Monthly Gathering

This month we will be learning about and honoring Samhain by carving Pumpkins! Please bring a pumpkin for carving and dress comfortably. A snack to share would be nice too :) If you have any pumpkin carving tools, designs, etc. please bring them. Blessed Be!

Samhain...

Samhain is the turning point of the year; it is the Celtic New Year’s Eve, sometimes refered to as the Feast of the Dead, Feast of Apples, or ancestor Night. When the new religion, Christianity, adopted this festival – as was done with so many of the old pagan celebrations – they aligned it with their own festival known as All Saints, All Souls, or All Hallows. The eve of it, which is when pagans and Witches would actually do their celebrating, was All Hallows Evening. This became shortened to Hallows Eve or Halloween. Witches call it Ancestor Night because this is the time – between the end of the old year and the start of the new – when it is felt that the veil between this world and the next is very thing and therefore it’s much easier to contact the spirits of your dead loved ones. Indeed, this was how the jack-o-lantern originated. When traveling to the Sabbat site, Witches would believe that the spirits of their dead traveled with them. To light their way, the Witches would carry lanterns, often made out of hollowed-out turnips or pumpkins with a candle inside. It was then only a short step to carving a face on such a lantern so that it could better represent the departed spirit traveling along.