Ida Botha (idabotha82) wrote in the_spellbook, @ 2008-10-26 22:37:00 |
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Samhain - The Festival of the Dead.
Samhain - The Festival of the Dead.
Celebrated on the last day of October in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of May in the Southern, Samhain stands halfway between the Autumn Equinox Modron and Yule. It is sometimes seen as the beginning of Winter, but it is also the Festival of the Dead, when we remember and honour the ancestors. It is a magical time when the veil between the worlds of the dead and the living is thin, and in Wicca and Paganism we celebrate death as a part of life, and to give positive value in the idea of going into the dark.
Our Celtic ancestors Saw Samhain as a key point of the year's turning, a chance to begin anew. The eighth century scholarly monk Bede custom named November the "blood month", and he attributed this to the slaughter of beasts in preperation for winter provisions. With the surplus from Summer burned on a "balefire", our peace made with the dead and preperations made for the winter, our ancestors may well have seen this as a key departure point from the old cycle into the new. This is why Pagans today refer to the cycle as the Celtic New Year. Although Samhain is literally "first frost" and thus the first of the winter festivals, it also marks preperation for change.
This is the Season of the Hag Goddess, Associated with Nocturnal creatures such as the Owl. - Photo: "Sleepwalker feeding owls" By Basia A. On Deviantart.com
Celebrating the Crone Goddess
The Season associated with ghosts, spirits and the dead walking. It is the season of the Hag, or Calliach (Scots Gaelic meaning "old woman"), the Crone aspect of the Goddess who midwives us with great compassion, from life to death. She is Rhiannon, Goddess of transition. Cerridwen, Goddess of the cauldron and Hecate, weaver of wisdom and gaurdian of the crossroads.
The Crone Goddess is celebrated to some extent in the plastic masks and costumes that children wear at Hallowe'en.
Nowadays, Witches celebrate by holding a ritual in which we name, honour remember and speak with the dead. Beginning with those who have died in the last year, we move on to family and friends and then commemorate all our ancestors. Then, out of grief, we bring back joy and name the newborn babies of the last year, the new friends and oppurtunitied we have met. Samhain serves as a reminder that life contains death, but it also contains the mystery of rebirth and the movement of the cycle onwards.