Creating Ritual for Samhain
By Dryada
Samhain, also known as All Hallow’s Eve and “Halloween, has it’s roots in the ancient Fire Festival celebrated on or about October 31st or November 1st. In fact, Samhain is probably the most important fire festival, traditionally regarded as the end of the previous year and the beginning of the new. During this particular fire festival, legend says that all the hearth fires on Tara in Ireland were extinguished and relit from the Central fire of the Druids.1 Also pointing to it’s importance, the Celts and most other European farming societies divided the year into two halves. Winter was November first to April 30th, and summer was May first to October 31st. Not surprisingly, most sources agree that Samhain should be translated as “summer’s end.”
As the last harvest comes, the time of the Mother is gone, and the Goddess becomes the Crone. She has the wisdom and power of age, and can see through the veil between the worlds. Crone goddesses include Hecate for the Greeks, the Morrigan from the Irish, and Kali, the crone aspect of the Hindu Maha Devi (great goddess). You can find many more, from many different cultures.
Though Halloween, the “popular” version of Samhain, has been turned into a commercial affair, there are many pagan traditions which popular Halloween celebrations emulate. Bobbing for apples, dressing up as something else to go “trick or treat” and carving pumpkins all have pre-Christian origins. Orange and red, the traditional fire colors and black, which pagans usually use to signify spirit, are also found in abundance in the public Halloween celebration.
Given all this background, when we celebrate Samhain, we have rich resources from which to draw. We can dress the day in familiar colors, and add jack-o-lanterns, apples and costumes. Then we need a ritual focus. As we look forward to a colder time, when we will be spending more time indoors, we need to look back. And we need to prepare for a season of contemplation, where we get ready for what we will do next. This cross-quarter celebration is a true crossroads. The opportunity for work that cannot be done at other times should not be passed up.
One of the possibilities is contacting our dead. Many pagan groups have at their Samhain celebrations an altar for pictures and mementos of ancestors, family members and friends who have gone. You can also do this at home, creating a corner with perhaps a picture, a poem, and a candle, or other reminders of your loved one who has passed on. You can also incorporate a dumb feast, where a place setting is created and you offer the person’s favorite meal.
Probably the most popular and most traditional Samhain ritual piece is divination. Many groups use a dark mirror or crystal ball so that participants can see their visions. You can also use a tarot deck or other divination tools, though with an open circle I would recommend you offer interpretations to the participants.
Yet another excellent choice is to take participants on a vision quest, to seek a guide or to seek contact with someone who has died. Since the boundary between this world and the next, as well as other planes of existence, is so thin at this time, it is also a good time for astral journeys of a less directed nature. What you do as you create ritual for Samhain should reflect your needs or the needs of your group.
Because we are standing at the crossroads between the end of the year and the beginning of the new this is also an excellent time for raising energy for major change, either inward directed to participants or outwardly directed towards the world. In fact, in modern paganism, Samhain and other festivals have been occasions where some groups have called for rituals for change. If you decide you would like to create a public Samhain ritual for a public purpose even as generic as world peace, do make sure you announce your intentions beforehand. Planting an idea for change at Samhain should start to bring forth results at Beltaine, so whether your ritual is personal or global, make it an important change. The power of the Crone is with you, showing you how. Welcome change into your life at the New Year.
1 Rowan Moonstone, “The Origins of Halloween.” 1989 The Internet Book of Shadows at Sacred Texts Online http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos009.htm (3 Sept. 2007.)