Samhain
Samhain, the Celtic New Year, begins at this time. I tend to celebrate this rather than the more culturally popular Halloween, though like all celebrations that occur at similar times they have similar roots and often share a lot of the symbolism of the time. The Celts considered cycles to begin at dusk, and so it is that Samhain is the dusk of the year, as we make the transistion from Summer to Winter. Like Halloween, emphasis is on the energies of this time of year creating a threshold between our manifest world and the Otherworld, a place which has rules more like dreams than waking reality. As such, spirit communication is far easier, hence all the ghouls and ghosties that are about (be they in costume or otherwise). One main use of this time is for contacting one’s Ancestors, those that have been before, and in some traditions setting a place for them at the dinner table is customary.
Our roots are an important part of us, whether we realize it or not, and if we look at it metaphorically, we are unlikely to maintain any degree of stability without a strong root system. Without our ancestors, we would not be here. They survived, they gained wisdoms of their own, and some of that passed on the generations, through mother and daughter, father and son, until it reached your parents and then you. As times change wisdoms get lost, but they can be regained, and making contact with our ancestors is one way of doing that.
How you do this is up to you. Perhaps you would like to simply say a prayer to honour the fact that the people in your family history survived well enough to give birth to the next generation, making your life possible. Perhaps you’d like to learn more about your family tree through family records, hearing old stories from elder relatives, and weaving stories of your own from photographs and letters further back. Maybe you fancy getting in touch directly, through dreaming or trancework or seances. The important thing is to state your intent to work with and regain your connection to your ancestors, be they of your family line, or human line, or beyond, your spiritual family (Mother Earth, Father Sky, anyone?). From there, trust whatever process unfolds. Great power can come from this knowledge that your whole family line support you (even if they don’t always agree with you!).
This, like any other of the Celtic Festivals, is all about connection, and marking the changing seasons and the changing cycles. I am still surprised by the depth of connection I feel when I engage in these celebrations, just closing your eyes and feeling the change take place as life flows on can be a joyous and powerfully life-affirming affair. And if these special times can be that way, shaped by our own intention and focus, what would life be like if we brought that intention and purpose to every day, or every moment?
To know where you’re going you must know where you’ve been.
October 31st, 2006 at 9:40 pm
This is an interesting article, but I disagree. In particular, I don’t think that 31st October is the historical date of the Celtic bonfire festival of Samhain. I outline my argument here: http://safle.org/wordpress/2006/10/23/when-is-the-celtic-new-year-samhain-and-halloween.html.
Regards,
Stephen
November 1st, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Stephen: Thanks for your article, and you raise an intelligent point, one that I have often considered myself. Why assign an arbritrary date for a festival that pre-dates the calendar we use to assign it on? Your theories of it coinciding with lunar calendars is likely to be more accurate, leaving there to be a certain amount of ambiguity if we were to look at it from a calendar date point of view.
Still, I don’t believe I made any claim that these festivals were the same thing, nor even that it starts on the 31st October. I do tend to celebrate it around this time, give or take a few days if the feeling is right, but then I’ve not been at it for long. The themes are certainly similar, so it makes sense to me to make use of that collective focus and celebrate it at a similar time. If much of the globe are thinking about certain things, then that energy affects us all and can be used constructively. Nor can we neglect the fact that for most people the Roman calendar plays a more powerful and obvious part of our lives than the cycles that our ancestors were attuned to. In fact, you say it very well in your article: “That does not, however, mean that throughout history the date was always 31st October, but only that this has become the significant date in modern consciousness”. Indeed, that it is significant in modern consciousness brings a certain amount of energy to the time.
In truth, I celebrate this time in my own way, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to try to re-create how the ancestors celebrated it, purely because we live in a different world to what they did, and as this very discussion is proving, much of the history of our country has been lost.
It is likely that whatever I am speaking of is not the same that anyone else would be speaking of, so there is no real grounds for direct comparision. Christmas may be rooted in the Winter Equinox celebration, but Christmas is Christmas and the Winter Equinox is the Winter Equinox.