preserves for the winter feasts to come. The endless horizons of summer gave way to a warm, dim and often smoky room; the symphony of summer sounds was replaced by a counterpoint of voices, young and old, human and animal.
In early Ireland, people gathered at the ritual centers of the tribes, for Samhain was the principal calendar feast of the year. The greatest assembly was the 'Feast of Tara,' focusing on the royal seat of the High King as the heart of the sacred land, the point of conception for the new year. In every household throughout the country, hearth-fires were extinguished. All waited for the Druids to light the new fire of the year -- not at Tara, but at Tlachtga, a hill twelve miles to the north-west. It marked the burial-place of Tlachtga, daughter of the great druid Mogh Ruith, who may once have been a goddess in her own right in a former age.
At at all the turning points of the Celtic year, the gods drew near to Earth at Samhain, so many sacrifices and gifts were offered up in thanksgiving for the harvest. Personal prayers in the form of objects symbolizing the wishes of supplicants or ailments to be healed were cast into the fire, and at the end of the ceremonies, brands were lit from the great fire of Tara to re-kindle all the home fires of the tribe, as at Beltane. As they received the flame that marked this time of beginnings, people surely felt a sense of the kindling of new dreams, projects and hopes for the year to come.
The Samhain fires continued to blaze down the centuries. In the 1860s the Halloween bonfires were still so popular in Scotland that one traveler reported seeing thirty fires lighting up the hillsides all on one night, each surrounded by rings of dancing figures, a practice which continued up to the first World War. Young people and servants lit brands from the fire and ran around the fields and hedges of house and farm, while community leaders surrounded parish boundaries with a magic circle of light. Afterwards, ashes from the fires were sprinkled over the fields to protect them during the winter months -- and of course, they also improved the soil. The bonfire provided an island of light within the oncoming tide of winter darkness, keeping away cold, discomfort, and evil spirits long before electricity illumined our nights. When the last flame sank down, it was time to run as fast as you could for home, raising the cry, “The black sow without a tail take the hindmost!”
A simple way to celebrate Samhain
( By Labgrrl )October 31st, or November Eve, which is also called Samhain, is the cusp of the liturgical year for Wiccans and Pagans who choose to follow the Wiccan liturgical year. It marks the time when the old religious year passes, and the new religious year begins.
Like other such "Year's end" holidays, in other faiths, it is a good time to reevaluate how far we've come in our personal goals and how far we have to go.
New Wiccans, who've just started in the religion, even ones who will begin on October 31st, often want to do some activities that make them feel connected to the day. This list contains some ideas that newcomers to Wicca, and even old hands, can try with little or no background information.
#1. Honor the dead of the year. Pick people you know of who passed on this past year, and even those who you didn't know but who you felt affected by, and light a stick of incense for each one. Say their name, then light the incense, then say "May you pass freely from this world into the next, and find happiness." Then stick the incense in a pot of dirt or other holder. This should be done outside. You could also light tea candles in their names, etc, but the idea is to have a votive sacrifice, something of at least small value you consume in their honor, so don't reuse the candles.
#2. Make a list of things you have done wrong in the year, and how they can be rectified. Those things that you can make amends for either make amends for (For example, if you broke a window, fix it or pay for it to be fixed.) Those things you cannot fix, find a way that you might still make it better or right. Maybe you need to tell someone you're sorry?
#3. Write a list of all the people who have influenced you, either in your life or just this past year, and why they have influenced you. What people should you cultivate in your life (people you should get closer to) and what people are bringing you down (people you should reduce contact with.) How can you improve your influences over the next year?
#4. Come up with three goals for the next 12 months- a hard one, a not-that-hard one, and a fairly easy one. Break the goals down into three sections-what you will do immediately to further them, when you will be half-way there, and what you'll want to be like just before you're finished. Revisit the goals you made last year, if any.
#5. Let "The Dead" become untrapped from your property. Open your front door and your back door simultaneously (You may have to lock pets in another room.) Say "Let those who need pass this space pass freely." After a few minutes, close the doors.
#6. Give something that is not good for you up. Write it on a piece of paper and burn, bury or tear the paper into shreds.
#7. Put on a costume and wander around, with your cell phone handy, and 'police' your neighborhood for injured kids, crime, etc. Become a force for good on a night that some ignorant people will use for pranks and vandalism.
#8. Call up a relative you have not spoken to in a long time and say hi. Relatives become ancestors faster than you realize.
#9. Visit a grave of a lost one and tell them what you need to tell them to move on with your life.
#10. Dedicate yourself to your future, and the future of our people and our planet. Make plans, set goals, and take steps.
All of the above tasks require no special rituals or training, and represent very real things Wiccans do on this holy night. Each can help you "get the meaning" of the holiday, even if it's your first one as a Wiccan.
This is borrowed from www.labgrrl.com/2009/10/activities-for-new-wiccans-who-are.html
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