Spiritual Wellbeing - Witch’s New Year! Our Native Festival of the Dead - Samhain
Spiritual Wellbeing - Witch’s New Year! Our Native Festival of the Dead - Samhain
Reawakening Consciousness
Also known as Halloween, All Hallows, All Saints or Hallow-Eve! For witches, it’s witch’s New Year and our native Festival of the Dead and this blog will explain to you why. This blog is a return to you of some of our lost ancient history and culture, reawakening the connection between your spirit and the natural world, whilst proving witchcraft is an ancient Goddess religion and not a load of hocus pocus. It is time to reclaim the natural order of your World for your own Spiritual Wellbeing.
Commercialised Horror
Thanks to the supermarkets, most people, including my own kids despite my best efforts to educate, think Halloween is dressing up and raiding the neighbours for e-numbers. Too many people think Halloween is an American concept?!
I'm regularly offended that Christmas is given a bigger billing than Halloween, when the latter clearly precedes the former; where's the BBC help line for that?
However, it is hardly surprising given that Halloween, aka Samhain, is the only Pagan religious holiday that the Church never managed to pre-empt and turn to its own use. It’s not in their best interest for us to retain a direct connection with the spiritual world and not fear death. For if we don’t fear death, then we are no longer easy to control, take a few moments to sit with your own feelings around death. Do you fear it? If so, imagine if you didn’t…
Final 3rd Harvest of the Souls Festival
Samhain is in fact the final and third harvest, the harvest of the Souls. At this time in the year, because of the quality of the departing light, general moisture in the air and longer nights, the veil between the worlds is much thinner. This means it is easier to connect with loved ones that have passed from their human lives and now reside spirit side.
Spirits find it easier to manifest at twilight when the light contains more shadows, this time of year with it’s longer twilights gives them more time to manifest, which takes a lot of experience and practice on their parts. Water moisture helps them show up literally, it gives form to shadow, which is why ancient spiritual sights are based near water. It’s far more practical than you’ve probably imagined.
We call it the Harvest of the Souls, because we are celebrating the final collection of food from the fields and inviting our ancestors and spiritual guides to join us to thank them for looking out and protecting us throughout the year.
Spiral Cycle of Human Life
As we all know, possibly just thanks to de la Soul in some cases, 3 is the magic number. Birth, Life, Death. Past, Present, Future.Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow and so on. This truism is represented all over the world in all forms to give us this wisdom in every possible way.
Witches have Maiden, Mother and Crone, associated with the three phases of woman's life, the three phases of the moon (waxing, full, waning) and the annual cycles of Mother Nature, for this is a Goddess Religion.
The Maiden phase of the year is Spring, the Mother is Summer and the Crone is Autumn and Death rules Winter.
We call Mother Nature a Crone at this point of the year, because harvest is over, leaves are falling to the ground as the trees pull back their sugars in preparation for Winter, life is in retreat.
Autumn’s Crone Season
Autumn is the season of the Crone, which once upon a 'pre-Christian' time was the word for an elder priestess or tribal matriarch and not a nasty insult. Time to reclaim this title as a force for good. I say any post menopausal woman has the right to call herself a Crone, should she feel the power in this, recognising the stripes she’s earned through the wisdom she’s gained from living!
The 'Christians' did the same with the Greek Hagia, Hag - holy woman, similarly converting it into a derogatory term for a witch. All in their spirit of enforcing and defending their regime, of course!
These wise women and elders knew all about herbs and healing naturally, something the Christians found very threatening. It was in the Church’s interests to have followers believe they were the only ones that could heal a body; health has always been emotive. Therefore we were demonised, turned into scary, ugly creatures to be feared and spurned.
The reason why witches are generally portrayed as old women is because it takes a lifetime to amass the amount of knowledge they possessed to train, heal and understand the human experience.
For witches there is honour in age, Samhain honours old age as the advent of wisdom and peace. Our Crone is an underworld deity who cares for the dead, she rules the Autumnal Harvest Festivals.
Witch’s New Year
Samhain is the final celebration of the mystery of death as an important part of the journey of life, before we descend into our personal shadow journeys to contemplate how we we did with this years harvests now our fields are cleared and fallow on all levels.
Witches like to rest at the beginning of the year, cogitate over what experiences we’ve had, what we’ve grown, produced and lost, what teachers life has put in our paths. This period of rest is imperative to mental wellbeing, it is a personal journey into all that is your shadow and the Reed and Elder Moons conspire to support this descent and recovery.
This is the opposite of what’s encouraged at this point in the year, this is why so many people get ill at Winter Solstice/Christmas!
History of Pumpkin Carving - Death Head Feast
The Celts placed the actual skull of an ancestor upon the table receiving the harvest offerings, complete with candle inside, to simulate the warmth of life and light of vision; known as the "death's-head at the feast".
