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The ancient harvest festival of Samhain traces back to Celtic origins; an annual celebration commemorating summer’s end. Samhain marks the mid-point between the autumn equinox (Mabon) and the winter solstice (Yule), acknowledging the seasonal change into wintered darkness through a celebration of end-of-year abundance, remembrance and release.
While traditionally marking the beginning of the Old Celtic New Year, Samhain has been adapted into the changing religious cultures of each passing century, appearing across faiths and spiritual belief systems beneath different names, including the Feast of the Dead, Old Hallowmass, the Vigil of Saman, as well as the modern celebration, Hallowe’en.
Christianity also threaded the ancient themes of Samhain into its autumnal celebrations, All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day. Meanwhile, in modern reformations of ancient nature-based practices such as Wicca, Samhain is regarded as a Greater Sabbat; one of the most important festivals of the Pagan calendar synonymous with the Witch’s New Year, an idea harvested from the Old Celtic belief.
As the last harvest festival of the year, Samhain encompassed a traditional, agricultural celebration of the work year’s end, symbolising the cascading of winter, the dismantling of light, and the resting of life until spring’s reawakening. To these ancient agricultural communities, Samhain was a fire festival, a final celebration of summer’s blessings before winter’s onslaught of cold. Attuned to nature’s rhythms, the Celts recognised the annual shift from the days of life and growth to the “dark half of the year” - a natural veil between light and dark which survives in Hallowe’en superstitions to this day.
While the underlying theme of ‘endings’ reverberated through the centuries, Samhain became a symbolic celebration of death, ancestry, past lives and other more morbid forms of transition. Tied to remembrance and reflection, the acceptance of endings and letting go of the past, Samhain also provided a time to honour those who had passed away before the year’s end by inviting them to celebratory feasts.
When the veil between light and dark was lifted on Samhain night, spirits of the deceased and the divine were believed to return to meander the Earth, intermixing with the living in either peace or disaster. With living and dead souls interwoven in the same dimension, Samhain is intrinsically linked to spiritual communication and the art of divination - foreseeing the future or understanding the past by tapping into otherworldly realms of knowledge, or by making contact with divine, spiritual beings such as angels, ghosts, ancestors, demons and deities.
The enhanced spiritual connection one feels on Samhain night is deep-rooted in our culture; we notice the introspective change of the declining seasons and the hallowing rush of cold in the lengthened hours of nightfall. These natural elements fortify our connection to the earth and possibilities of drastic change, guiding us towards a deeper understanding of ourselves, our world, what has occurred over the past year, and what is yet to come.
In this way, Samhain becomes an opportunity to let go of one’s past and the traumas of the year. This could manifest through making contact with the dead one final time on Hallowe’en night, before letting them go and ushering in the New Year of renewed opportunity.
As a season laced with endings, reflection and change, journalling emerges as a spellbinding way to attune with Samhain’s many sentiments and spiritual correspondences. We’ve created some Halloween inspired writing prompts to help you unravel your year and plan for the next, empowering your sense of equilibrium with the season’s themes of transition and release with the intention of renewal.
“Lessons I’ve learnt this year”
With reflection at the heart of Samhain’s season of endings, it’s natural to turn inwards, allocating time to understand the year which has passed for all its blessings and downfalls. Think about all which has transpired, the new people you’ve met, the opportunities you’ve been given, as well as your attitudes towards them.
What do you regret? And what have you learned during the year that’s passed? Understanding your past and coming to peace with its events, both good and bad, is the key to letting go and moving forwards.
“Now that the year has ended, which negative things should I let go of? Which positive aspects should I nurture instead?”
Samhain presents us with a chance to change and grow with the transitioning seasons. After recognising the lessons this year has taught you and what may have been holding you back in your progress, it’s time to clear out any residual, negative energy within you by writing down your burdens.
Once you’ve worked out which negative aspects of your lifestyle or attitude you could probably do without, balance out your journalling page by recognising the many positive aspects of yourself. You don’t have to make any drastic changes such as learning a new skill to nurture positivity in your life - simply recognise and nourish the positive elements that are already within you, letting them grow and fill the space left by the negative aspects you seek to remove.
This prompt encourages Samhain’s notions of both introspection and aspiration, looking to both the past and future in order to craft your best reality.
“Results of my Samhain divination practice”
As a time of increased spiritual connection and heightened psychic ability, divination becomes a natural practice on Samhain night. Try out a method of divination and write your results down on this page.
You don’t have to be an expert - first, think of a specific question or intention which relates to the year which has passed or the new Witch’s year you’re welcoming in.
Once your intention is set, draw a tarot card from the deck, or a rune from the pile, use a scrying mirror or any other form of divination which calls to you, before writing down your results and experiences. There are countless guides online which can help you interpret your results.
Remember, since all spirits are welcome to cross the veil on Hallowe’en night (both good and evil), you’ll need to purify and consecrate your divination space. A simple way to do this is by sprinkling salt water across your table with the intention of purification and casting away all evil, and passing incense around your divination space before starting the practice.
“What do I fear the most?”
The modern adaptation of Samhain into the Americanised ‘Hallowe’en’ places horror at the core of the celebration, uprooting the terror of the season from its original, symbolic ties to death, and literalising them into ghouls. But it nevertheless gives us a chance to recognise our own fears face-on, peering into the darkness and realising the obscure parts of our reality we’d rather keep covered up.
Samhain draws out the darkness from within us, encouraging us to release our worries, terrors and traumas into its open void. As the veil that usually separates us from these deeper, spiritual dimensions is parted, we can discover our true selves with ease whilst casting our burdens into the oblivion beyond.
“Recipe ideas for this year’s coming events”
As a harvest festival, Samhain is traditionally synonymous with feasting and sharing amongst the community and in honour of the dead. In this sense, Samhain is a perfect time to start planning for the coming year’s events and get-togethers, from birthdays and anniversaries to potential summer BBQs.
While it may seem early, the closing of the traditional agricultural work year with winter’s rise offers a time to organise our inner lives for the coming year, letting us sort out our recipes whilst discovering new ingredients and ideas to experiment with when the right season strikes. Use your mystical intuition bestowed by the spiritual connection of Samhain. You can even reminisce on foods loved by close relatives who have since passed on, dig out their recipes or find similar creations, and try making these favourite foods in their honour.
Samhain falls over the same autumnal period every year. This year, 2023, Samhain occurs on October 31, with the celebration ending on November 1.
There are countless ways to celebrate the ancient festival of Samhain. We’ve compiled a list of some of the best celebration techniques, narrowing down the some traditional options which still resonate profoundly with spiritual practitioners today.
Decorating Samhain is comparable to decorating for Halloween, though you may wish to switch some of the cliché sentiments of horror for more natural evocations of the season of death. Here are some traditional Samhain decoration tips to inspire your own home designs this autumn!
Of all the ancient Pagan festivals, Samhain stands out amongst modern practitioners for its obvious connections to the modern celebration of Hallowe’en. By removing the cliché, commercialised Americanisms of the holiday, we begin peeling back the layers, revealing the true meanings and symbolisms behind the seasonal practices that surround us. Like Hallowe’en itself, Samhain doesn’t require any particular religious belief in order to find harmony with its spiritual correspondences of change and reflection. Instead, with an open mind and protective measures in place, the spirits of the ether become ours to communicate with and honour the night the veil is lifted.