Samhain — FWM Wheel of the Year Open Ritual
Details
The Wheel of the Year is the cycle of eight seasonal festivals kept across the Western Mystery Traditions — eight turnings of the year that echo the seasonal rites of our ancestors.
This turning of the Wheel is SAMHAIN.
Samhain is the old new year and the last of the three harvests — the one that gathers in not grain or fruit but the dead. The green year is finished. What was going to be brought in has been brought in, the herds have come down from the hills, and the long dark begins.
It is the night on which the distance between the living and the dead is at its narrowest. Across Europe the customs agree remarkably well: a place laid at the table for those who will not come to it, lanterns cut and set out, masks worn, and food and drink left where the dead can find them. None of it is morbid. It is closer to hospitality — an evening on which the people we have lost are welcome, and are named out loud.
Our Samhain rite is a rite of that narrowing: the dead remembered and named, the year formally ended, and the beginning of something set down in the dark where it can wait. It is the most serious evening of the Wheel and, for many people, the most moving. If you have lost someone this year, this is the rite that has room for it.
TICKETS
€15 plus Eventbrite booking fee online in advance (non-refundable), or €20 cash at the door. No cards — the door is cash only.
Book online here
Please note this rite falls on a SATURDAY rather than our usual Friday.
The event and the ritual will be held in English unless otherwise noted. We sometimes have other groups host rituals, and sometimes they work in other languages. If that is the case it will be noted here.
Doors open at 19:30. The ritual talk-through begins around 20:00 and the ritual follows shortly after. Ritual length varies, but the ritual itself should be over between 21:30 and 22:00. Afterwards there is time to stay and talk, so plan to stay longer if you are feeling social and you can — and of course leave whenever you wish. There is a bar on site.
Attire: Street clothes are perfectly fine, but if you can, try to come dressed as much as possible in a single colour — black and white are best. If you have ritual dress (robes and so on) and would like to wear it, please do.
You do not need to have done anything like this before. Everything is explained beforehand — what will happen, what it means, what your part is, and what to do if you would rather simply stand and watch. Newcomers are guided through the ritual as it unfolds, so there is no problem at all coming with no idea what to expect.
Beginners, experienced practitioners and the merely curious are equally welcome. The environment is friendly and unpressured.
The Fellowship of the Western Mysteries is a Vienna community for the Western Mystery Traditions — Wicca, Paganism, Druidry, Ásatrú, Hermeticism and related paths.