Kate Braun : Samhain Is a Time for Transformation

Time for transformation: Acorn Carved with Dremmel Tool. Image from Skull-A-Day.
Celebrating Samhain:
A time for transformation

By Kate Braun / The Rag Blog / October 31, 2012

“Under the moonlight we dance/ Spirits dance, we dance/ Holding hands we dance...”

Wednesday, October 31, 2012, is Halloween, aka Samhain, Third Harvest, All Hallows Eve. It marks a time for transformation and growth of the soul while in a spiritual hibernation between Samhain and Yule (Winter Solstice, when life begins to bloom again on Mother Earth).

This is the beginning of the agrarian year, a time of “being in the womb of the earth." We now have time to study, to reflect, to prepare land and soul for the next cycle that will begin at Yule. Honor the Crone (old, wise woman): she holds the tribal lore, stores the records of the clan. Now is the time to listen to the wisdom of the ancestors. Use this knowledge/lore to make plans for the coming year, not only for work, but also for your own spiritual growth and enrichment.

Samhain is also a time of great magick, when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. Do not be surprised if you sense contact with spirits that have crossed this veil or are in transition between the worlds. If you choose to enhance whatever possibilities of communication might be, there are many methods: you may scry, using either a black mirror or water placed in a dark-colored bowl or cauldron; or contemplate the flame of a single candle in an otherwise-unlit room; or create a dumb supper, to name just three.

Be sure to use the colors black and orange in your decorating scheme. You may also use red, brown, and/or golden yellow as accent colors.

If possible, celebrate outdoors and have a fire. Begin your outdoor activities by sweeping the area with a besom or straw broom. This symbolically cleanses the area, sweeping away the past and opening the door to the future. If you invite your guests to each bring a broom or besom, this could become a group activity that could be turned into a celebratory dance.

Lighting a new candle for the “new year” that is now in gestation is also something that could be incorporated into your activities.

Serve your guests a bountiful feast that may include pumpkins, apples, nuts, turnips, all gourds, squash, beets, corn, mulled wines, cider, beef, poultry, pork. Any crops not harvested by this date should be considered taboo and left in the ground, and it is also taboo to share leftovers at this festival. You may, however, bury apples along a road or path for spirits who are lost or who have no descendants to provide for them. Apples are food for the dead.

Decorate with pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, cornstalks, cauldrons, brooms and besoms, apples, root veggies, images of black cats. Throw any bones from your feast into the fire as an offering to the Gods/Goddesses for healthy and plentiful livestock in the coming year. Then, when the ashes are cool, spread them over your garden. This blesses the land as well as nourishes the soil.

Be aware that various Nature Sprites are out and about and are said to enjoy playing tricks on humans. In olden times people dressed in white or wore disguises to fool these entities; today we put on costumes just for the fun of it.

[Kate Braun's website is www.tarotbykatebraun.com. She can be reached at kate_braun2000@yahoo.com. Read more of Kate Braun's writing on The Rag Blog.]

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Kate Braun : Let the Spirits Dance at Samhain

Photo by Toby Ord / Book Jacket Blog.
Celebrating Samhain:
Let the spirits dance

By Kate Braun / The Rag Blog / October 26, 2011

Under the Full Moonlight We Dance/
Spirits dance we dance/
Joining hands we dance/
Joining souls rejoice.

Monday, October 31, 2011, with Lady Moon in her first quarter, we celebrate Samhain, Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, Third Harvest. Mondays are Moon-days, meaning that Lady Moon’s influence will be stronger than usual. Honor her with songs and dancing; let your feet feel the earth beneath them; raise your voice in songs of praise and exultation. Paying attention to dreams received this night could prove enlightening.

Decorate your surroundings and yourself using the colors orange, black, gold; invite your guests to do likewise. Let cornucopias spill across the table. Enjoy Mother Earth’s bounty one last time before the dark descends, moving us into the “time that is no time” when we, like Mother Earth, lie fallow as we await the coming of the next cycle of giving and receiving.

