samhain

Samhain and Halloween In My Practice

/ Twist the Leaf / 2 Comments

Today’s post is brought to you by one of my Discord servers. Below are some discussion questions that were posted for a “witchy chat” that they had on their server. Although I couldn’t attend the chat, I thought I’d answer the questions here.

Samhain Questions

  • Is Samhain a holiday you celebrate or intend to celebrate?

Absolutely. Samhain is a holiday that my sister and I celebrate together each year.

  • What does Samhain mean to you?

Samhain is the time of year when the veil is at its thinnest between our realm and that of the spirit world. It is a time to acknowledge and honor our ancestors and those loved ones that have passed on. It is also the witch’s new year, and marks the end of the wheel of the year’s cycle. After Samhain, the world goes into dormancy for a time and will then begin to rouse once more following Yule in December. This makes Samhain a perfect time for letting go of the past and past habits.

  • What are your Samhain plans?

Each year my sister and I have a dumb supper to honor our ancestors and loved ones, followed by a ritual with much of the same theme. At the end of the ritual we include spellwork to assist in the letting go of things best left behind as we move forward and step into the energy of a new cycle on the other side.

  • Do you consider Samhain to be the start of a new year? Do you have any “New Year” traditions you enjoy on Samhain?

I think I pretty much covered this above. L has shifted her new year to Beltane in the spring, but she still also participates in my celebration of it during Samhain in the fall. So in essence, we’re celebrating two new years, each one distinct from the other. For the fall new year, we often will write out things we wish to leave behind on bay leaves and cast them into the fire to release their energy from our lives. This part of our ritual is something we include each year without fail.

  • Do you celebrate any other holidays around the same time as Samhain? What are they? How do you celebrate?

No. My previous holiday was Mabon in September, and my next will be Yule in December. That said, there are a lot of concepts of Samhain that are shared by other holidays in other cultures, a common theme and common thread of beliefs connecting these different holidays around the world.

  • What do you think of the way that October has become “the season of the witch”? Do you enjoy that witch-themed things become more mainstream for at least a little while?

I don’t mind it. I guess the commercialism of it all should bug me. But the thing is? It is a time of year that makes it easy to find certain supplies and decor that you just can’t seem to get your hands on any other time of year. It opens society to a more accepting (if commercialized) view, which in turn makes it less dangerous to be a witch in the first place. So, in accepting the good with the bad, I suppose a little “Season of the Witch” each year isn’t an entirely horrible thing.

  • Do you separate Samhain from Halloween and celebrate them distinctly from each other?

To me “Halloween” is about candy, parties, and trick or treating. It’s about costumes and fun and games. So yes. It is very much a separate thing from the solemn and respectful theme of Samhain.

I absolutely do celebrate both, sometimes with more leaning on one than the other… but always both.

Morning Bonus Read – Samhain Tarot Spread

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

Because I am trying to show a bit more of my decks this month, as I have a whole LOT of October/Halloween/Samhain decks, I’m doing a few extra bonus reads over the month.  This is one of those extra readings.

Samhain Tarot Spread - Trick or Treat Playing Cards

Life: What is my soul purpose in this life?
Eight of Diamonds

My soul’s purpose in this life is to learn and grow.  It’s about taking lessons learned in my past incarnations and honing my understanding of them, and of myself. This incarnation of my soul is about developing skills.  I don’t think this is so much about the “developing skills” of the earthly plane, though, but more about developing my skills of manifestation and perhaps skills involved with learning how to continue to move on no matter the hurdles trying to hold me back.

Death: How do I honor and learn from the dead and past?
Queen of Hearts

It is important to instill empathy and understanding into the honoring of the dead and the past.   We cannot know the nuances of what has created these past situations or caused those that have passed to do the things they did in life.  It is with understanding and empathy, that we can direct love to those situations and people no matter their mistakes or issues that you may not agree with.

Veil: What message does the other side have for me right now?
Four of Hearts

Don’t be a sour sack.  Right so…. the thing is?  I’ve had a few rough days this week.  There was the day that took 3x the time to do just about everything (including things as small as screwing a cap on a bottle).  Then the day where everything I touched ended up tipped over or upended (including my chili bowl ending up upended on the couch).   And lets not forget the day that damned near everything I touched ended up on the floor (including a pan full of boiling water and a good half of each deck of tarot cards I picked up).

It kind of begins really difficult to not become a sulky sourpuss after a streak like that… but I’m trying.

Trick: What distracts me from my soul purpose?
Jack of Diamonds atop Two of Clubs

Sometimes a slow pace is a good thing, but sometimes?  That same slow pace causes a lack of direction.  It’s like when you have a million thoughts in your head and you say “I’ll remember them and write them down later” instead of doing it right away.  Half the good ideas never get written down no matter how good your intentions.

It’s the same with my soul’s purpose.  Sometimes, when the pace is slow, I get drawn off and lose direction, then have to find my way back again.