Personally, I would love to honour this tradition with an ancestor's skull but given how squeamish we've all become about death it will be a challenge manifesting this without being arrested or offending Auntie Doris.....er Dad can I have your skull when you pass? (Sadly, I didn't get it)
This rite morphed into the jack-o-lanterns aka the pumpkins we now carve. Next time you're carving, spare a thought for all your ancestors! To further separate us from this crafting, supermarkets now sell plastic ones so you don't even need to get your hands dirty in the pleasure of carving one?! I recommend buying a large squash you can actually make something tasty from the contents with, rather than these commercially produced tasteless ones that aren’t good for the natural world - they kill hedgehogs!
Sweet Remembrance - Ancestral Gifts
The giving of sweets to kids is also steeped in history and now similarly abused beyond the point of recognition, the true meaning lost until now! The purpose was to make this feast memorable to children, the sweets are a gift from the spiritual ancestors to the children and a message back to our spiritual ancestral guests that they are still needed to assist in providing food for the tribe. Just because perhaps you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there and you definitely still need their protection whether you acknowledge that or not!
The Ancient Art of Shapeshifting
Wearing costumes, which started out as masks, is something that's been done since time immemorial by all manner of different spiritual religions. Masks and costumes are used in sacred drama and ceremony to represent the presence of deity and enable people to channel and embody the spirits.
The animal-headed deities of ancient Egypt began as priests and priestesses wearing totemic animal masks. The wolf and bear clans of northern Europe wore masks of the appropriate animals for religious rites and considered themselves inwardly possessed by their sacred beasts.
Such traditions gave rise not only to common surnames like Wolf and Baer, but also to legends of werewolves ("man-wolves") and berserkers (warriors who became possessed by battle-frenzy when wearing the "bear sark" or bearskin).
Because of this, during the 12th and 13th Century witch hunting mania, driven by the contorted, toxic fear of Christians, witches were charged with being dangerous shapeshifters, able to transform into anima in the dark hours?!
I wear my crown, hooded tunic and cape to help me to step beyond the confines of my own ego and channel Artemis with ease. It’s is highly pleasurable and I recommend you surrender to the desire to engage in this to assist your spiritual practice.
Black Cats
Witch have long been associated with black cats, knows as their 'familiars'. Which is incredibly sad given the beauty and magic black cats have and hold. Black cats have their provenance in the Egyptian Goddess Bast/Bastet.
She was the deity responsible for all matters relating to the home, domesticity, women's secrets, cats, fertility, and childbirth. She protected the home from evil spirits and disease, especially diseases associated with women and children; Not really evil but rather useful.
Cats were also incredibly useful for keeping the home clear of rats and other unhelpful vermin carrying disease and destroying food sources. Their independent natures mean they are an easy pet to own, more of a companion and hard to control, which again has a fear based connotation.
Cauldrons, the Sacred Cup of Life or Holy Grail
Cauldrons, similarly have a figurative meaning, not some scary vessel for creating haunting potions.Thanks Macbeth! In short they are a vessel for alchemy, you put in one thing and it comes out as another whether that be uncooked food or a spell you wish to release to the universe.
The cauldron represents the Goddess, the Sacred Divine, a vessel for transformation, healing, and abundance. In our bodies, this is our Sacral Chakra, our womb space. Here we create the alchemy of life, create sacred blood, absorb the energy of others and transmute it into other. Our womb space is the centre of our creation on all levels in both sexes and hence regarded as the Holy Grail by some, like me!
The Church uses Communion Cups for the same representation.
This History of the Witches Broom
The broom has a very interesting history, now we use these 'besoms' to simply clear negative energy to make a safe circle. They’re often made of birch, which is an incredibly cleansing wood, read about that in my blog on the Celtic Tree Moons.
As well as being symbolic of the Tree of Life, a representation of the male (the shaft) and the female (the twigs), witches used them during the witch trials to hide their wands and potions.
They were also used to dispense hallucinogenic potions, known as 'Witches Brews', to stop the apothecary/wise woman/witch from getting high themselves. The 'Witches brews' gave users the sensation that they were flying, which in a sense they were through just not physically, hence the association of witches flying on broomsticks.
Ways to Celebrate Samhain/Witch’s New Year
This has been a hard blog to write because there is so much to say and share, congratulations if you got to the end. I hope I've restored some appreciation of the magic of this Season and given some depth to the feast that is Samhain/Halloween. My parting point is...
The Crone reminds us that religion-induced fear of death wastes our powers, while an honest acknowledgement that life must end may be the best incentive to true enjoyment of being alive.
Think about arranging a family supper/dinner/feast for those that are living and those beyond the veil. Recount the ways they made your life better or the lessons they gave you through the trauma they inflicted, all is relevant.
Go for a solitary walk at twilight, speak too or simply acknowledge your departed loved ones and spirit guides.
Prepare for your shadow journey, clear your diary, give yourself down time to rest, consider and recover.
If you would like more guidance, I run Spiritual Circles, offer Spiritual Counselling and teach Witchcraft. Book yourself a FREE 15 Minute Consultation to discuss which option is best for you.
Essential Oil Guidance
For this, I refer you to my blog on Oils for Spiritual Protection.