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The character of autumn you experience will depend a lot on where you live. An autumn in New England is sharper, brighter, frostier and more resplendent with tree colours than the UK. In my corner of the world, damp, grey, misty conditions are common – although we do get other weather too. We may get frost, or a lot of rain, warm balmy days, or high winds, or combinations of any and all of these things.

Yesterday I walked over the hills, and found that the flood plain of the River Severn was full of mist. A great torrent of cloud had washed up the river valley, looking like a river in full spate, breaking against the hills in distinctive waves, ocean-like at times. Whole settlements vanished from sight beneath it, the hills across the river were entirely gone. The effect was uncanny, as though everything had been washed away. I do not have any images, and an image alone would not convey the effect, because without knowing what was hidden, the scene would lose much of its power.

It’s that time of the year again: Samhain, undoubtedly many Pagans’ favorite festival is here and the veil is thinning. Time to get out your candles, dust off your broomsticks, and make the appropriate offerings to your deceased ancestors. It’s also, of course, Halloween, which is easily one of the most popular holidays in Western culture and therefore also a time for merry trick or treating, costuming, and creepy stories about ghosts and monsters.

In our annual megapost for Samhain, we’ve got plenty of both, both from PaganSquare as well as some of our favorite places on the web. Browse through to your heart’s content (though feel no compulsion to read them all), though be forewarned some content isn’t for the faint of heart!

-Aryós Héngwis

H/T to our blogger WeMoon for the wonderful Samhain image!

Nine fruits and nine flavors to preserve my soul
in peace this day...

— Caitlín Matthews

I'm enjoying Joanna Powell Colbert's 30 Days of Harvest ecourse. This week, one of the photo prompts was about savoring autumn fruits. While thoughts of apples were also on my mind, I took the prompt metaphorically and went for  a walk with my baby to identify nine “flavors” of autumn in my own back yard.

Persimmon for patience,
raspberry for reflection,
dogwood for dreams,
rose for enchantment,
aster for starshine,
polk for color,
oak for mystery,
and cucumber for salad.

In the month of September I attended two Pagan Pride Days (I taught a workshop at one, met Selena Fox at another), attended an Equinox ritual, officiated a same-sex Pagan wedding, finally started my new career as a child and family therapist, and co-facilitated a ritual for World Goddess Day (to list just a few things).  In these past four, glorious weeks, it seems like my life has moved forward by leaps and bounds, but really, I feel like everything is spinning out of control.  Rather than celebrating, I find myself freaking out, closing myself off, and retreating.

Greetings, fellow Witches and Pagans, and welcome to our annual marking of the time when light turns to dark. Though Samhain gets more of the attention, Mabon’s an important festival as well, marking the final gasps of summer and the beginning of the long descent into winter. It also marks the midpoint of the traditional harvest season, which begins with Lughnasadh and ends with Samhain.

As we are wont to do, we’ve gathered all of our content about this special time of the year as well as content from elsewhere we thought you’d find interesting. We hope you enjoy and wish you a merry autumnal season!

-Aryós Héngwis

Supplies

• Items from nature for a collaborative nature mandala: leaves, stones, acorns, seeds, twigs, feathers, and other items from nature (mindfully collected and ideally found on ground). If a group ritual, ask each person to bring a quantity of something to add to the mandala. If it is a family ritual, go out together before moonrise to collect your items. Note: Depending on size, composition, energy, and patience of the group, you may wish to create the mandala together first before beginning the rest of the ritual and then gather around it for the rest of the ritual itself.
• Paper leaves (can be simply cut out ovals using scrap paper) or dry, fallen leaves + markers to write on them.
• Optional: drums, rattles, or bells
• Optional: a candles for each participant (place around outer edge of nature mandala)

Before the ritual: ask each person to respond to the prompt: “my bounty is” and collate the responses into a collaborative bounty poem. If you are working alone, respond to this prompt on your own and form a poem for yourself (example poem)