Treat: How does my soul purpose give me joy?
Jack of Spades atop Four of Clubs

Part of that journey my soul is going through involves all those digressions that lead me astray along the way.  Part of my soul’s journey is learning to return to the path forward when I get distracted. And each time I return to my path after having gotten distracted it is like returning home once again, and the puzzle pieces fit back into place.  I can feel it happen when these times are upon me, and there is a great deal of pleasure and joy in those moments.

DECK USED:  TRICK OR TREAT PLAYING CARDS

Seasons and Holidays

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

This week’s question from the Pagan Perspective YouTube channel is about the holidays we choose to celebrate.

Untitled-1

Topic for the Week of 11/04:  “How did or do you decide what holidays to celebrate?”

Although in the wheel of the year there are eight holidays, I really only dependably celebrate two of them from year to year.  My family, as I was growing up, has always celebrated all eight.

In my case, the holidays mark seasonal transitions, and although I appreciate them and even enjoy spending time recognizing them through hiking and other activities in order to appreciate the transitions from one season to the next?   I don’t celebrate all eight holidays on a dependable year-to-year basis.

I guess, then, that I should first begin by defining “celebrate” since I did just mention that recognize each shift in seasons regardless of “celebrating them” in a traditional sense.

So, for the purpose of this post, celebrating means to include ritual and/or activities that are performed on a specific day or days surrounding the holiday in question.

The holidays that my family celebrates are Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Midsummer, Lammas, and Mabon.   Of these holidays, I dependably celebrate Samhain and Beltane every year without fail.   These are the two points in the year where the veil within liminal spaces is at its thinnest, and for me they are not just the most powerful days of the year, but also the most sacred.

So there you have it!  Although I consider the entire transition of season to season sacred and enjoyable, and appreciate them all in my own way.   As far as holidays go?  I really only go “all out” to celebrate just two of them.

Post Script Edit:    As you just pointed out to me, I also celebrate both Thanksgiving (US) and Christmas (in a far less religious way).

These two are celebrated for specific reasons.

Thanksgiving involves visiting my mother’s house, and is celebrated because it’s a holiday she loves.  A core part of her faith involves feeding others, and there is a lot of ritual and spellcraft that goes into the cooking on that day in her home.   Each year, my sister and I visit her because this day is so very important to her (and the food is so goddamn good doesn’t hurt either).

Christmas on the other hand, is not a religious holiday for me.  Instead it is something fun.  It’s a chance to give friends and loved ones gifts, show appreciation and gratitude, and get gifts from them in turn.  It’s a time for absolutely spectacular crooners music and amazing scents and sparkling lights.  I do decorate (alibi sparingly usually), and we do exchange gifts, but it’s more like the holiday is an excuse to do these things rather than a spiritual experience.

So you’re right.   Although they are not pagan holidays, nor spiritual in the sense of the other holidays that I sometimes incorporate into my year, they are absolutely holidays that I celebrate.

 

Spooktober Quiz Reply

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

So, this question is a few days old, but I liked it and think its a fun one, and so I decided I wanted to include it here as a post.

Spooktober Challenge Decor – Decorating is a must. I love Halloween decorations, so on October first, they come out and get put up. Some years are more involved than others, but you can always bet I have some decorations up on the first and often more will follow along the course of the month.

Candles – In the summer months, I have the windows open and I’m getting all the fresh air I can. Once it starts getting cold, though, I have to limit that, and I start using candles inside, usually charged with intentions (for example, I have the Bath and Body Works Leaves scented candle at my front door. I have added cedar tips to the candle and charged it with a protection spell for the entry and front door).

Incense – I change up my inscense from season to season. Usually it’s NagChampa mixed with something else. In the summer this year, I used Nag Champa and Frankincense. For Autumn I’m using Nag Champa mixed with the “Purification of Sage” incense that came in the September Witches Moon box.

Tarot – I pull out all of my Halloween themed (and spooky themed) decks and usually use some sort of monthly challenge to give me more time with my cards so that I get a chance to work with them all a bit.

Personal – I spend a LOT of time in liminal spaces during this time of year when the veil is thin. This means I do a lot of hiking (and meditating, and napping, and just overall spending time) in the deep woods and rainforests, in the space between sleep and awake, and in other places I feel the veil is at its thinnest. These places feel very welcoming and good to me, and I get energy and nurturing from them.

Family – Throughout the month, my sister and I work together to plan our Samhain ritual. This and Beltaine are the only rituals that we dependably do together every year.

Samhain – After the trick-or-treaters are gone and the partying (if either of us go to any) has come to an end, my sister and I get together to perform our Samhain ritual.

Nov 1 – We have a mum supper together to reflect on and respect our ancestors and those we have lost and spend time with their energies.

So there you have it!  All the different little celebrations I do in October to celebrate the season.  I’m sure there are a few more I’m forgetting to list, but I think I did pretty good at bringing it together for the most part.