It's Samhain Season!

October has always been one of my favorite times of the year. The beauty of the leaves changing from the trees gathering all their nutrients for the winter. The smell of the crops being harvested. The way the morning dew hovers over the land rather than settling. And then come Samhain. The time of the year when the veil between the two worlds thins and spirits walk alongside us a bit closer than any other time of the year.

Throughout the next days and weeks leading up to Samhain, I will be doing a series about what is my favorite sabbat. Even before I knew it was a sabbat instead of just plain old Halloween.

We have had our decorations out for about two weeks now and a few indoor decorations as well. I'll be going to gather pumpkins and such here in a few days and we have our apples for the next weekend day that it is rainy and gloomy to do our simmer pot. I'll be cutting sage to create some wreaths for the kitchen windows since we want to make sure to deter any of those difficult souls who might think they can wander our way and play havoc around the house.

There are so many ways to celebrate Samhain and honor our ancestors. One of those ways is to not let the stories and origins of the sabbat get lost in modern times. Because of this, I will be partnering with one of my colleagues to offer an evening of history, storytelling, card readings, crafts and food on October 31st at Enchanting Garden in Marion, IN. If you are interested, head over to the Enchanting Garden page on Facebook and reserve your space now as we are limiting attendance to allow for everyone to have a good time.

Well, let's start this season with discussing where in the world Samhain originated. Anyone wants to take any guesses? The answer is The Republic of Ireland. This Gaelic festival was held on November 1 and was the end of the harvest season. It also marked the beginning of the dark half of the year. It was the halfway point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. Having Celtic pagan origins, some of the early symbology is found in Neolithic tombs.

Because it is considered a time to commune with the ancestors, a lot of the celebration rituals were directed to make those communications with the good ancestors and not so much the bad ones. it was also a time to commune with the aos si. In other words, commune with the faeries. And we all know that sometimes the faeries don't always have the best interest of humans in mind.

Next time...let's discuss how Samhain was celebrated in early days...