Samhain means “End of Summer." On the Wheel of Life calendar, it marks the end of the year and the beginning of Mother Earth’s rest and renewal for the coming year. All Hallow’s Eve is the night before All Soul’s Day, November 1, Dia de los Muertos in Hispanic tradition. It is not unusual to blend the celebrations, with sugar skulls sitting on the table in company with carved jack-o-lanterns and celebrants costumed as film favorites dancing with celebrants costumed as skeletons.

In a healthy contrast to the focus on sugary “treats," you may choose to create a “dumb supper” in honor of friends and relatives who have crossed over. Place lights in the windows to guide these spirits to you, prepare their favorite foods, set a place for them at your dinner table. Eat this supper in silence, paying close attention to whatever vibrations or spiritual signals may present themselves. If they choose, your invisible guests will find a way to communicate.

Apples are another important feature of this celebration. When we bury apples beside the roadside, we are leaving an offering to those spirits who are lost or who have no descendants to provide for them.

When we capture a bobbing apple in our teeth, that apple becomes a tool for divination: before the stroke of midnight, sit in front of a mirror in a room lit by only a candle or the moon, taking care that neither candlelight nor moonlight reflects in the mirror. Silently ask a question. Then cut the apple into nine pieces. With your back to the mirror, eat eight of the pieces, then throw the ninth over your left shoulder.

Turn your head to look over the same (left) shoulder, and you may see an image or symbol in the mirror that will answer your question.

[Kate Braun's website is www.tarotbykatebraun.com. She can be reached at kate_braun2000@yahoo.com. Read more of Kate Braun's writing on The Rag Blog.]

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Kate Braun : Samhain Begins 'The Time that Is no Time'

Samhain is the Third Harvest

And over the ashes the stories are told, of witches and werewolves and Rock Island gold...

By Kate Braun / The Rag Blog / October 20, 2010

Sunday, October 31, 2010 is Samhain (Halloween, Third Harvest, All Hallows Eve). This begins “the time that is no time," the dark of the year that lasts until Yule (the Winter Solstice), when once again Lord Sun emerges from his slumbers to warm and renew Mother Earth. Lady Moon is in her fourth quarter, in Leo, suggesting an emphasis on nurturing our histories, sharing our stories, using that knowledge to prepare for the coming year.

Array yourself and your surroundings using the colors black and orange. Red, brown, and golden yellow may be used as accent colors. Pumpkins, cornstalks, cauldrons, apples, black cats, and images of the waning moon are only some of the typical decorations for this celebration.

Since this is Third Harvest, your menu can be bountiful: beef, pork, poultry, apples, nuts, turnips, gourds of all kinds, mulled wine, and especially pumpkin. Pie is not the only way to serve this vegetable. Other pumpkin possibilities include: soup, sauteed, stuffed, and muffins. If you choose to use fresh, not canned, pumpkin, remember that toasted pumpkin seeds are also a tasty and nutritious food.

A favorite activity for this season is bobbing for apples. As with many of the Samhain traditions, this activity can be used for receiving insights from “the other side."

Set a large tub, preferably wooden, on the floor (with a waterproof tarp under it if you set it up indoors) and fill it with water. Add lots of apples and stir them with a long pole or wooden spoon to set them spinning. Participants kneel around the tub, and get 3 tries each to grasp an apple in their mouths as the apples swirl by.

If an apple is captured, s/he who caught it should, before the stroke of midnight, sit before a mirror in a room lit by only one candle while holding the apple and contemplate the apple while focusing inward and asking a question. The candle flame should not be reflected in the mirror.

The apple should then be cut into nine pieces and, while sitting facing away from the mirror, eat eight of the apple pieces, then throw the ninth over the left shoulder. Turning the head to look over the same (left) shoulder into the mirror can show in the mirror an image or symbol that will answer the question.

This is the season to tell and re-tell stories from your past. Encourage your guests to tell the tales they heard from their grandmothers. The past lays the foundation for the future; sharing this sort of lore keeps us in a never-ending loop of remembrance, preparation, and action that, ideally, avoids repeating mistakes.

[Kate Braun's website is www.tarotbykatebraun.com. She can be reached at kate_braun2000@yahoo.com.]

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