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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in all hallows eve

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Happy Celtic New Year!

Halloween stems from the grand tradition of the Celtic New Year. What started as a folk festival celebrated by small groups in rural areas has come to be the second largest holiday of today. There are multitudinous reasons including modern marketing but I think it satisfies a basic human need, to let your “wild side” out, to be free and more connected with the ancient ways.  This is the time when the veil between worlds is thinnest and you can commune with the other side, with elders and the spirit world. It is important to honor the ancestors during this major sabbat and acknowledge what transpired in the passing year as well as set intentions for the coming year.

This is the ideal time to invite your circle; the ideal number for your “coven” is 13. Gather powdered incense, salt, a loaf of bread, goblets for wine, and three candles to represent the triple goddess for altar offerings.  Ideally on an outdoor stone altar, pour the powdered incense into a pentagram star shape. Let go of old sorrows, angers and anything not befitting of new beginnings in this New Year Bring only your best to this auspicious occasion.

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Sabbat of Samhain – October 31st All Hallow’s Eve

Halloween stems from the grand tradition of the Celtic New Year. What started as a folk festival celebrated by small groups in rural areas has come to be the second largest holiday of today. There are multitudinous reasonsincluding modern marketingbut I think it satisfies a basic human need, to let your “wild side” out, to be free and more connected with the ancient ways. This is the time when the veil between worlds is thinnest and you can commune with the other side, with elders and the spirit world. It is important to honor the ancestors during this major sabbat and acknowledge what transpired in the passing year as well as set intentions for the coming year.

 

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Happy Halloween! What Mask Are You Wearing?

Today is October 31.2021 and All Hallow's Eve/Halloween. This is the season for costumes, masks and becoming something other than yourself. In some cases that metamorphosis guides the individual towards a new way of being in the world and in others it is an opportunity to try on another persona. And, for others it is a way of stepping out of the everyday and into projecting a new image for a short period of time.

So, what mask are you wearing today? What is it that you wish to project into the world? What are you temporarily stepping away from to become some(one/thing) else? We have ll been through so much this year and a half+ and re-entering the world has been challenging for some and still not an option for others. And, so I ask what mask you have chosen as a way to give some deep consideration to how we wish to move forward. 

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Samhain

The witches' new year. Time when the fields lie empty and the year lies down. The gates of life swing open, the dead lean in. Our world's veil is at its thinnest; we peer through the lace to find that growing edge. We meet in Deep Time, everywhere and nowhere, to greet the triple goddess who is the circle of rebirth. Over one shoulder lean the ancestors; over the other, unborn future beings peer. 

Remember this: we are 4 billion years old. It's taken evolution all this time to produce us, and our action will express that genius. We're an unfinished animal, fighting metaphysical battles in the physical world; flesh and breath in confrontation with abstractions. This is the battle of the human epic. Modern stories of our powerful vision express a reclaimed, authentic future, a remedy. Exalt in the never-ending journey of change. Seed becomes fruit. Fruit becomes seed. The beloved dead surround us, calling us to use our lives while we can in the service of the bigger life. The unborn future crowds 'round, waiting. It's up to us. This chaos is a seedbed for the future. 

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Did Halloween—as Variety section writers would invariably have it—really originally mean 'Holy (or Hallowed) Evening'?

Short answer: no.

'Halloween' is an eroded form of 'All Hallow's Even'. ('Even' here = 'evening, eve.') 'Hallow' is a dialectal form of the Old English word that also became Modern English 'holy.' Anglo-Saxon hælig (pronounced, roughly, HAL-ee) was a fine old pagan word denoting something in a state of radical wholeness: a holy thing or person.

It's the latter usage that gave rise to 'Halloween.' After the Conversion, the word came to denote a 'saint,' a (Christian) holy person. So All Hallows' Eve originally meant 'All Saints' Eve,' the eve of the ecclesiastical feast of All Saints.

('Saint,' of course, was originally a French word from the Latin sanctus, both of which—like hallow in English—mean both 'holy' and 'saint.')

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Ecstatic Pumpkins

 

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A Time for Death and Darkness, but Also Revelry

It’s that time of year again! Samhain, also known by its Christian/English name Halloween, one of the most widely celebrated holidays in the world and a long time favorite of Pagans. Traditionally, Samhain has been regarded as the start of winter and a time when the veil between the worlds of life and death weakens. Morbid stuff, you’d think, but despite these dark themes Samhain has also been a time of great revelry and celebration. After all, who doesn’t love a good ghost story?

In honor of this most hallowed of seasons, we’ve collected all of our posts on Samhain and related themes for your easy perusing. We’ve also brought together links to other websites we thought you might found interesting. And with that, happy hauntings :D !

-Aryós Héngwis

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